After the wild gay 1920s followed the 1930s with its simple elegance.
Because of the crisis of the stock exchange in 1929 everybody was uncertain and there was poverty everywhere. The people who could save their property did not show it in public. Parties and balls took place only in private houses.
In spite of that situation people took great care of their looks.
In the evening a lady wore long dresses. A good dress was made of silk.

Because of the newly discovered way of taking the thread diagonaly, the textile fell pliantly.
So the natural, slender figure was presented.
The princess line dominated.

Hollywood was a model for fashion so it was a taboo to see the cleavage and so the lady wore a neckline which was very big and striking but plain.
The main pleasure in the 1930s was dancing.
The skirts reached the calf. Shorter skirts were not proper. Poor women lengthened
their old dresses.
In architecture like in fashion geometrical figures were favoured. So in fashion triangles and wedges were used very often. Tapered trousers for skiing, wedge heels and since 1934 the first shoulder pads were seen. Also pleats were very much in fashion.
Fur was also very fashionable, in most cases the whole animal was worn. Best was of course a fur coat made of the white fox.
The accessories were gloves, pochettes, silk scarves, hats which were very striking ( for example made of upside down shoes) but also small and worn on the side and the newest sunglasses which were also worn in the freetime. The shoes had high heels or were plateau shoes.

In 1939 the fashion magazine Vogue presented for the first time trousers with pullovers for women. At the end of the 1930s fashion got uniform character.
Now fashion was dominated by perfection not by creativity.
Most important fashion designers in those years were Elsa Schiparelli, Salvatore Ferragamo (shoe design) and Charles James.

Words:
cleavage: Brustansatz
lengthened: make something longer
pleasure: feeling of being happy
pleats: a permanent fold in a piece of cloth
pliantly: falling lightly around the body
pochette: small bag for women
poverty: poor people live in poverty
property: things owened somebody
thread: Faden
uncertain: not sure

By Miriam Geurts

Sources

Buxbaum, Gerda: Mode! das 20. Jahrhundert. München: Prestel Verlag, 1998.
Seeling, Charlotte: Mode - das Jahrhundert der Designer. Köln: Könemann, 1999.

Timeline Fashion

Copyright 2000 Berufskolleg Humboldtstraße Köln