60s Teen Fashion 50s Teen Fashion

1950s Teenage Fashion – Fashion History 1950'south Teens

• Teenagers
• 1950s Teenage Consumers
• Teenage Fashion Idols
• Typical Belatedly 1950's Teenagers – Quondam Photos
• Teddy Boys or Neo-Edwardians
• Dudes
• Beatniks

The Growth of Teenagers as a Market Force in 1950's Society

Teenagers

Until 1950 the term teenagers had never before been coined.  Children were known as girls and boys were known as youths once they displayed signs of puberty. And then immature people were grown upward at xviii and fully adult legally at 21 when they oftentimes married and set up a home of their ain, even if it was a rented room.  Getting married was a style of showing the developed world that yous belonged to their world and was a fashion of escape from puberty.

1950'south Teenage Consumers

During the 1950s a range of influences including film, telly, magazines and the rock music scene created a new market grouping called teenagers.  Teens made themselves known.  A sudden flurry of consumer goods denied to war torn Europe were available and a consumer smash was actively encouraged.

These single immature people with cash from paid work presently had their own fashions, own music, own cafes, own milk bars and by the end of the decade even their own ship in the course of fuelled scooters. Teenagers suddenly dominated style in dress, haircuts and even travel abroad. A generation gap began to emerge between parents and teen offspring. It seemed almost unholy at the time and was viewed as rebellious, but compared to later on anti-fashion and anarchic movements it was all rather innocent.

Teenage Fashion Idols

American influence on European teenagers was huge. Rock and Roll idols including Elvis Presley, Bill Hayley, Jerry Lee Lewis and film stars James Dean and Marlon Brando set fashions near unwittingly. The main looks for teenagers were greasers and preppies.

Greasers followed the standard black leather and denim jeans look set by Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" (1953) and later on emulated in the 1978 motion-picture show called "Grease". They raced about town on motorbikes and were consider outrageous.

Preppie qualities were neatness, tidiness and preparation. Teen girls wore total dirndl or round skirts with large appliqués on their clothing. Great pleated skirts were also pop.   The pleated skirts were made from a and so new textile called TERYLENE (polyester) which helped maintain razor sharp sunray pleating.

The skirts were supported past bouffant paper nylon or net petticoats. On top, teens wore scoop cervix blouses, dorsum to front cardigans, tight polo necks or iii quarter sleeve white fitting shirts ofttimes with a scarf knotted cowboy fashion at the side neck. These teen clothing fashions that originated in America, filtered to Uk in watered down mode.

Old Photos of Typical Belatedly 1950's Teenage Fashion.

1956 – 1957

Typical teenagers of the 1950s wearing general fashions of the day. Nothing too extreme, but very much in way with a fair flake of grooming axiomatic.

Note the wonderful layers of net petticoats nether Vera'southward brim.  These male teens are wearing standard male fashions of the twenty-four hour period with token attention to pocket-sized fashion details such as the narrower tie. The teen boy on the left has suede shoes.

It'southward important to remember that more conventional immature men wore this type of clothing than teddy boy gear. Men all the same did national service and this had an effect of a 'uniform' mentality approach to apparel of wearing pressed, neat clean clothing.

The BBC states 'Between 1945 and 1963, ii.5 million young men were compelled to do their time in National Service – with 6,000 existence chosen upwards every fortnight.'  This basic blazer or jacket look was favoured by the bulk of youths and is fairly conventional but was in that era thought quite sharp.

Growing up in the 1950s I call up far more immature teen men dressed like those in the movie above, than as the 'typical teddy boy expect' and then oftentimes used as an image of the 50s.

My thanks to Vera for the employ of these images.

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Teddy Boys or Neo-Edwardians

Equally the site is about female clothes my involvement in developing male apparel entries is very express.  Even though this site does not really deal with male person dress, the Teddy Boy was an important look in style history of the 1950s.  Equally an extreme expect it is remembered and all conventional looks of the day tend to be overlooked. Information technology is worth remembering that when costume history documents a look it is almost means in retrospect and hones in on the concluding extremes of any expect.

A site visitor recently wrote to tell me that he felt the teddy boy style originated in the forties by spivs and was and so taken up by teenagers in the very early 50'southward.  He maintains that the Teddy Boy clothes of the early on fifties would non exist recognised as a Teddy Boy by most people today. So here are a few points below on the memorable extremes of the teddy boy await.

It is known that in England, a grouping of young men who rejected the shabby, merely functional clothes styles worn by their fathers began to long for elegant fashions.  From around 1949 this was expressed as a liking for Edwardian style velvet trimmed skirted coats and specific accessories.  This fashion is thought to have really originated when 500 Jamaicans arrived in Tilbury in 1948 on board the ex troop ship "Empire Windrush" in response to the Britain's government plea to the Caribbean for workers.  They wore Zoot suits and the Edwardian look is thought to accept been an adaptation of the suit the Jamaicans were seen wearing about the East End towns.

Until 1951 the Edwardian look suits were custom made.  In August 1951 reports state that the Edwardian look was gaining support in America.  Past November 1951 the Edwardian look had percolated to the UK factory tailoring merchandise every bit a new trend.

Past 1952 in London's Eastward End this manner was taken on past semi skilled adolescents formed groups, who lurked in cafes and hung effectually street corners.  The self imposed uniform that gave them grouping identity was that of the Teddy Male child.  Even though some groups were violent, many who wore Teddy Boy clothes were not.  They simply wished to break away from the conforming apparel of the day.

Traditionally Teddy Boys or Neo-Edwardians sported the "Drape" a long knee length, unmarried breasted wool jacket with narrow contrasting lapels and cuffs either of velvet or satin and enough of pockets.  They wore dissimilarity or matching narrow drainpipe trousers, brocade waistcoats, stiff shirts and shoestring ties or bootlace slim Jim ties topped off with suede shoes.  Teds also wore crepe soled shoes which helped with the trip the light fantastic movements of jiving.

Teddy Male child clothes were not inexpensive to buy and when custom tailored, usually cost up to £100 for one outfit.  An ordinary mass produced drape arrange price approximately £twenty and shoes £three.  And then sporting a new suit indicated to peers how well an individual was doing money wise.  At this time a Teddy Boy would have earned betwixt £5 and £12 a week.

A site company has written to tell me some fifties facts – The 'Crape' sole shoes originated during the 2nd world war and looked nothing similar the Brothel Creepers seen in the l's, George Cox the company who first made the Brothel Creeper is even so in business and making the Creeper.

The boys slicked dorsum their pilus with Brilliantine into a wavy Quiff style with long sideburns and because of the mode the hair was finished to the back of the head, the style was brushed back to run across in the middle with the finishing impact of a comb run down the centre back ,thus giving the await of a DA (ducks arse). The about common Pilus cut was called a Tony Curtis taken from the way he wore his hair.

Lots of Teddy Boys had Bikes in the fifties, the rocker style was born from the Teds who wore Drapes at weekends but leathers on the bicycle, by the early sixty's Rockers were a major fashion. A trip to the Ace Cafe in London is well worth a visit to larn about Rockers.  (Thanks to Chris for input on these few paragraphs).

The fashion for Teddy Boy wearing apparel spread beyond the world, even to the USSR.  In the USA teen fashion fads were paralleled by youths who wore leather jackets instead of a drape, sometimes leather trousers, but often jeans, all accessorized with a shiny motorcycle.  The film West Side Story captures this era perfectly as does the later retrospective picture show Grease.

These skirt design images are courtesy of anothertimevintageapparel and are typical of the full skirts worn by teddy girls for rock n'roll or jiving.

The pony tailed girlfriends of Teds wore center make up and took every manner to excess.  Their favourite outfit was a close fitted black sweater and calf length brim, or toreador pants or circle skirts with low cut tops all perfect to display the body when dancing.

Past 1956 the Teddy Boy motion was on the wane in the UK and past 1958 was fading rapidly as teenagers fixed on new fashions influenced past American pop and movie theatre culture and a nod to the Italians.

Dudes

Dudes were another kind of dandy who were American in origin.  They wore spanking clean white socks, white buckskin shoes, v buttoned jackets, trousers with superlative waist pleats and plow ups.  The outfits were often enlivened with coloured dewdrop belts or jazzy patterned hats, with for case polka dots.  An exaggerated version of this was favoured past Fiddling Richard.

Beatniks

As the trend for a beatnik look developed, oversized chunky long sweaters with huge cowl collars were worn over slim plumbing fixtures pencil skirts or slacks with stirrups. The girls usually had a French pleat hairstyle or showed the starting time of a beehive. Wearing all black was a favourite choice for beatniks.

Conclusion – 1950s Teenage Fashion

As a new, more liberated society evolved, teenagers became a marketing human'southward dream. 1950's teenagers had insufficiently huge spending power compared to pre 1950 youth. Their spending power enabled them to make self indulgent purchases, sometimes with fifty-fifty more freedom than adults.  The teenagers were groovy to find special clothes designed just for teens.  Eager to capture this extra cash, manufacturers began to look toward the teenage market concentrating on younger desires rather than the desires of the middle aged and elder populations.  Ironically as the population in one case again ages in the noughties, marketers have begun to focus on the very same generation that held influence over the economic system in the 1950s and 1960s.

Page Added ten June 2005

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