Important Events in Fashion and Design, 1940–1949

1940

  • Architect Frank Lloyd Wright completes the People's Church in Kansas City, bringing modernism to church architecture.
  • Colorfast textiles are improved, allowing prints to be more durable through many washings.
  • Japanese silk supplies to the United States continue to dwindle under the trade embargo between the two countries.
  • In fall, with the fall of Paris to the Nazis, the United States experiences its first fashion season without French designers.
  • New automobiles and trucks numbering 4,476,000 are produced in the United States, a 25 percent increase over 1939. Americans own 69 percent of the world's cars.

1941

  • College women and debutantes go hatless, a trend that alarms the millinery industry.
  • New York mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, acting as national director of civil defense, appoints a committee of stylists to submit designs for women's...

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