1940's Fashion | 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...