Looks and New Looks: The New High Fashion

The "New Look."

French designer Christian Dior's "New Look," introduced in 1947, was simpler than previous styles in its emphasis on the natural curve of women's shoulders—rather than the squared-off look of the early 1940s—but was still complex and unnatural. It required hip pads and highly constructed under-garments to squeeze and pull average female figures into "feminine" twenty-inch wasp waists and elegant A-lines. Fabrics were heavy and often elaborately patterned and embellished. But even the women who had discovered simple separates during the 1950s prodded their bodies into the required silhouette for evening social occasions.

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Slow Improvements.

Something was done to improve the situation for women, but not all at once. From around 1957 on, some designers began to be influenced by the simpler designs of casual...

[The entire page is 637 words long]

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