Symptom of a sluggish economy, the fashion of the 1930s marked a return to a classic wardrobe imbued with gloom. But that was without taking into account the invention of daring clothes, the appearance of revolutionary materials or the stylistic influence of the first big movie stars.
Goodbye frivolity, hello austerity! It is in a few words, the mood of the 1930s which, with great reinforcements from the stock market crash and restrictions of all kinds, sees its fashion go back in time.
In the closet, the facetious dresses with fringes and other stylistic symptoms of a possible female emancipation of the 20s: we bring out the pre-war silhouettes with much more conservative contours, guarantors of a certain moral order and an obvious rigor .
In addition, the crisis is taking with it a good number of industries, including the textile industry, which has to face a good number of bankruptcies or, at least, considerable shortages.
1 / 20 The style of the 30s.
Formal elegance and classicism of yesteryear: these were the watchwords of the wardrobe of the 1930s. Women played the card of conservative femininity, between refined wife and devoted mother.
During the day, they wear cheerfully austere skirt suits, mid-calf length, while evening dresses play it refined, highlighting the silhouette with fluidity. Exit the artifices of all kinds, it’s time to count, with thick and resistant materials, like tweed, in the foreground.
But the second half of the decade, with the democratization of leisure and paid holidays, brought a bit of fantasy to this fading fashion with the quest for a certain form of pragmatism. It is no longer up to the woman to adapt to these clothes but quite the opposite.
How to wear the cardigan?
We see the arrival of the first three-dimensional cuts instead of “flat” cuts devoid of volume and designers like Madeleine Vionnet introduced the bias cut into her creations to give more flexibility to the material.
As for Elsa Schiaparelli , historical rival of Coco Chanel , she popularized jersey clothing, with an urban but also sporting vocation. New inventions are also appearing in everyday life, such as Jeaner Lee’s zipper, considered more economical than buttons, the elastic waistband on pants popularized by Everlast and, more generally, nylon, which will appeal to sewing workshops and, suite, ready-to-wear houses.
2 / 20 The key pieces
If we had to choose a single piece to represent the 1930s, it would undoubtedly be the suit. In its skirt version, the most conventional, it is worn with a long jacket, lightly padded at the shoulders, and a straight skirt reaching below the knee.
In winter, in particular, the materials are thick and resistant, like tweed, which is also available in a trouser version. The latter is surprisingly wide, timidly flirting with androgynous codes.
The necklines modestly reveal the back while the dresses are barely tight at the waist, when they are not narrow, tied or draped in the back. We note for unique fantasies the trend for multicolored stripes or the apogee of shocking pink by the inimitable Schiaparelli.
How to wear the slip dress?
There will also be emblematic pieces such as women’s shorts, under the impulse of English tennis players, the twin-set worn on a pajama-style palazzo, the fitted jackets with basques and underlined shoulders and the moccasins which then began their peak. .
More generally, accessories are not to be outdone with the hat, sculptural, which is worn sideways on preferably wavy hair, the
While the ambient gloom weighs down the locker room of Europeans, Hollywood is living its golden age on the other side of the globe. The cinema stands out as the entertainment on which all eyes are riveted and celebrities like Marlène Dietrich influence women all over the world with their unique style, between theatrical glamor and assumed androgyny.
Jean Harlow will bewitch the public with her satin dresses and other “feather stuff”, Katharine Hepburn will unhesitatingly draw very masculine looks while Greta Garbo will foreshadow the wardrobe of the woman of tomorrow, both chic and pragmatic.
At the same time, the 1930s saw the birth of fashion photography with tenors of the genre such as Man Ray and Christian Bérard, the two capturing a stereotypical image of the woman of the time that they would disseminate through women’s press titles. The beginn