# Your Favorite Era in Fashion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 13, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937 "2003-05-13T13:13:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Pixiesnix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Pixiesnix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixiesnix)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/61 "2003-05-15T03:20:25Z")
> [@](#): > > A good friend has a black puffy pirate shirt- is that an acceptable compromise? [Jerry Seinfeld} I don’t wanna be a pirate! [/Jerry Seinfeld] I hate to be the voice of dissention here, but I’ll have to take a pass on the corset. I enjoy the ability to take a deep breath too much. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/62 "2003-05-15T10:05:05Z")
To properly wear my '50s dresses, I ought to wear a girdle, but I never do. My favorite corset-type thing is the 18th century “stays.” Shaping and support without squeezing the body into horribly unnatural S-curves! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/63 "2003-05-15T18:52:48Z")
**KCSuze** -if a corset is worn properly, it shouldn’t EVER prevent one from taking a deep breath. It should just feel like a nice, warm hug. I do have two retro-esque style dresses. One is a 1930s look, it’s black with big green and blue flowers on it, with short fluttery sleeves and a high-low hemline. Very slinky. The other is a black silky sheath with an over lay of silver lace. VERY 1920s. Both are semi-formal, though. I want to make a regency gown and pelisse soooo bad. ---
**Author:** ![Tansu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/67e7ee/32.png) [@Tansu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tansu)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/64 "2003-05-15T20:06:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > **1940s-women actually wore flared skirts. They wore some straight skirts, but as this was the swing era, you couldn’t jitterbug in a tight skirt.** In 1940s Britain, we had Utility clothing. Cloth was rationed, and the amount of cloth that could be used in a garment was regulated. Women’s skirts could only be slightly flared, and wasteful pleats were banned. Jackets could only have three buttons. Cuffs could not have turn-backs. The CC41 (Clothing Control 41) label was used on approved clothing designed by the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, which included Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies. > [@](#): > > _from [http://www.fashion-era.com/utility\_clothing.htm](http://www.fashion-era.com/utility_clothing.htm)_ > Rationing was severe and where economies in designs could be made they were. In 1942 under the Civilian Clothing Order the British government introduced sumptuary laws designed to give weight to the Utility scheme. The laws made it illegal and unpatriotic to spend time embellishing clothing for sale, and forbade manufacturers using the CC41 label shown in the header from using fancy trimmings, unnecessary buttons, extra stitching or tucks or pleats or pockets more than was essential to function. You probably know all this, being a clothing buff, but I thought it would be interesting for folk to think about the Utility regulations that the Brits lived under during WWII rationing. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/65 "2003-05-15T20:09:03Z")
Which means when they jitterbugged in the UK, they really came to grief (and provided quite a show for the boys!). ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/66 "2003-05-16T00:33:42Z")
Carnaby Street (c 1966), Mary Quant, and Twiggy for me, thank you! Dave Davies in his dandy phase… cheers, Ms Boods ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/67 "2003-05-16T03:10:12Z")
Actually, I did not know that. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/68 "2003-05-16T03:40:37Z")
Right, **Osbie** , I’ll tell him. He’s single. Um. Hmm. Do you have a problem with your guy occasionally wearing a lot of makeup and vinyl pants? He’s also Mennonite. Is that okay? 😃 If so, email me and I’ll set you two up. He’ll probably be over here tomorrow sometime. ---
**Author:** ![Pixiesnix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Pixiesnix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixiesnix)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/69 "2003-05-16T04:19:56Z")
> [@](#): > > KCSuze-if a corset is worn properly, it shouldn’t EVER prevent one from taking a deep breath. It should just feel like a nice, warm hug. Ooooh. Shows what I know about corsets. :smack: Thanks, **Guin!** Now, I have a question. I went on a tour of the St. Louis History Museum a few years ago. The guide told us kids that the corsets of the Victorian era were blamed for internal organs shifting in the abdominal cavity, along with miscarriages. Is that true or was she shining us on? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/70 "2003-05-16T04:40:21Z")
What yummy thread! Thanks, Eve. But brace yourself. I wear cloches. If you kind of squint your eyes and throw your vision out of focus, I do look a little like an aging Clara Bow. I also have the bob to go with it. (It started out as an _Amelie_)Now it is much shorter in the back than in front and comes out over my cheecks. The cloches you linked to are god-awful. Now be fair. Think Mia Farrow in _Gatsby_. (I admit that my minimizer needs another minimizer though.) My favorite period forever will be late Victorian and Edwardian – But only in a Worth gown: [http://www.mcny.org/Collections/costume/worth/worth.htm](http://www.mcny.org/Collections/costume/worth/worth.htm) Eve, I can easily see you in a bias cut 1930’s evening dress ala Kay Francis. Besides cloche hats, I have a few vintage things – my grandmother’s petticoats and corset. The corset hangs in a room I call the Colette Shrine. I’m sure she was one of the first to free herself of it. For men, I like any period as long as it includes Harris or Donegal tweed three- piece suits with watch pockets for country weekends, of course. I could so easily go over the line and right into costuming, I’m afraid. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/71 "2003-05-16T13:23:31Z")
Well, I’m more Edna Mae Oliver than Clara Bow,\*\* Zoe\*\*, so cloches are not my style. As for corsets, **KCSuze** , they have gotten a bum rap. Anna Held—famous for her tiny waist—said her corset only took her waist in one inch; I have _skirts_ that do that! Of course, there were women who abused corsets, just as there are women who over-diet today. And remember, the fashion drawings of the time were hugely exaggerated and the photos often retouched to make waists look tinier. If you look at everyday snapshots, you can see that 90% of women used corsets for shape and support—which is actually good for the spine and the organs, as you can’t slouch in them! So, corsets—worn intelligently and not too tight—were certainly not harmful. But like anything else, they could be (and sometimes were) abused. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/72 "2003-05-16T18:39:57Z")
For the most part, they didn’t, and you didn’t start out just going down ten inches! Starting at puberty, a young girl would begin “waist training”-and gradually you could go smaller and smaller. The ones that DID compress the internal organs, were, as I said, the notorious S curve corsets. But the majority did not. So yeah, Scarlett O’Hara with her “seventeen inch” waist was inaccurate, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen pictures of seventeen inch waist gowns and they’re hideously out of proportion. What was more restrictive was the actual costume all put together. When you had a cage crinoline plus a corset, your pettiocoats, chemise and then your gown, it did get to be cumbersome. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/73 "2003-05-17T01:48:49Z")
**Eve** , are you going to make me look for my video of _Little Women_? I can’t remember what Edna Mae Oliver looks like. But I have seen your photograph and I know whom you are more commonly compared with. You are right. Neither you nor Cher should wear a cloche! You are much too smoldering…😉 ---
**Author:** ![Pixiesnix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Pixiesnix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixiesnix)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/74 "2003-05-17T03:56:37Z")
I have been thoroughly educated. Thanks for clearing up my misconceptions! ---
**Author:** ![Shana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@Shana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shana)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937/75 "2003-05-17T08:29:08Z")
20s and 30s for me. The Edwardians were divine. Also love Elizabethan fashion, although it looks mighty uncomfortable! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-era-in-fashion/174937.md?page=3)