Decade-Specific Items
These catalogs here span from 1936 to 1961. The fashion world wasn’t the only thing changing within these decades – by examining shifts in fashion styles and advertising, we can track changes in the political and social world as well. We see women begin to wear pants both casually and professionally in the early 1940s. This was followed by the more conservative clothing of the post-war era, as can be seen in the shift back to skirts and dresses in uniforms “for lab, beauty parlor or doctor’s office” work. In the 1951 catalog, we see an image of a woman welcoming her husband home from work, with the description declaring that “it’s easy and so worthwhile to look your best when the man of the house comes home to dinner.” Exoticism in fashion is clear throughout these years, with a Chinese monogram on a teen’s dress in 1946 and a whole page of “American Inspired Dreamwear” in 1961. Finally, we see a strong shift towards advertising specifically to teenagers, or juniors, in the early 1960s catalog – the baby boomers became a huge consumer base with the alternative lifestyles, political movements, and economic changes of the late '50s and '60s.
