Classic Style of 1950s Men's Fashion

In the 1950s, men's fashion experienced a new paradigm shift inspired by American casualness. For the first time, men around the world began to look at American fashions to define their leisure wardrobes. Colors and shapes were at first conservative, echoing the insecure and untrustworthy nature of world politics after the war. The man in the gray flannel suit was a popular culture persona used to describe both corporate conservatism and innovation. At the office, we have a new job description, Corporate Executive. Consequently, men's clothes were more narrowly defined, in straighter lines, and less fussy than the 1930s and 40s. Gray was the only color necessary in this wardrobe, with subtle shades of brown or blue for those daring to stand out. However, for sportswear, pastels were out, and big, bold colors and heavy textures and large patterns were in. The fashion press called this peacock fashion, and by the mid-1950s, color, print, texture, and design splashed onto the scene, growing bolder by the year. Two-piece suits are the norm, with older men and dandies still wearing a vest. Single-breasted suits are the corporate and business norm. Double-breasted suits are still available for individualistic men. Through the decade, the lapel grows thinner, and the large shoulder deflates. We see a natural shoulder line, slightly sloped. We see three-button or two-button closures, and the trouser is more slender than the 1940s, with a smaller ankle. Cuffs are prevalent in trousers, even for business. Sport coats served two functions in the 1950s. They become acceptable for some professionals, such as self-employed business owners and creative professionals, such as architects or academics. For this type of wear, the color palette narrows to gray, blue, and browns. Large-scale tweeds and flecked tweeds are popular. You can see an example of that style on the left-hand side. For casual wear, strong colors are an option, along with fanciful plaids and checks. This ad shows several colors of sport coat, and many strong shirt colors available for mixing and matching. The early 1950s continues styling from the late 1930s and 40s, with double pleats on the trouser, two on each side, combined with a crease all the way up to the waist. The trousers feature a high natural waist, and they're smooth over the hip. They're straight in the leg from the hip down, but the cuffs do come to a relatively smaller circumference. The length is just to the shoe top. By the late 1950s, the pleats will vanish, and fullness over the hip will vanish. Now that men no longer wear a waistcoat or a vest routinely, tie lengths drop to just touch the trouser waist. Ties will shrink in width through the decade, and both very colorful and traditional patterns are available. Casual shirts continue the fads started in the 1940s, with aloha shirts, knit shirts in color blocks and stripes, and rayon shirts available for different activities. As shoulders in the suits shrink, hat sizes will shrink as well. Very traditional men will wear a derby, but most men wear the fedora. The brim is now very narrow, so this style is called a snap brim fedora. There's a new style of hat called a pork pie. The crown is flat with a circular dent around the edge. It's available in felt for winter and straw for summer. The pork pie will be a very popular style. Leather jackets reflect that new colors have entered the casual wardrobe, with skins dyed rust green and brown. On the left bottom, we see two classics, the brown bomber jacket and the black motorcycle jacket. Notice all are available with the zipper as a modern closure. Men's shoes also take on color for casual wear. Americans prefer the brogued oxford, seen at the top right for business. Remember that broguing is that punch design that's put into the leather. This is a more casual oxford, and it horrifies proper British gentlemen that Americans will wear this for business. This in Britain is a country shoe or a walking shoe. The newest style is a color block, black and white oxford. These are very fashion forward, worn by musicians, artists, and street kids. One distinctive trait of shoes from this era is the sole protrudes past the edge of the shoe. Shoes are made with heavier leather in this period, and so they weigh more. Men's casual shoes expand to include loafers and slip-ons. The slip-on styles look almost like oxford sometimes. The loafer is an iconic suburban shoe during this time. The loafer is an iconic suburban shoe during this time. The American loafer is inspired by Native American moccasins with stitching around the top of the toes, as seen on the top right. Another iconic American shoe is the boat shoe called topsiders, seen on the bottom right. We have another example of sportswear becoming streetwear, the converse shoe or Chuck Taylors. In 1921, Indiana semi-pro basketball player Chuck Taylors showed up at Converse's Chicago sales office. Some say he was there to complain their shoes made his feet hurt. Others say he was looking for a job. Either way, he was hired, and he immediately started modifying their shoe, making it more flexible and supportive. During World War II, he was a fitness advisor to the U.S. military. Many men who were not basketball players were introduced to this style of shoe through their military training, bringing it back to civilian life after the war, where it was worn for athletics. But young people adopted it as a street shoe. In 1949, Converse made a black version of the shoe with the white toe guard, and an icon was born. Men's hair is worn short. On the left, we see examples of a style called a crew cut or flat top, derived from military haircuts that many men then kept. The center image shows a modified pompadour held in place with shiny creams. Black men also wore pompadours with two styles visible here. On the left, we see a full pompadour, and in the center, a style with narrow volume on top. There were many ways that men could choose to dress in the 1950s. One way was the suburban ideal, best exemplified by pop singer Pat Boone, who was a huge star. He was famous for his style of dressing that include polo shirts, layered undersweaters, casual trousers, and all-American good looks. Pat Boone was famous for wearing a specific shoe style, bucks, which are short for buckskin, or a suede shoe. They were available in a variety of neutral colors, such as brown and tan. This style was set on college campuses as part of the Ivy League style of dressing, where white was the favorite color. As you can imagine, it is very difficult to keep a white shoe clean, and this is definitely a shoe only well-to-do young men could afford. Graduates of Ivy League colleges often found jobs at prestigious New York corporations, and the name White Shoe Firm was transferred from the college campus to the workplace. It became shorthand for prestigious employers in law, banking, and finance that hired mostly white men from Ivy League colleges. The U.S. government granted educational scholarships to veterans of World War II, and many were the first in their families to go to college. There, they met students from the well-to-do families with Ivy League pedigrees. The college campus created an all-American look that will be copied over and over. It is based on sailing and country club clothing, as well as East Coast prep schools. Some hallmarks of the Ivy League look, or the preppy style, include tweed sport coats, madras plaid, which is the style of plaid that you see here, and athletic clothing. Many college campuses had dress codes that ensured a certain standard of dress. Adults also wore the Ivy League look as their leisure wardrobe. The signature look for the Ivy League style is the tweed sport coat. Once the domain of English landed gentry for use in the country, Americans adopted it as a sign of achievement. The most prestigious is the Harris tweed coat. The tweeds were hand woven in Scotland, and the name is protected by law, just as the French protect the word champagne. This photo I used at the beginning sums up the 1950s well for me. These are computer engineers at IBM, one of the biggest and most prestigious firms that symbolize American innovation during this time. We see a group of white men, one lone black man in the back row, and one lone woman. The men are dressed nearly identically, with their shades of gray being one of the only distinctions. After several decades of elegant menswear, conformity and conservatism are the calling cards of the 1950s. However, it ushered in a period of such prosperity if you were white, that some politicians still look to it as the golden age they wish to return to. This photo reminds me of Victorian culture, with the conformity and emphasis on consumerism. This image is a Wall Street company in the 1870s, evoking the same associations for me. This conformity, however, sparks a trend for individualistic dressing in men's leisure wardrobes and subcultures of dressing. For those who do not fit into or wish to seek this narrow definition of success, the dissenters will sow the seeds of discontent that will become full-blown rebellions in the 1960s.