The lighthearted, forward-looking attitude and fashions of the late 1920s stayed
through most of 1930, but by the end of that year the effects of the
Great Depression began to affect the public, and a more conservative
approach to fashion displaced that of the 1920s.
For
women, skirts became longer and the waist-line was returned up to its
normal position in an attempt to bring back the traditional "womanly"
look.
Jean
Patou, who had first raised hemlines to 18" off the floor with his
"flapper" dresses of 1924, had begun lowering them again in 1927, using
Vionnet's handkerchief hemline to disguise the change. By 1930, longer
skirts and natural waists were shown everywhere.
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| Jean Patou |
Feminine
curves were highlighted in the 1930s through the use of the bias-cut in
dresses. Madeleine Vionnet was the innovator of the bias-cut and used
this method to create sculptural dresses that molded and shaped over the body's contours as it draped the female form.
Through
the mid-1930s, the natural waistline was often accompanied by emphasis
on an empire line. Short bolero jackets, capelets, and dresses cut with
fitted midriffs or seams below the bust increased the focus on breadth
at the shoulder.
Evening dresses with matching jackets were worn to the theatre, nightclubs, and elegant restaurants.
Full, gathered skirts, known as the dirndl skirt, became popular around 1945.
Gloves were "enormously important" in this period. Evening
dresses were accompanied by elbow length gloves, and day costumes were
worn with short or opera-length gloves of fabric or leather.
