Adding vintage to your wardrobe is like adding more paint colors to your life’s palette, and as cheesy as that may sound, those who wear vintage know exactly what I mean. What, exactly, is a cocktail dress, the term often evokes smoky lounges or elegant soirées.
Bradford, it’s something to spill cocktails on.
One of the problems remains consistent, from its inception. Color, fabric or style. By standard definition, a cocktail dress is a short dress that is suitable for formal occasions. For example, as actress Jean Arthur explains in the 1936 film The ExMrs. Remember, yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian collection. Seriously. Photo.
For true cocktail aficionados, the period between the 1970s and 1990s is seen mostly as a low point in the history of drink mixing, and the popularity of hosting semiformal cocktail affairs slowly disappeared gether with the cocktail shakers.
If they’ve been intended or used to fit that purpose, from Yves Saint Laurent’s mid 60″‘s ‘Mondrian’ dress to the slinky slip dresses worn by ‘cosmo sipping’ Carrie Bradshaw in the late 90’s, designers never stopped producing socalled cocktail dresses.
By the end of the 1960s, even upperclass women began hosting athome drinking soirées in palazzo pants and jumpsuits, and the idea of the cocktail dress became more of a style than occasion type wear. As soon as the war was over, a surge in the popularity of athome cocktail parties gave the cocktail dress a whole new life, the devastating effects of World War I had an obvious effect on cocktail dressing. So this terminology was also a sly marketing technique used to attract ‘boozeloving’ American customers who enjoyed hosting and dressing for cocktail hours. Ok, and now one of the most important parts. While leading to a rise in the use and concept of cocktail dressing by the end of the 1940s, dior famously dubbed one of his early evening frocks a cocktail dress.
Women’s clothing in the Western world at this time was highly influenced by Christian Dior’s New Look collection of 1947, that made cinched waists and full skirts the ubiquitous silhouette for formal dressing, with the form hugging sheath dresses popularized in films by the likes of Marilyn Monroe. In his 1957 autobiographyChristian Dior and I, the famed French designer stated the cocktail was the symbol par excellence of the American way of life, after all. There were rather strict rules of etiquette that were followed by hostesses and guests, cocktail engagements were not limited to any extent of income or social status. French couturiers continued to release cocktail specific dresses in a vast selection of colors and styles, and American women were quick to purchase cheaper copies made on Seventh Avenue to have their own little piece of highend cocktail culture. I know that the short and stylish cocktail dress was the one true requirement for any of these gettogethers, the etiquette could differ by year and social group.
Cocktail hour and cocktail parties helped to define the domesticated rolls of women as wives, matrons and hostesses as these kinds of gatherings types had become an integral part of social life between the 1950s and 1960s. I know that the 1950s are perceived by many to be the height or age of the cocktail dress. It’s kept women looking good while sipping booze for almost a century, and will continue to do so for decades to come. That said, it’s now amid the most formal items in the closets of many modern women, not limited to any sort of time or social function, the cocktail dress was originally intended to give women an informal and practical dressing option. I’m sure you heard about this. Whenever considering this, the cocktail dress is an outdated concept, that doesn’t mean it’s off limits. Cheers to the cocktail dress! Whenever allowing women to look not in the course of the day and nottoo casual in the early evening, as long as of that, cocktail attire became synonymous with flexibility and functionality.
Conforming to fashion historian Elyssa Schram Da Cruz shoes and gloves was designated to accompany her, now this new Drinking type Woman was seen at private cocktail soirées and lounges.
The decade is often marked as the era of the flapper, not almost any woman was bold enough to wear short skirts and bob her hair throughout the 1920s.
Whenever making the cocktail dress a necessary factor in a woman’stransition between day and night, like the modern happy hour, the cocktail hour usually ok place between 6and 8eight. Whenever dancing the Charleston and smoking cigarettes with a cocktail in hand, equipped with greater amounts of independence, young women rebelled against the older generations by preparing to clubs. For years, the main selling point of cocktail ensembles was practicality.Often times, the main difference between a stylish day ensemble and cocktail outfit was a change in accessories, hence the popularity of the cocktail hat and similar coordinating pieces. Cocktail dresses circa 1958 and Photo.
Esta Nesbitt Fashion Illustrations,The New School Archives and Special Collections, The New School, NY.
Enter the 2000s, perceived by many to be the renaissance of cocktail culture.
Today, a cocktail party most possibly will be a comeasyouare affair, and cocktail dresses are found only at weddings, holiday parties and exclusive fashion and entertainment industry events. For the most part, the days ofcocktail etiquette, with the semi formal dressing standards, are long gone. You should take it into account. With that said, this modern golden age has more to do with hip bars, creative bartenders and innovative concoctions than parties and dressing. While dubbing the cocktail dress avowedly modern, a year later, the October 1931 issue of Harper’s Bazaar sang the praises of the relatively new garment type. Article from 1930 in The NYC Times explains that the cocktail dress was better known by plenty of different names like the late afternoon frock, that was way more closely about the evening mode than to the afternoon mode as it used to be before acute romanticism set in.
Term was used more frequently in the 1930s, the first direct mention of a cocktail dress in Vogue was in the May 15. Referencing a Patou dress in mannish tweed.
The American stock market crash of 1929 and the preceding economic depression completely altered the carefree nature of theflapper era, and fashions echoed the social change.
There was still a slew of drinking going on, that made the practicality of the cocktail dress even more important, despite one will assume that the economic hardships should put a damper on cocktail culture. Cocktail dresses followed identical slim, biascut, anklelength styles that dominated female fashion of the 1930s and replaced the cylindrical, short styles that fit the mood of the flappers. Welcome to Fashion History Lesson, in which we dive deep into the origin and evolution of the fashion industry’s most influential and omnipresent businesses, icons, trends and more.