The Silver Screen Oasis

Oh, my, Red. That one IS scary.

Jackie, I also loved all the hairstyles and clothes in Saratoga Trunk.

Cinemaven, Marsha is a cutie.

I love so many of the hairstyles from the 30's and 40's!

I actually wear my hair like this:


If I weren't so lazy, I'd definitely go for a more complicated style, like pin curls or something. Perhaps something like this:


Men's hairstyles from the aforementioned period were fantastic as well. My favorite is the slicked-back hair that is a bit wavy on the top, like so:

I wish people still wore their hair like that.

Men's hairstyles from the aforementioned period were fantastic as well. My favorite is the slicked-back hair that is a bit wavy on the top, like so:
I wish people still wore their hair like that.

Same here! I'd probably faint if I saw a young man all dressed up with fedora, wavy hair, and a nice suit with a vest or sweater on with it.

norfious wrote:I love so many of the hairstyles from the 30's and 40's!

I actually wear my hair like this:

I adore Rita Hayworth's hairstyle ... but Gene Tierney's hairstyle is one of the cutest hairstyles ever graced the silver screen. I love her style and this picture that you shared here norfious and according to you ... you wear your hair like this and I consider this hairstyle so becoming and I wished more and more ladies wear it. Gene Tierney is one of the most sexiest actresses ever grace the silver screen and I put her and my beloved Rita in the top 5.

I love this picture.

I'm glad you like the photo, kingme!
I wish more women would wear the classic styles, too. This one is especially easy to pull off.

JackFavell wrote: I'd probably faint if I saw a young man all dressed up with fedora, wavy hair, and a nice suit with a vest or sweater on with it.

I believe I would, too. Too bad that will never happen.

Thanks for the compliments ... norfious :!:

Did men really dress that nicely in the 1950's? Jackets and ties? Shirts with buttons? I actually remember the early 60's. It was a little more formal. But I don't remember a lot of sport coats. My dad wore a tie to the office. But you can bet that sucker came off the minute he got home! It seems dress pants were more prominent. Men didn't wear jeans as much. So, yes. I guess it was different.

All this is based on city standards. Country folk have dressed the same way since Daniel Boone!

RedRiver wrote:Did men really dress that nicely in the 1950's? Jackets and ties? Shirts with buttons? I actually remember the early 60's. It was a little more formal. But I don't remember a lot of sport coats. My dad wore a tie to the office. But you can bet that sucker came off the minute he got home! It seems dress pants were more prominent. Men didn't wear jeans as much. So, yes. I guess it was different.

All this is based on city standards. Country folk have dressed the same way since Daniel Boone!

Yeah, I can only imagine what people really wore in the 50's and 60's. Hopefully classic films and photos are an accurate representation! Unfortunately I have only been alive since fashion took a nasty turn for the worse. All I remember are tight colored jeans (WHY are these back in style?), big hair, and a many more crimes against fashion and humanity.

That's a good point, about fashion being based on different areas. Yet another way in which my ideas about classic fashion are biased--I only see what people wore in Southern California.

Hairstyles of the 30's, 40's and 50's. Sigh. I can barely do my own hair and would have to get it done professionally. Sadly today's hairstylists, and I use the term loosely, have no clue how to recreate the looks.

I love so many different actresses looks. Barbara Stanwyck with the shoulder length natural curls. Jean Harlow in Bombshell, how she had to keep flipping the ringlets out of her face. Ann Sheridan's updo's, always gorgeous. Rita's side parted waves. Joan Blondell, well just about any hairstyle for her, she was always cute as a button. The list goes on.

Like the OP, it's my dream to have my hair done like theirs, just once. Even, bouncy, classic curls.

RedRiver wrote:Did men really dress that nicely in the 1950's? Jackets and ties? Shirts with buttons? I actually remember the early 60's. It was a little more formal. But I don't remember a lot of sport coats. My dad wore a tie to the office. But you can bet that sucker came off the minute he got home! It seems dress pants were more prominent. Men didn't wear jeans as much. So, yes. I guess it was different.

All this is based on city standards. Country folk have dressed the same way since Daniel Boone!

Men and women wore more clothes all the time than they do now. One of the strange things about old movies set in Los Angeles is that the men and women went around wearing hats, coats, gloves and suits--though the weather must have been sweltering for them (esp. since this was before air-conditioning became ubiquitous).

From a little kid's perspective living in a small city in the '60s:
A well-dressed man always wore a hat (JFK's aversion to chapeaus is credited with helping to kill the hat industry) and a lady usually wore a hat to a formal occasion outside the home, though it was strictly for church and weddings that I remember it. My mother's hats ranged from a small one with pheasant feathers to unflattering pill boxes to tall Russian fur-hats to beautiful floppy portrait hats in black with a flower. She always wore gloves then and would try to make her three daughters wear them too (that was a losing battle).

No jeans ever entered our home until each of my siblings and I earned our own money and bought them ourselves. We wore uniforms to school, so that was one less expense and one less decision for us on a daily basis. Play clothes were sometimes rompers (man, those were comfy), and I had cotton overalls that Mom hated but this tomboy loved, but I can't really remember any other clothing that meant anything to me then.

If others are interested in seeing how to do '30s, '40s, and '50s hairstyles, there are many easy-to-follow demos on youtube:
http://tinyurl.com/93fsjah

I'm blessed with wavy shoulder length hair that is easy to look after ie I can get away without styling it as it looks better than some styles out there and I hate hairspray, I always have yet I'd love to try out these classic styles. To be elegant from top to toe, I'm not sure we know how to do elegant today, we do dressed up but it's not the same thing, I'm sure elegance makes an appearance at weddings and other important occasions but it isn't obvious when on a night out and I've never seen it in the work place or at the school gate. I have a neighbour who is in her late 70s who has wispy greyish hair but can put it in an updo that makes it look so professionally done although I know she does it herself.

I think the elegance I like most of all is the Grace Kelly/Audrey Hepburn look, early 50s look. I love men and women in hats although not all men suited them, Cary Grant had an aversion along with JFK. Little white gloves look so refined but I'm sure every teenager of the age rebelled against them.

Then The Beatles came along! I'm one who believes all society changed at that time.

As a man, my only issue with haircuts is getting it short enough. "How's that?" Make it shorter. "How about this?" Shorter. Why do they think I'm there?

My mother said that if you cut out half the accessories and skipped most of the hats and gloves, that's how regular women dressed in the actual world during the 40's and 50's when she was becoming a young lady. You wore hats and gloves to church, and that's about it. However, she was from Iowa, so I take that with a grain of salt.

Also, that being said, when we were little, we always got a new white dress and a bonnet for Easter and that was in the 1960's.

Rita Hayworth
Imperial Cultural Pearls Advertising Contract
Company Founded in 1893

http://www.imperialpearl.com/about_us/1940/1940.asp
Company Information Hyperlink

Great Information ... other Hollywood Starlets were involved too.

From Web Page ...
Both Imperial and Deltah pearls were marketed in ads featuring some of America's most notable theatre icons, including Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Loretta Young, Ann Sheridan, Rita Hayworth, and Lucille Ball.

Back in 1941, she helped a Company called Imperial Cultural Pearls to sell and market their pearls and she was known to love pearls as jewelry ... so I wanted to share these three photographs from my collection ... because of the unusual hairstyle that goes along with it. They wanted this look ... to make her looks lovely, dignified, and regal.

Does anyone remember 'rats'? These were made out of nylon netting or something, and were hair colored, rolled pieces of fuzz your mom stuck under her hair to pouf it up in places. Although my mom never used one, we used to use them in theatre to create hairstyles that needed some oomph.