1950s Lingerie

above & below: Bettie Page

Here we are with lingerie of the 1950s, filled with bullet bras, high-waisted panties and silk slips! You can see that lingerie is becoming a bit more risque, and more mainstream in advertising. During this decade there seems to be a divide between the sex kitten/vamp lingerie and the sweet, innocent 'housewife' lingerie so demurely portrayed in most of these images.
We could talk about the history of lingerie during the 1950s, but frankly, that sounds pretty boring when the fun images in this post can speak for themselves!

1940s Lingerie

above: Alberto Vargas

above: Gil Elvgren

In our miniseries on lingerie through the decades, this post celebrates lingerie from the 1940s. As you can see, all of the ads are very sweet and proper, which adds to their timeless appeal.
During our search for images, we found more hosiery ads than anything and a lot of adds for seamless shapewear...something we are still trying to perfect today (it looks like Spanx isn't so original after all)!
It was actually a bit challenging to find images of lingerie from the 1940s (and every decade for that matter, now that we're doing this). It turns out that many of the ads that we originally thought were for lingerie, ended up being for swimwear. Almost every celeb during that time was photographed in a swimsuit, but not so much in a bra and panties. Granted, we're talking about a time when it first became acceptable for women to wear pants.
It seems like the hot lingerie items of the 1940s were slips, girdles, stockings and peignoir sets (which is typically a long flowing robe and chemise combination for those of you who have no idea what that is!).
Okay, next post is lingerie of the 1950s!!!

1930s Lingerie

Above: Belle Sharmeer ad, 1939

photographer: Tony Frissell for Vogue 1938

We thought it would be fun to do a series of posts featuring lingerie from various decades. We wanted to start with the 1930s. All of the images are very serene and graceful, and very different from what we see today. There's kind of a moody sultriness in these images, which is very different from the fresh sunny images of the 1940s & 50s (post to follow this week).

Because it's taking a bit longer to find some fun images from the 1900s-1920s, we will post on that later (so much for chronological posting!). In any event, below we've included an adorable sneak peek image from a 1921 lingerie ad!

1921 ad by Munsingwear via Art Deco blog

For most of these images, if the photo credit isn't listed, just click on the photo and you will be directed to its internet source. Most of these images can be purchased online, as many of the links source back to various ebay stores.

Thank you!

Credit: Enoch Bolles from "Best Swishes for the New Year" 1936

We just wanted to thank the amazing ladies behind these 4 blogs for mentioning us in the past week:

• Knickers Blog
• The Lingerie Post
• Trend de la Creme
• Eve's Apples
  

We sincerely appreciate it!!
xo

Pretty Things!

This post is inspired by what we read over on the Oolala blog, which recently featured the book "Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens". Considering our appreciation for the fun & beauty of burlesque, we're surprised we haven't posted about this before (since the book came out in 2006)!
"Pretty Things" is a book by filmmaker/writer/model Liz Goldwyn (granddaughter of Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn), and it features a visually enticing presentation of the burlesque costumes and American performers of the 1930s-1950s.