From 1951 to 1975, American fashion unfolded in three vivid acts: post-war polish, youthquake disruption and countercultural self-expression.
Couture returned in Europe in the 1950s, but America was already looking toward its own design future, with names like Norman Norell, Arnold Scaasi, Anne Lowe and Charles James proving they could rival any French couturier. By the ’60s, politics, art, women’s rights and a new generation society and cultural figures reshaped the social mood, while Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. helped define the era’s visual language.
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy on the White House, 1962.
Fairchild Archive
A note on Jackie O’ style from 1960s forward:
