Gowns For Party – Considering This The Cocktail Dress Is An Outdated Concept But That Doesn’t Mean It’s Off Limits

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Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian collection. 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 semi formal cocktail affairs slowly disappeared with the cocktail shakers. By the end of the 1960s, even upper class women began hosting in the apartments drinking soirées in palazzo pants and jumpsuits, and the idea of the cocktail dress became more of a style than occasion type wear. If they have been intended or used to fit that purpose, from Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘mid60”s ‘Mondrian’ dress to the slinky slip dresses worn by ‘cosmosipping’ Carrie Bradshaw in the late 90’s, designers never stopped producing socalled cocktail dresses. So, esta Nesbitt Fashion Illustrations,The New School Archives and Special Collections, The New School, NYC.

Cocktail dresses circa 1958 and Photo.

While considering this, the cocktail dress is an outdated concept, that doesn’t mean it’s off limits.

It’s now amidst the most formal items in the closets of many modern women, not limited to any sort of time or social function, even though the cocktail dress was originally intended to give women an informal and practical dressing option. It’s kept women looking good while sipping booze for almost a century, and will continue to do so for decades to come. Cheers to the cocktail dress! By standard definition, a cocktail dress is a short dress that is suitable for formal occasions. It’s a well bradford, it’s something to spill cocktails on. As actress Jean Arthur explains in the 1936 film The Ex Mrs. What, exactly, is a cocktail dress, the term often evokes smoky lounges or elegant soirées. One issue remains consistent, from its inception. Color, fabric or style. Enter the 2000s, perceived by many to be the renaissance of cocktail culture.

Now this modern golden age has more to do with hip bars, creative bartenders and innovative concoctions than parties and dressing.

Today, a cocktail party has quite a few chances to be a ‘come as you are’ 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. For years, the main selling point of cocktail ensembles was practicality.Often times, a single difference between a stylish day ensemble and cocktail outfit was a change in accessories, hence the popularity of the cocktail hat and identical coordinating pieces. In accordance with fashion historian Elyssa Schram Da Cruz shoes and gloves was designated to accompany her, with that said, this new Drinking type Woman was seen at private cocktail soirées and lounges. While 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. Anyways, the decade is often marked as the era of the flapper, albeit not almost any woman was bold enough to wear short skirts and bob her hair in the course of the 1920s. While 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.

While allowing women to look nottoo sophisticated throughout the day and ‘not too’ casual in the early evening, as long as of that, cocktail attire became synonymous with flexibility and functionality.

The 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.

Accordingly an article from 1930 in The NY Times explains that the cocktail dress was betterknown by quite a few different names similar to 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. Fact, whenever 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. Cocktail dresses followed identical slim, bias cut, anklelength styles that dominated female fashion of the 1930s and replaced the cylindrical, short styles that fit the mood of the flappers. There was still lots of drinking going on, that made the practicality of the cocktail dress even more important, even though one should assume that the economic hardships should put a damper on cocktail culture.

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. 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. Whenever the war was over, a surge in the popularity of indoors cocktail parties gave the cocktail dress a whole new life, the devastating effects of World War I had an obvious effect on cocktail dressing. 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, gether with the ‘formhugging’ sheath dresses popularized in films by the likes of Marilyn Monroe. Known whenever 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. So this terminology was also a sly marketing technique used to attract booze loving American customers who enjoyed hosting and dressing for cocktail hours. 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, just after all.

I know that the 1950s are perceived by many to be the height or age of the cocktail dress.

The short and stylish cocktail dress was the one true requirement for any of these ‘get togethers’, the etiquette could differ by year and social group.

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. There were rather strict rules of etiquette that were followed by hostesses and guests, even though cocktail engagements were not limited to any extent of income or social status.

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