Wedding Gowns

40′s Wedding Gowns

Looking back into the history of fashion we can not talk about the 40s without mentioning the impact WWII had on everyday life and as such in the world of fashion. Before the world came the fashion designers used to cross the ocean attending the fashion parades of the French trends for after that to return in an attempt to replicate through their own style the latest haute couture designs. Once the war began the fashioners were cut off from their connections with the European capital of fashion in this way being more focused on the sportswear.




The restrictions imposed in the industry limiting the productions to the ones necessary for war supplies compelled the women of those times to create their own outfits according to the scarcity of fabric that was to be available on the markets. Fashion designers lined up also to this less availability on the fabrics market and designed short skirts and jacket for the daily use and casual attire and sheath evening gowns were the ones to replace the flowing dresses of the 30s. The general feature the most obviously present in the fashion style of those years was utility. A simple clothing style meant to be both practical and easy to wear, revealing a feminine look of a woman wearing contoured attires to wrap the shape of the body next to a contrasting box cut patterns of the women’s suits.

A group of Londoner fashioners started to incorporate with the lack of means and scarcity of fabrics the aspect of feminine sensuality in the straightly cut lines of the women’s suits spreading the trend of women’s blazer eloquently created with merely three buttons. The “siren suit” made from tartan cloth was another style of clothing as result of the war’s influences. Wearing head scarves, kangaroo cloak, and wedged-heel shoes, all of these were the signatures war imprinted in the fashion style of those ages.

In the years of the WWII people got hardly married due to the turbid events that crossed every society of that time, but even so soldiers coming on leave used to celebrate their wedding though they had no idea if the times of war would ever bring them back. The wedding fashion of those times was again a reflection of the war times and in this regard the 40′s wedding gowns were created in a simple style with a sheath shape of the dress, a fitted bodice with long sleeves and usually a veil to wear on the head.

Other 40′s wedding gowns showed the brides wearing tea-length dresses in the same design of sheath style without any nakedness revealed by a deep cleavage, but a short scoop at the neckline, the same long sleeve to cover the arms and maybe a slightly rich petticoat underneath the skirt to show an A-line of the dress’s couture. But mostly the wedding gowns were made in such a manner that they wouldn’t look like being made in a waste of fabric when the country was at war and people were dying out there on the front.

What was the new trend introduced by the war fashion was the sportswear which made USA became the first one in this fashion style, people choosing to wear these casual attires as the coziest clothing existing on the outfit markets, trend that had preserved till our modern days.