“Mrs. Stanley Grafton Mortimer Jr. [Babe Paley] wears palest blue with black. The news of this blue is the sudden character it has, with black...no longer candy-box pastel, but a color that works like a flattering light. The dress, matte black rayon jersey; the pale yoke, simple as a sweater. Mrs. Mortimer adds a collar of pearls, a wonderful scramble of bracelets. The dress is a Traina-Norell design.” —Vogue
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, March 1, 1946It’s important to remember that the Costume Institute is a living archive, a place where fashion history is preserved and designers come for inspiration. In 1946, the year of the institute’s founding, the pages of Vogue were filled with talents whose work is now part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection.
Among the stars of 1946 were many female designers, including Claire McCardell, Ceil Chapman, Valentina, and Clare Potter. On the other side of the gender divide, B.H. Wragge was revered for his use of beautiful, elegantly tailored fabrics, and Norman Norell was then making a name for himself under the Traina-Norell label.
Next week the work of a new generation of homegrown talents will be placed in context of the longer thread of American fashion in the new Costume Institute exhibition, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.” With so much emphasis on born-in-the-USA fashion, it won’t be surprising to see some of the important designers of 75 years ago referenced in the spring 2022 collections. Familiarize yourself with some of them here.
“This is the new navy blue, with a new life and light. The coat is high-handed, with a stiff, pushed-up collar, full brass; made without buttonholes so that it must be worn loose, free…but fitted close as a middy in front. Wear it with assurance, as Gene Tierney does…with a contradictory touch of honey leather. Forstmann fleece.”
—Vogue
Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, March 1, 1946
“Jamaica-colors cotton beach dress; its bare bra top a miracle of engineering. By Joset Walker.” —Vogue
Photographed by Serge Balkin, Vogue, December 1, 1946
“Summer: Night | For your life on midsummer nights: real evening dresses again for resort life and country-house drawing rooms...short décolleté worn with dinner hats or full evening coiffures on city summer nights...the short dinner dress in print...gilded bareness for city terrace or country patio evenings.” —Vogue
Photographed by Irving Penn, Vogue, June 1946
“Summer: Day | For the village atmosphere of cities in summer: bare-top dresses with jackets to cover them, made for long daylight that merges into twilight...prints in modern design, fresh and versatile...little suits, worn with village-or-city protocol...and the pleasant city-summer paradox of long-sleeve dresses worn with burnished bare legs.” —Vogue
Photographed by Irving Penn, Vogue, June 1946
“Summer: Play | For beach, terrace, deck, court, and cabana...the news in brief of summer 1946; 20 variations, sometimes bare, sometimes covered, but almost always very leg conscious.” —Vogue
Photographed by Irving Penn, Vogue, June 1946
“The gray-striped wool jersey dinner dress, modern American in color, material, and the way it delineates the figure. Add a gold girdle, sandals. By Claire McCardell.” —Vogue
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, February 1, 1946
“Mrs. George Whitney Jr. [Phyllis Stevenson] likes country clothes as functional as fractions. She plays golf and tennis all year; has three children; loves—and looks well in—slacks; likes to look taller—and does, a little (here), in tapered, height-increasing black slacks. The loose white jacket [is] copied from a Cuban men’s shirt.”
—Vogue
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, March 15, 1946
“Evening in the country, perhaps after skiing. A straight, warm dress of wool and rayon, its waist pulled in with a string, its skirt a new ankle length. By Joset Walker. Jewelry by Seaman Schepps.” —Vogue
Photographed by Frances McLaughlin-Gill, Vogue, November 1, 1946
“Evening in the country, an informal dinner. A girl who likes to look uncluttered, likes to wear wool. Solution: this star-sewn top [and] new shortened skirt; this light, bright blue mated with spruce green. By Groblue. Add gold: a Criterion belt.”
—Vogue
Photographed by Frances McLaughlin-Gill, Vogue, November 1, 1946
“Mixed minerals: Chrome gray above iron gray, fluid wool dress by Eisenberg.” —Vogue
Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, September 1, 1946
“Blue steel: A dinner dress that’s a mold of draped rayon jersey. Trigère design.” —Vogue
Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, September 1, 1946
“Chrome gray: Rib-hugging wool jersey cardigan, Hockanum wool flannel skirt. By B. H. Wragge.”
—Vogue
Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, September 1, 1946
“New black is many blacks...blacks differ in tone and texture. Arthur Falkenstein composes in blacks, rayon velvet for the bolero, wool for the skirt. Underneath: a black wool jersey shirt, plaided weskit. Falkenstein shows with his suit suède sandals, naked and free. Made to order at Stylecraft.” —Vogue
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, November 15, 1946
“Modern use of color...pale, spacious, with an occasional vivid touch; of contemporary plane and curve held in unity with the enduring beauty of antique Chinese horses. The decor, Robsjohn-Gibbings. Harmonious note, the calico red dinner-at-home dress. The dress blends Americana with empire, in Bates’s authentic reproduction of an old American calico. Claire McCardell design.” —Vogue
Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, April 15, 1946
Betty McLauchlen in a hooded, high-throated in the sun. N. B. dark green on black and white. Onondaga rayon crepe by Herbert Sondheim. [Marcel Vertès murals.]” —Vogue
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, April 1, 1946
“Black velvet makes a shadow of a waist on a Bianchini Fiberset rayon crepe dress; Jo Copeland’s gentle lines. [Marcel Vertès murals.]” —Vogue
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, April 1, 1946
“Sandstone: Directoire gown, shirred and banded, with a loose panniered skirt.” —Vogue
Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, September 1, 1946
“Sand jersey: Classical slip of a dinner dress, with a fluted, embroidery-gilded hemline. A Clare Potter design.” —Vogue
Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, September 1, 1946
“The dress...half blue, half black. Parma blue rayon satin from shoulder to waist in back; a huge Parma blue pouf bustle ties on over it when you want to add formality. The rest...a stem of black rayon crepe. Made to order; Henri Bendel.” —Vogue
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, October 1, 1946
“Mainbocher makes the fabric the fashion—makes his point in fluid lamé, all line, all form. Pink lamé cut to cover you—and signed with Mainbocher’s straight, new little stole.” —Vogue
Photographed by Erwin Blumenfeld, Vogue, December 15, 1946
“[Mainbocher’s] sculptured column of golden lamé with floor-length panels hung from the shoulder. Seaman Schepps’s necklace and blazing jewels.” —Vogue
Photographed by Erwin Blumenfeld, Vogue, December 15, 1946
“Paris-reminiscent hat, feather-fringed above a strictly unadorned neckline, a bare-armed sheath. Knee-draped dress. Hat by Lilly Dache. Dress designed by Ceil Chapman. Jewels from Van Cleef Arpels.” —Vogue
Photographed by Irving Penn, Vogue, May 1, 1946
“Mme. Valentina is a fine living exemplar of her own good ideas. One, this year, is a full coiffure of tulle. She wears it in the powdered color of her moiré and mousseline dress.” —Vogue
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, October 1, 1946
Five models in evening dresses by, from left: Henri Bendel, Czettel of Jay Thorpe, Muriel King of Stein and Blaine, Mary Gleason of Bergdorf Goodman, and Fira Benenson of Bonwit Teller.
Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue, June 1, 1946
Evening looks by Charles James. “The figure in the foreground wears a ball dress of fuchsia millinery taffeta flaring concentrically from molded bodice to curling skirt. The neckline is a huge folded leaf of taffeta blown against the bosom. The figure in the background wears a dress of deep mineral colors: lead-colored faille slashed over a skirt of gunmetal satin.” —Vogue
Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue, July 1, 1946
“Bérard, well-known French artist, in New York for his first visit, drew these American designs, against a New York background. Left: The news is in the hipline. A rayon crepe and satin dress, designed by Wilson Folmar. Right: A huge, stiff brim about the hips of a tight-bodice rayon taffeta dress. By Ceil Chapman.” —Vogue
Illustrated by Christain Berard, Vogue, August 1, 1946
“The news is in the hemline that skirts the city by night. Left: Half-long hemline, a boned and strapless bodice. Rayon-and-nylon taffeta with a lacy black blouse. By Ceil Chapman. Right: The uneven hemline, longer, seismographic. By Adele Simpson.” —Vogue
Illustrated by Christain Berard, Vogue, August 1, 1946