Pre-War to Post-War: Men’s Fashion in the 1940s

There is no doubt that when a country or region of the world is suffering from war or serious civil distress (often due to political injustice), this leaves very little room for the fashion world to be taken into consideration. Anyone can easily notice that fashion is usually a much bigger industry in developed countries that have a good economy, allowing for people to focus on things that they enjoy rather than just striving to survive. In this article we are going to look at how the 1940’s was a divided length of time, an exact 5 year split of pre-war and post-war situations affecting the whole world.

The fashion focus of the early 40’s was pretty much halted by the circumstances that the Second World War placed on the entire world. Clothes became an unimportant commodity to worry about, with the main concern based solely on the soldiers and their welfare. A lot of men had left to defend their country in proud uniform and those who remained in their countries used very simple clothing (and fabrics of low cost) due to the crisis around them. You could say that time in the fashion world stood frozen during this period, with looks from the 30’s prevailing for an extended period of time. The clock finally started ticking again in 1945 when the war ended and the soldiers came back home. Everyone was happy and peace was finally present, allowing everyone to go back to living life without the terrible worries of war.

This is when fashion came back to life and designers started to have the chance to create new clothes and start new trends that the public would buy into. The use of Hawaiian shirts became very popular in the late 40’s and this might have been due to the fact that people wanted to feel relaxed and normal again (we all know the feeling you get wearing one of those Hawaiian shirts….ahhh holidays!). The war was over and everyone wanted to enjoy the beach life, take well deserved vacations and forget the stressful situations they experienced in the early years of the decade.

The later part of this decade was the beginning of a new stage in fashion and had marked an end to 30’s fashion cues that had outstayed their welcome. Even though there have been situations in the world since World War 2 that have hurt prosperous nations, nothing else has been able to stop the fashion industry completely to the extent the frozen era of the 40s did.

photo credit: spakattackscc