Dressing Up: Style and Fashion Through the Decades We Lived

By the WinDailyGames Editorial Team

Fashion has a way of marking time. Look at an old photograph and you can usually guess the decade within a few years just from what people are wearing — the cut of a suit, the length of a hem, the shape of a collar, the height of the hair. The clothes of each era tell its story, and for those of us who lived through several decades of changing styles, our own old photos are a kind of timeline of fashion, and of ourselves. Let us take a fond and slightly amused stroll through the styles we wore.

When people dressed up

One thing that strikes many of us looking back is how much more people dressed up for ordinary life in earlier decades. There was a time when you put on good clothes to travel, to go downtown, to go to church, even to go to the doctor. Men wore hats and suits; women wore dresses, gloves, and hats of their own. People did not go out in public looking like they had just rolled out of bed, and there was a certain pride and formality to it. The hat, in particular, was once a standard part of being dressed — and then, within a generation, it largely vanished, an oddly sudden change.

Whether that formality was charming or stifling depends on your view, but there is no question it was different. Comparing it to the comfortable casualness of later decades — the era of blue jeans everywhere — shows just how much the basic expectations of dress have shifted in a lifetime.

The styles that defined the years

Each decade had its signatures, and naming them brings the years rushing back.

The fashions of the mid-century had their elegance — the tailored looks, the full skirts, the careful put-together quality of it all. Then came the explosion of color and rebellion in the styles that followed: the bold patterns, the bright colors, and eventually the looks that the younger generation embraced to set themselves apart from their parents, often to those parents' dismay. Hemlines rose and fell, ties grew wide and then narrow, lapels did the same, and each shift felt momentous at the time.

There were the styles we loved and the styles we now look back on with a wince — the trends that seemed the height of fashion then and look astonishing now. The hairdos that required so much effort and product. The fabrics and patterns that have not aged gracefully. The outfit in the old photo that makes the grandchildren laugh. Every generation has these, and there is a particular joy in laughing fondly at our own younger selves and the things we wore so proudly.

The effort it took

It is worth remembering, too, how much more effort personal style sometimes took. The setting of hair in curlers, the ironing, the care of clothes in the days before easy-care fabrics, the dressing in layers and pieces that later fashions did away with. Getting ready could be a production. And looking your best mattered in a way that was woven into the culture — there was a sense that how you presented yourself said something, and people took care with it.

Fashion as memory

What makes fashion such a rich vein of nostalgia is how tied it is to our memories. The dress you wore to a special dance. The suit from a wedding. The outfit you saved up for and felt so wonderful in. The styles your mother wore, the way your father dressed for work. Clothes are bound up with the moments of our lives, and remembering the fashions is partly remembering who we were and what we were doing when we wore them.

There is also the pleasure of watching styles come around again. So many of us have had the experience of seeing young people wearing something strikingly like what we wore decades ago, fashion having looped back around as it always does. There is a wry satisfaction in it — and sometimes a temptation to mention that we wore it the first time.

Worth a fond look back

The styles of the decades we lived through are a delightful thing to reminisce about — the formality that has faded, the trends that defined each era, the looks we loved and the ones we laugh at now, the effort it took, and the way it all ties to the memories of our lives. Pulling out the old photographs and taking a stroll through the fashions of the years is good fun, and a lovely thing to share with grandchildren who can hardly believe what we wore. We were, in our way, the height of style — and the photos prove it, for better and for wonderful worse.

This article is a general reflection on times past, offered for enjoyment and reminiscence. Memories and details vary from person to person and place to place — we'd love to hear yours.