Al Ghurair centre magazine
THE ADS OF THE 1940S
REFLECTED THE NEW, CONFIDENT
POST-WAR PLACE OF WOMEN IN
AMERICAN SOCIETY
FALL 2014 / issue FIVE
FALL 2014 / issue FIVE
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hazel wood, strong malacca, or the horns of the rhinoceros or ram
represent each in their way the latest extravagance of the mode.”
Articles such as this were products of their time, as were the advertisements that paid the bills. In short, society drove change and
the biggest upheaval of all came in 1939 with the outbreak of the
Second World War. America entered the conflict in 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbour. While the men went off to fight,
the women stayed and worked, often for the first time. No longer
content to be seen as mothers or wives, America’s women grew in
confidence and this was reflected in their changing role post-1945.
Magazines such as Vogue reflected these changes and the first
articles focusing on women in the workplace were published in
the late 1940s. These articles reflected the fact that female fashions
were no longer just about looking pretty, but needed to be functional as well. There were upheavals in the fashion magazine world
as well – with the legendary duo of editor Diana Vreeland and art
director Alexy Brodovitch taking over the reins of Harper’s Bazaar
and creating some of the most iconic fashion magazines in history.
Brodovitch’s remarkable cover designs (far more daring than anything we see today) were in stark contrast to the twee nature of
the advertisements of the time, with their safe colour pallettes and
font choices.
Indeed looking at the covers of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue nowadays, with their countless cover-lines and air-brushed celebrities,
it’s not hard to look back wistfully at the 1940s-1960s as a golden
age for the mainstream fashion press, certainly when it came to
the design and photography. And photography grew in importance throughout the 1950s, when it usurped illustrations as the
medium of choice. All the main fashion magazines had their favourite photographers and the likes of Richard Avedon, Steven
Meisel and Bruce Weber moved effortlessly between shooting the
front covers of fashion magazines and shooting the advertising in
it’s pages – one of the only industries where that is the case.
Part of the reason for this new focus on photography was the advent of new technologies. By the 1960s, the barriers to producing
a magazine had diminished, with improvements to colour printing
reducing cost and improving the quality and quantity of fashion
magazines available. Some of this can be traced back to the decade
before. The real jump in the size of the marketing industry (both in
fashion and in general) came in the 1950s. In the US, post-war austerity was over and the modern ideals of consumerism were cen-
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