Friday, February 17, 2012

My Look Back: 1950

Photograph by Nina Leen from LIFE Photo Archive, August 1950
I thought it was appropriate for this look back to feature some fashion from 1950 since New York's Fashion Week just wrapped up. Actually one of the hottest trends seen at the various runway shows was fur (according to this Forbes article) as we see on this model from 1950. Others included navy and black, dragon scales, the white suit, and anything Asian, to mention a few.  Here are some things that were hot in 1950 (not necessarily in the fashion world).
  •  Mauna Loa in Hawaii began to erupt.
  • The first modern credit card was introduced in the form of the Diner's Club card, which was first given to 200 people in 1950. The card was accepted at 14 different restaurants in New York.
  • Cinderella was released by Walt Disney. It was the first full blown feature film to be released by Disney since Bambi in 1942.
  • The comic strip Peanuts first came out, appearing in seven different newspapers in October of 1950.
  • The first self service elevator was installed in Dallas, Texas by the company Otis Elevator.
  • Billy Ocean, Natalie Cole, Peter Gabriel, Cybill Shepherd, Karen Carpenter, Jay Leno, Nora Roberts and Huey Lewis were born.
  • The first organ transplant was performed in the form of a kidney transplant at Loyola University.
  • All the King's Men (1949) was awarded the Academy Award for Best Picture.
  • Phonevision, a very early form of Pay Per View was made available by Zenith. In 1951 some Zenith television models had special connectors specifically made for Phonevision.
  • Florence Chadwick swam the English Channel in 13 hours and 20 minutes, which broke the world record that American swimmer Gertrude Ederle had held until then.

No comments:

Post a Comment