1950′s Costumes

1950′s costumes for the halloween season 2009

1950′s costumes are a popular choice for halloween revelers every year, and with good reason. In many ways the 1950s were the beginning of modern fashion, and haute couture became more than just a realm of the uber-rich or uber-connected, or French. 1950′s costumes, then, reflect their importance down all the way to the clothes most people wear today, be it to work or to play, and this is something to keep in mind when picking out your own outfits not only for halloween, but for your day-to-day life in general.

One of the great things about 1950′s costumes is that they were so heavily influenced by the films of Alfred Hitchcock, probably the most stylish and stylized filmmaker ever to get behind the camera. Hitchcock used colors, patterns and lines in his films – not just the 1950′s costumes that his actors wore, but in the way he framed entire shots, the buildings he chose to stage his plots around, all the way down to waving, mazy fields of corn or wheat – in a way no one else had previously. Hitchcock’s films are unique, and the best of 1950′s costumes come from the master filmmaker himself, as does so much else in the world of art and cinema.

Take, for example, the film North By Northwest. It is one of Hitchcock’s later films, one of his greatest films, and one of his most famous films. In it Carey Grant plays a New Yorker caught up in international intrigue, theft and murder. And, since it is hitchcock, romance as well. Sex was always the subtext in Hitchcock’s films, and North By Northwest ends very famously with a shot of a train entering a tunnel as Grant climbs into bed with Eva Marie Saint (signifying, of course, that they’re about to have sex. A brilliant way to get around the censorship of the time).

Even better, though, is the opening shot of the United Nations building, perhaps the epitomy of modern architecture at the time. The United Nations building is slightly curved, made up of thousands of windows and bars that provide it a machine-like sameness. Hitchcock uses that shot to create a sense of individualism being lost in the machinery of the modern – 1950s modern – world. It’s stunning, and you can see 1950′s costumes and costumes of today reflecting that shot equally.