60's Fashion elements - The gritty and glamorous 1930's

Its been over a year since the last "Fashion elements" post. I know! I'm terrible!! But there's a lot to research and now I can finally give you a new design element that I've been enjoying noticing since watching Bonnie and Clyde and reading the "Sixties Fashion" book. 

The 1930s gave the 60s a lot of inspiration in the mid to late 60s, via films and designers who looked to the past for inspiration from the heros and characters that drove folk lore and adorned the screens during the dark depression era. So many films were produced in that period, that one would think there was no depression in LA, but there surely was and the films were often used as an escape from real life for everyday people. The fantasy of those films and outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde remained so ingrained in peoples memories that it was bound to repeat itself at some point. 

The story of Bonnie and Clyde was a perfect segue for the 30s to introduce itself to the 60s. One of things that really drove the popularity of this film in 1967 was the fashions and of course fantastical story line of Bonnie and Clyde. 

So popular was the films fashion that designers such as Yves Saint Laurent Norman Norell both designed collections based of Bonnie's outfits as played by Faye Dunaway

60s fashion elements - The Drop Waist

Well, another dress down and a new one already lined up! I'll of course take some photos for you all this weekend, but in the meantime I'm making plans to use this modern pattern to make a deep red drop waist dress with white buttons and bias binding

In my research for an inspiration image I came across a reoccurring trend of 60's drop waist dresses, so let us delve a little deeper shall we?

60s fashion elements - The Bishop Sleeve

Some of the things about 60s clothing tend to catch my eye when trawling through Pinterest or Tumblr. Certain elements that you begin to notice as integral parts to the look that was being worn by the Dolly Birds and Dandies of the time

In this set of blog posts, I want to explore the different elements of clothing that we often associate with or were popular in the 60s

I'll try to explain the construction of these elements and show some examples of these styles

There are many features that became popular in the 60s - most of which already existed in some form and were adapted for modern youth wear, or were invented from scratch through the genius of designers like Mary Quant or André Courrèges

This week we are going to have a look at Bishop Sleeves. Read onto the end for a little tutorial.