History of swimwear traces the changes in the styles of swimwears over time and between cultures, and touches on the social, religious and legal attitudes to swimming and swimwear.
The '50s was truly the decade of swimwear glamour! Most women however stuck with the one piece swimwear. Except celebrities and pin-up girls, women in this period rarely wore a daring two piece bikini.
Anyway, swimwear is really the best costume to show the beauty of a woman. Here below are 15 classic beauties who knew to rock a swimsuit in the 1950s.
Doris Day, the Academy Award-winning singer of “Que Será, Será” and a Golden Age of Hollywood movie icon, died on Monday (May 13, 2019), at 97 from complications of pneumonia, according to her foundation. Day had an enormously popular entertainment career, and is one of the top ranked female box-office stars of all time. She was one of the last surviving stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Day was born Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff, on April 3, 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Day’s life's work – music, films, and animal advocacy – comprise an enduring legacy. She began her professional singing career at age 15, and she had her first hit, “Sentimental Journey,” with Les Brown’s band. That tune, and her signature “Que Sera Sera,” were her biggest hits.
During her three decades of work in film, Day starred in nearly every genre, not just as a singer/dancer but as an actress with superb comic timing, a natural talent for interpreting a role and a gift for evoking emotion. Her 39 films – many still incredibly popular and shown frequently today – stand as a testament to her talent.
While Day was honored with many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 and a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in 2008, she never won an Oscar, and many film critics and fans have decried the Academy’s overlooking Day’s talents.
“My public image is unshakably that of America’s wholesome virgin, the girl next door, carefree and brimming with happiness. An image, I can assure you, more make-believe than any film part I ever played,” Day told A.E. Hotchner in her memoir, Doris Day: Her Own Story.
Day’s music continues to attract new fans worldwide. The 2011 release of “My Heart,” a compilation of songs never before released, went to No. 1 in the United Kingdom.
By the mid-1970s, she withdrew from the limelight to focus on animal rights and set up the Doris Day Animal League and Doris Day Animal Foundation. In a 2012 interview with “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross, Day admitted that she had about 30 dogs at one point.
“All my life, I have never felt lonely with a dog I loved at my side, no matter how many times I’ve been alone,” she said in her memoir.
As a staunch advocate for animals, she briefly came out of retirement to host a cable TV pet show called “Doris Day’s Best Friends,” which included an emotional reunion with three-time co-star Rock Hudson shortly before his death in 1985.
During her career and retirement, Day always seemed to adhere to the philosophy of her biggest hit, “Que Será, Será,” which she initially opposed as a “kiddie song” but which became her signature tune.
“Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be; The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera, What will be, will be.”
Freddie Mercury remains one of rock and roll’s most outrageous and legendary performers. As the lead vocalist for Queen, the hit-delivering band of the 1980s, Mercury sang in a dazzling voice, pranced across the stage with electric flair and made lasting waves in the music space.
With hits like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Somebody To Love,” “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” — the list goes on — Queen’s music is still popular decades after the band’s final performance in 1986. His music aside, Mercury’s personal moments and performances also made a huge impact in the arts and culture space.
Here, below is a collection of 50 amazing photographs of Freddie Mercury rocking the stage from between the 1970s to the early 1990s.
School was different back in the '70s. Students focussed on the basics.. reading, writing, and mathematics. They also learned how to write longhand, and some of them took great pride in their “penmanship”.
Back in the '70s, the personal computer was still very much in the realm of science fiction.. hand held calculators became available in the mid '70s, but they were expensive, and few kids had them. For the most part, students learned through listening to the teacher.. by doing their homework in notebooks, reading “real” books..
School back then seemed more rigorous than it is today. There was no such thing as “grade inflation”.. if you didn't do well then your grades reflected that. Some things are better today.. there's more awareness of bullying.. and less tolerance for it. There's more consideration given today to kids who may be different.. i.e. slow, challenged, gifted etc. Back in the day it was all more or less one big melting pot, and you either sank or swam.
Take a look at these old pics to see what school looked like in the 1970s.
A poodle skirt is a wide swing felt skirt of a solid color displaying a design appliquéd or transferred to the fabric. The design was often a coiffed poodle. Later substitutes for the poodle patch included flamingoes, flowers, and hot rod cars. Hemlines were to the knee or just below it. It quickly became very popular with teenage girls, who wore them at school dances, and as everyday wear.
The skirt originated in 1947 in the United States, and has been popular since the '50s. They were a brief trend that has made an iconic '50s costume ever since.
Girls and teens started the trend by wearing felt circle skirts with an applique of a pink poodle on a silver leash. Other poodle skirt themes included cute animals, funny sayings, cars, cartoon characters, and martini glasses. Poodle skirts were paired with blouses or knit tops, cardigan sweaters, bobby socks and saddle shoes.
Here below is a cool photo collection that show young women in poodle skirt since the 1950s.
Back around 1966, Sixties counter-culture iconography was being injected into the everyday, infusing society with a collision of postmodern DayGlo colors, earth tones and psychedelically styled designs. And flowers–lots and lots of flowers. Most of these floral designs may have been a bit too loud on a Formica counter or trusty old Thermos, yet one particular print looked right at home on the top of a car. Counterculture became mainstream.
Like most cars of the day, the Barracuda was available with standard solid-colored vinyl top options, but the flower-power Mod Top was something more, at least in the “wow” department. Sure, it was little more than a marketing ploy, but at least the Chrysler folks had a sense of humor, and the guts to do something completely different.
In 1969, Chrysler added to its brochures one of the most eye-catching and bizarre options ever, the result no doubt of the cultural upheaval going on in America and the psychedelic flair of the times. From the get-go, the Plymouth Mod Top and Dodge Floral Top options were intended to attract women buyers to the showrooms.
And although this option wasn’t the success Chrysler thought it could be, it did cement Mopar at the top of the list of the most flamboyant fashion statements made by any of the Big Three during the rebellious ’60s.
Plymouth Mod Top cars were available in several combinations. The Mod Top with a floral interior was the most popular selection. One could also have a Mod Top with a standard color interior, or a regular vinyl top with a floral interior. There were also rumors that you could get a Barracuda convertible with a floral interior, though no example has been found. In order to get a floral interior in the ’70, you had to order a bench seat.
Dodge dropped the radical vinyl top option after the ’69 model year, which left Plymouth alone with a Mod Top monopoly for the new decade. However, only the new Barracuda would be available with the hippie vinyl on its roof. The ’70 sales figures were on the low side, with less than 100 buyers checking off the option. The rather masculine lines and aggressive stance of the new Barracuda just wasn’t the right vehicle for the female-oriented vinyl top.
The pilot project of Moshe Safdie’s mission to reinvent apartment living became mired in controversy – yet it remains a functioning icon of 1960s utopianism, and one of that period’s most important buildings.
Habitat 67, or simply Habitat, is a model community and housing complex in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, designed by Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie. It was originally conceived as his master’s thesis in architecture at McGill University and then built as a pavilion for Expo 67, the World’s Fair held from April to October 1967. It is located at 2600 Avenue Pierre-Dupuy on the Marc-Drouin Quay next to the Saint Lawrence River. Habitat 67 is widely considered an architectural landmark and one of the most recognizable and spectacular buildings in both Montreal and Canada.
Habitat 67 comprises 354 identical, prefabricated concrete forms arranged in various combinations, reaching up to 12 stories in height. Together these units create 146 residences of varying sizes and configurations, each formed from one to eight linked concrete units. The complex originally contained 158 apartments, but several apartments have since been joined to create larger units, reducing the total number. Each unit is connected to at least one private terrace, which can range from approximately 20 to 90 square metres (225 to 1,000 sq ft) in size.
Architect Moshe Safdie with the model for Habitat 67.
Moshe Safdie working on a model of Habitat 67.
Moshe Safdie with Edouard Fiset, chief architect of Expo, 1965.
Moshe Safdie on site during the construction of Habitat 67, 1966.
The development was designed to integrate the benefits of suburban homes—namely gardens, fresh air, privacy, and multileveled environments—with the economics and density of a modern urban apartment building. It was believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around the world. Safdie’s goal for the project to be affordable housing largely failed: demand for the building's units has made them more expensive than originally envisioned. In addition, the existing structure was originally meant to only be the first phase of a much larger complex, but the high per-unit cost of approximately C$140,000 (C$22,120,000 for all 158) prevented that possibility.
The theme of Expo 67 was “Man and his World”, taken from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s memoir Terre des hommes (literally “land of men”, though it was published under the title Wind, Sand and Stars). Housing was also one of the main themes of Expo 67. Habitat 67 then became a thematic pavilion visited by thousands of visitors who came from around the world, and during the expo also served as the temporary residence of the many dignitaries visiting Montreal.
