4. Films record changes in fashion through the decades
If one wants to study how people dressed in any given era since the film industry began one has only to watch films from that time period. Films depict all levels of society, with how people dressed on display. In films from the 1930s through the 1950s, men dressed for leisure activities such as dining out or attending a ball game as they did for work. Office workers wore suits and ties, blue-collar workers wore more casual clothes. Nearly everyone dressed up for church services, for dinner in restaurants, and for dates with the opposite sex. Men wore hats, as did boys. During the 1950s and 1960s women of society regularly wore gloves.
How women dressed and acted in public changed dramatically during the 20th century and is traceable through watching films of succeeding eras. Hairstyles changed as well, easily followed through film. Women’s roles in society changed, especially during and following the Second World War. Films reflected the trend. Post-war films showed the changes in society wrought by returning service personnel and the expansion into the suburbs. Suburban life changed fashions, with fewer people going through the formality of dressing for dinner. Casual dress became the norm, a trend which worked its way from the suburbs into the cities, easily discernible in the films of the 1950s and 1960s.