Original subtitles

Field: How you live and what your values are,

that's what style is.

Style is how you surround yourself.

It's each generation finding their identity.

Have you ever broken any rules, Selena?

And looking at the '40s and '50s,

there's a tremendous amount of change.

Gunn: The bikini was the biggest thing since the atom bomb.

It's scandalous.

Hollywood has always been so influential

in how women view themselves.

I mean, Katharine Hepburn made pants happen.

Boyd: Going against the grain

had become its own unique identity.

Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?

Whaddya got?

'40s and '50s were definitely America finding itself,

a voice for American style.

Tiffany: In the beginning of the 1940s,

American style was very simple without a lot of adornment.

Kressley: Coming out of the '30s,

consumption was not something you did.

I mean, you know, we all hear stories of grandparents who say,

"Oh, hold on.

I want to save that TV dinner foil!

I'm gonna use that again."

That's the mentality of growing up in a depression.

When you don't have stuff,

you work with what you have.

Most women learned how to sew at a very early age,

and they would make their own shirts and dresses

and, you know, a whole wardrobe.

My mother had a sewing machine.

I was constantly telling her what I wanted,

and she would constantly tell me

that it would have to be something else.

It was a different mentality.

An everyday man would probably own one suit and one hat.

My grandfather would take my mother to baseball games.

He always was in a suit and tie and often a vest,

you know, on the hottest day.

My mother, who loved to go with him,

would say, "Why are you wearing a suit?"

And he would say, "You know, I'm taking a lady out.

I always wear a suit."

There wasn't a lot of ingenuity going on in fashion.

Steele: America was still a remarkably provincial country.

The leading emphasis,

not only on in fashion but in art, et cetera,

was in France.

Americans felt very second-rate

when comparing ourselves to Europe.

We've always seen Europe as the leaders.

Americans looked, I think, to Europe as aristocratic.

We had Europe as, you know, the icon of style.

Before World War II, we were a nation of copiers.

We've been a nation of copiers.

Roosevelt: December 7th, 1941 --

a date which will live in infamy.

The American people in their righteous might

will win through to absolute victory.

During World War II,

everyone was involved in that war effort.

Man: War ration book #2 --

180 million of them rolling off the presses.

Coupons that represent

civilian America's future purchases

of rationed goods.

Truhler: The government rationing

that happened as a result of the war

dramatically impacted style.

Gunn: Textiles are not being used for apparel purposes,

at least on civilians.

Everything's being channeled to the war efforts.

Steele: During the war,

extraneous waste of materials like extra pockets

would be forbidden by the new rationing rules.

Men's clothing,

which used to be identified

by having jackets with lapels

and pants with cuffs and pleats,

all that excess fabric goes away.

Banks: You could not have flaps on a jacket pocket.

Pants could not be wider than 19-1/2 inches.

Women were asked to give up their silk stockings

so they could be recycled for war purposes.

Woman: Off with the stockings, girls.

They're due for the discard,

and the war effort needs them.

The stockings will be used in making powder bags

for firing heavy guns.

Tiffany: The scarcity of things

pushed people to be more creative,

like women drawing a line on the back of their legs

to imitate the seam of their stockings.

Man: It's just a low-down trick for the eyebrow pencil.

Legs or eyebrows -- it's all the same.

Only a little difference in shape.

Girls would turn tablecloths into skirts, for example.

People at that stage

were very much behind the war effort.

It was, you know, something that created a sense of community

and pulling together.

It made people feel involved

in what was going on around them

because it literally hit them, you know,

in every aspect of their home and domestic life.

Pre-war women

were still predominantly in the household.

It was crazy before

to have women in the workplace,

certainly not even considered

that women would be something like a welder.

But when World War II hit,

all of a sudden, women flooded the workforce.

But it's really not good

to wear a big, puffy skirt

when you're operating heavy machinery.

So utilitarian needs

required women to suit up and hit the factories.

The age of Rosie the Riveter changed women's sense of style,

changed how they expressed themselves.

Field: It was a change in the lifestyle of the woman,

and I think that affected what she was exposed to.

She had new influences, new environment, new stimulus.

As a child, I was fortunate to have young aunts.

They went to work.

And they really paint the picture

of how life had changed drastically

because of the war.

Von Furstenberg: It was an emancipation for the woman.

They had that strength that women have

when things are tough.

Wearing the pants and taking on male roles

had a subliminal message

that there could be a toughness about women

that was never identified before.

That changed everything.

For men, certainly in the '40s,

it was considered not a manly thing

to be even thinking about wardrobe.

You just wore clothes.

Banks: But there was a style that started for men,

and it was a very different, very colorful style.

A very extravagant way of dressing

that was embraced by minorities.

♪ I want a zoot suit with a reet pleat ♪

♪ With a drape shape and a stuff cuff ♪

To look sharp enough to see my Sunday gal ♪

Steele: Zoot suits were primarily worn by

African-American and Latino-American men.

People who were sort of on the outside edge.

Steele: The suits were long jackets

and very full trousers

and had various accessories,

like, you know, a watch fob on a long chain, et cetera.

It was really one of the first youth cultures.

Some might see the zoot suit as flashy,

and perhaps it was,

but these are the most marginalized people in society.

And even though they may have been treated

as second-class citizens,

when they put on these zoot suits,

they suddenly had an identity.

They suddenly could see themself

in a different light.

♪ I've got a zoot suit with a reet pleat ♪

♪ And a stuff cuff and the glad plaid ♪

♪ In the latest fad

♪ To see my Sunday gal

Steele: The '40s were a period

when there was tremendous panic or paranoia

about youth cultures,

and particularly when they were minority-youth cultures.

So there were a lot of racist reactions

against zoot suiters,

most notoriously

in the so-called Zoot Suit Riots

in Los Angeles in 1943.

Crowds of white men and servicemen

were beating up Latino and black men

for wearing zoot suits.

Soldiers who were on leave, seeing these guys,

and saying you're unpatriotic.

You know, they defied the war-rationing efforts.

Boyd: The pride of these individuals wearing the suit

was offensive to a lot of conservative white males

who were not comfortable with men of color

asserting themself in any way,

even in the way that they dressed.

The zoot suit came to be the kind of lightning rod

of prejudice and fear and racism.

It was the symbol of conflict in the United States.

Man: Hollywood --

brilliant tinsel city of lights and fantasy.

Hollywood --

glorified, glittering, fascinating mythical kingdom.

Hollywood --

the glamour capital of the world.

Gunn: Before World War II,

we would head to the Paris couture collections.

We would sketch.

We'd photograph them.

And then bring back all of those ideas

and copy them here.

The only place in this nation

where anything was happening

that was creative and innovative in fashion

was Hollywood.

Parsons School of Design

launched the first program in fashion in 1906.

Where did those early graduates go?

They went to the up-and-coming and then burgeoning

film industry in Hollywood.

Hollywood has always been America's dream factory,

and that was especially true, I think,

before the rise of other media like television.

Americans looked to Hollywood movies,

and they saw the kind of lives they wanted to live,

the cars they wanted to drive,

the clothes they wanted to wear.

Banks: Film was very escapist.

People went to see Fred and Ginger Rogers

because they wanted to escape the misery

they were living in during the war.

Field: People went to the movies.

It was, you know, exciting.

Man: It's the theory that also that also sees

the emergence of glamorous new idols.

Mann: Hollywood was it.

These were the gods and goddesses

around whom America formed their dreams and their ideals.

Field: Back in those days,

there were movie magazines,

portraits of movie stars, one after another.

They're the ones that are projecting style.

So you had somebody like Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner.

They represented, sort of, the iconic

Doonan: Everyone wanted to look like Joan Crawford.

Everyone wanted to look like Marlene Dietrich.

Audrey Hepburn, you know, she's the one that owned

the crisp white shirt

and the capri pants and the flat

and your hair back and possibly a little scarf.

So many people loved that style

because you don't even have to say anything.

When you walk in the door, you look sophisticated.

Rossellini: My mom, Ingrid Bergman --

she did a film called "For Whom The Bell Tolls"

where she wore very short hair.

And that hair, she told me,

she had heard a lot of women going to the hairdresser

and saying, "I want to have an Ingrid Bergman haircut.

Very short hair.

Orlandi: Today, when we think about the '40s,

we think about big shoulder pads.

'40s was the age of the shoulder pads.

Joan Crawford was very short.

She had hips that were about the same width

as her shoulders.

She was never going to be a glamorous goddess

without a little bit of help.

What Adrian, the costume designer at MGM, did,

he said, "rather than try to hide her broad shoulders,

let's accentuate them."

And, so, he creates the shoulder pads.

So she comes into a room,

and it is a powerful entrance,

because she's got these big, masculine shoulders,

and it helps establish her image

as a powerful woman

who's competing head-to-head with men

and usually wins.

Von Furstenberg: She's a working woman,

and she is a pioneer.

It's a woman who is in charge,

and it's a woman who is independent.

That's what American style is about.

Mann: Adrian came up with another solution for her.

He creates it for the movie "Letty Lynton" --

this dress.

And it's got big, puffy taffeta on the shoulders.

And what it does is it creates this illusion

that Joan has tiny, little waist and tiny, little hips.

This glamorous impression of Joan Crawford,

it goes on to become the first Hollywood design

that is copied and mass produced

and sold in department stores all across the country.

Steele: And so, they would have it in the window

with a picture of Joan Crawford,

which sold many, many tens of thousands of copies.

Hollywood has had an effect on the public,

wanting to live that lifestyle

or wanting to emulate the stars.

You say it's the same as Joan Crawford wears

in her new picture?

It's styled the same,

and it definitely reflects the Hollywood influence.

Dad, may I have it?

It's yours.

were a gorgeous period of time to watch.

When they all talked like that.

They all talked very fast, and they had that voice.

I don't know what it was, but I liked it.

Have you ever broken any rules, Selena?

Of course, you're right.

Shall we make an exception in her case?

Why don't we make up a rule of our own?

Katharine Hepburn was a gender outlaw

from the time she said being a little girl is a torment

and she insisted that everybody call her Jimmy.

She wore boys' clothes,

and that was pretty much still the worldview she had

when she went to Hollywood.

She didn't want to start playing the game of Hollywood --

you know, put on your prettiest dress.

I mean, Katharine Hepburn made pants happen.

Steele: It was seen as being a very tomboy-ish look,

often with mannish jackets.

So it was a glamorization

of that androgynous look for women.

Gunn: She did it beautifully,

and I think in a very feminine way.

She didn't look as though

she was trying to be a man and fool all of us.

She was Katharine Hepburn, and she is saying,

"Here I am, and I'm me."

And I loved that about her.

Mann: There was a huge pushback

against Hepburn wearing pants.

Gossip columnists would spend the entire column

writing about how she wasn't living up to the standards

of what people expected a woman to do in public

and how they expected her to be and act.

It certainly gave women

who had never worn pants and thought,

"Oh, this is something I simply can't do in my real life",

it gave them a lot of confidence about

"This is okay, I can do it.

Katharine Hepburn does."

Mann: She successfully stood up to

what Hollywood expected her to be,

and she won.

Man: The world still looks to Paris

as the historic source of creative fashion,

a position it has maintained for centuries.

Tiffany: Before the war,

American fashion wasn't even registering on the map.

There were only two magazines

that controlled fashion in America for women,

and it was Harper's Bazaar and Vogue,

and they didn't really care about American fashion.

It was very boring for them.

But Eleanor Lambert changed everything.

Gunn: Eleanor Lambert was a trailblazer.

She saw an opportunity for American fashion.

She was really the first American fashion publicist,

an incredible public-relations powerhouse.

Tiffany: Eleanor was an art student at Chicago Art Institute.

She came to New York,

and she got a job working for a publicist,

and at that time,

opera stars were the biggeststars of the day

and she was promoting them.

Her boss noticed that she was quite a good publicist,

so he said, "I'll give you a desk,

and I'll give you a phone,

but you cannot represent opera singers.

You have to find another kind of client."

And she said, "Well, what should I do?"

And he said, "Well, what do you like?"

And she said, "I love art".

She went up to 57th Street,

and she signed up five artists,

and she became a very successful publicist for artists.

She was the first publicist for artists.

She represented Salvador Dalí

and the photographer Cecil Beaton

and on and on and on.

Adele Simpson, who was a fashion designer,

came to her and said,

"Hey, you know, American fashion is really strange

because the garment manufacturers

don't promote the designers.

They don't even know their names,

and we need to be promoted, too.

And the French designers get a lot of attention,

but we don't.

It gave her an idea,

and her idea was

contact the publishers from newspapers across America,

invite them to New York

to write about collections of these designers.

And, you know, the publishers sort of pushed back a little.

They said, "We don't even have fashion writers."

And she said, "Send your women's writers."

And just like that,

Eleanor Lambert created the first Fashion Week,

which took place in New York City

during war time.

Twice a year,

the Dress Institute welcomes to New York

the visiting editors and writers

of 150 leading newspapers.

On parade during press week

are the collections of every noted designer

in the wholesale market.

Tiffany: The first fashion week --

it was just American designers.

And how Nettie Rosenstein is handling her evening gowns

are minutely reported by ladies of the press.

Truhler: The fact that Fashion Week

started in the midst of World War II

is shocking.

It shows you the escapism aspiration of fashion.

Tiffany: Editors from across America

didn't have to write about cooking and cleaning anymore.

They got to write about fashion.

Well, of course, it was a slam dunk.

It changed everything.

And Eleanor Lambert became

the most powerful person in fashion,

and she used that power

to raise the visibility of American designers

like Lilly Daché, Hattie Carnegie,

Norman Norell, Nettie Rosenstein.

Gunn: And then, you have Claire McCardell,

who is attributed with having created American sportswear,

by that, I mean casual clothing.

Woman: One of the most exciting prints we've ever seen

is designed by Claire McCardell.

She shows it here with tapered slacks.

Truhler: Claire McCardell's making, for the most part, separates.

It's ready to wear.

It's not couture.

She wanted to design for the everywoman --

outdoors, athletic.

Function was very important.

The dress had to work with a woman's lifestyle.

Banks: She used common gingham.

She used calico.

And they were very affordable for women to buy.

Gunn: McCardell also was a champion of denim,

a textile that is associated with all things America,

and she brings them into the fashion arena.

Truhler: Fashion was taking a shift from

"what are the Europeans wearing"

to "the fashion industry is now designing for me."

Gunn: It was a startling moment for America.

It was a big deal.

Claire McCardell led the way

for many American designers --

Anne Klein,

Donna Karan,

Michael Kors,

Norma Kamali.

They all have this American style.

Friedman: Claire McCardell stopped going to the European shows,

and she said, "I'm not going anymore

because my creativity has to be original."

She never went back to Europe.

She was making stuff in America for Americans.

You see this independence in America

kind of carving out its own unique identity.

Sportswear became

the defining style of the United States.

Man #1: Throughout the world,

throngs of people hail the end of the war.

It is five years and more

since Hitler marched into Poland.

Man #2: Reporters rush out

to relay the news to an anxious world

and touch off celebrations throughout the country.

Man #3: The dawn of peace.

Two million New Yorkers jam Times Square.

Man #4: All the pent-up emotions

of three years and eight months of war,

and to the victors, the spoils.

Peace is wonderful.

Bryant: There was a real optimism after the war ended.

People were excited about, like, what was to come.

Man: Welcome home.

Truhler: Women certainly enjoyed the end of the war,

and all that that meant from a fashion standpoint.

Man: Well, cut off my legs and call me shorty.

Look what's here, girls -- nylon.

For four years, you've been waiting for nylons.

Four years of painted legs, bare legs,

tattooed legs, and mosquito bites,

but all that and the war is over.

See?

Don't they look like the real thing?

I mean, the nylons.

The legs are the real th--

Gentlemen, have you ever seen a lovelier, uh, smile?

Gunn: When rations were lifted after the war,

there was an inching forward towards normalization.

Now, all of a sudden, women had options,

so if they wanted to dress in the girliest of girly ways,

they could do so.

Gunn: The bikini, in the words of

the great fashion editor Diana Vreeland,

was the biggest thing since the atom bomb.

The bikini was named after

Bikini Atoll,

which is where we tested the atom bomb.

Gunn: Louis Réard, the French fashion designer,

created this in 1946,

and this midriff was never exposed before.

It's scandalous,

and, in fact, Réard had to

find a woman of the night to wear it

because regular models wouldn't touch it.

They thought it would ruin their career

to be seen in this bikini.

Scandaleuse.

Steele: It didn't really catch on

for a long time in America

because it was too shocking.

People were arrested on American beaches

for wearing bikini-like two-piece garments.

You know, at that point, we have to remember,

women never even showed their ankles.

Gunn: It's a huge, huge phenomenon.

Its influence on customs and perceptions

of what's socially acceptable

is profound.

Man: Since the war,

10 million families

have moved into new homes in the suburbs.

After a hard day's work,

the man looks forward to a home he can be proud of.

The transition from the '40s to the '50s

was really the move from post-war recovery

into a period of stability and prosperity.

During the war, people worked six-day weeks,

and then, all of a sudden, life changed.

They were living in the suburbs for the first time.

You had vacations for the first time.

The economy was booming,

and there was a lot of disposable income.

Let's buy stuff!

We start to become a nation of consumers.

Kressley: And we start buying televisions

and hi-fi stereo systems

and maybe you even buy a car or two -- shocker.

Truhler: Car culture was very important especially in the suburbs.

You know, you needed a car now.

Just even the artistry of those cars,

the paint job and the lines.

Those cars became really a symbol of

America's prosperity and American style.

Doonan: Once people started buying things,

then you have to design things,

Then a whole industry is built around that

that grows very quickly.

These exploding catalogue businesses,

department stores --

J.C. Penney, Macy's.

Keeping up with the Joneses became a new consumer ethic,

defining your identity

through the material goods that you possess.

Kressley: It's great times,

and people are buying a lot of stuff

to buy a lot of stuff.

Boyd: After the war,

I think there's, perhaps, more confidence

and a better understanding and identification

of what qualifies as American.

Avila: Art, for example -- the abstract expressionists

revolutionized ideas of modern art.

Popular music, jazz, the invention of fast food,

American architecture, the shopping mall --

it was American cultural dominance

on a global stage.

But there's this tension of the 1950s.

There's more prosperity and optimism,

but there's this sinister undercurrent going on.

Avila: Mass conformity

cast a very long and dark shadow over American culture.

Man: In California,

the FBI rounds up 12 more of the nation's key Reds.

They are arraigned on charges of conspiracy.

Avila: During the 1950s,

the United States began

its Cold War with the Soviet Union,

which led to an intense climate of repression at home

and an emphasis upon conformity.

Man: The Communist Party in the United States

should be outlawed!

It's a conspiracy to take over our government by force!

If I had my way about it,

they'd all be sent back to Russia.

"Communist" was a label that was thrown around

to label anything foreign and strange and threatening.

Anybody who was dressing different,

if you were a Beat guy

and you were wearing your beret and your dark glasses,

somebody was going to accuse you of being a Communist.

Boyd: So there was this attempt

to make everyone in the society

act the same way, talk the same way,

and dress the same way.

Steele: Clothing advertisements become downright paranoid.

They'll have things like "Dress carefully.

You can't afford not to.

People are watching you."

Orlandi: When men came back after the war and they went back into business,

they adopted the gray flannel suit.

It was a new uniform.

They had their Army uniform or their Navy uniform,

and now they had their business uniform.

Steele: The image there is someone

who's just dressed for the corporation, the machine,

and his role as a cog in the machine.

Doonan: Business attire began to get very specific rules

of what you could and couldn't wear.

Guys all wore a very similar style --

lapel on their suits, they were gray flannel,

skinny ties, a hat.

Hats were huge at that period of time.

If your boss is wearing a gray flannel suit

and a white shirt and a red tie and wingtips,

you should probably do the same.

Kressley: You didn't want to rock the boat,

and that meant very austere,

limited colors, limited patterns.

It was about fitting in,

and everybody wanted to look the same.

But if men had a job

where the gray flannel suit

was part of their everyday lives,

I think they were actually grateful.

The soldier version of wartime masculinity

shifted to the suburban father/breadwinner.

Friedman: It was seen as a good thing

to be part of that great endeavor,

which was rebuilding post-war America

and the prosperity of those years that followed.

Truhler: Women were strongly encouraged

to go back to the home in the 1950s.

Some of the women wanted to keep working,

but then some of the women

did want to go back and just be mothers again.

For men, it was, like, "okay, things are back to 'normal.'

Your executive husband is back home now.

You need to become the housewife."

To have been included in the workplace for a time

and then being, in essence, kicked out,

this is a hard thing to digest.

Orlandi: But it was almost un-American for them to think

that they should keep their job

when servicemen were coming home.

Their style of dress was then tailored

to what was thought to be appropriate for a housewife,

and there were books like Anne Fogarty's "Wife Dressing",

which explained how you had to dress

to help your husband succeed in his career.

Well, whenever we cook inside,

Mom always does the cooking.

But whenever we cook outside, you always do it.

How come?

Well, it's sort of traditional, I guess.

You know, they say a woman's place is in the home,

and I suppose as long as she's in the home,

she might as well be in the kitchen.

Oh.

You had to wear nice clothes so that your children,

particularly your daughter,

would model herself on a feminine mom.

You shouldn't even clean the house or vacuum

wearing blue jeans

because your daughter would get the wrong idea.

Truhler: There was much more pressure in society

to make sure that the family looked perfect.

Mann: It became a time where that very white-bread,

conservative nuclear family ruled.

And the minute we see it on television,

this was the kind of "Leave It To Beaver" family

that becomes the image

that popular culture is trying to say

is the image we need to aspire to.

But, in fact,

there was a movement in the 1950s

who rebelled against that,

and said, you know, this is not natural,

this is not the way people live,

and this is an artificial construct

that you are trying to put on us

to try to live up to

when no one can live up to that kind of focus.

Friedman: The '50s came to a head

when the kids started to rebel against

the strictures of their parents' generation.

Man: If you think rock 'n' roll

won't diminish in popularity,

what do you think sustains its popularity?

Well, sir, rock 'n' roll has been around for many years.

Uh, I personally don't think

it will ever die completely out

because they're gonna have to get something mighty good

to take its place as far as the young people are concerned.

What about -- what about improving it morally

and maybe taking the wiggle out of it?

Well, sir, you take the wiggle out of it,

it's finished.

Steele: The '50s really sees the birth of the teenager

as a phenomenon.

Truhler: During the Great Depression,

if "kids" could be working, they were working.

In the '50s,

most teens no longer had to work,

so they were no longer being forced to be an adult.

Tiffany: They had allowances.

Gunn: There was idle time.

There was time to get in trouble.

Steele: The '50s had its radical side

in as much as young people

started to create their own culture.

You have dating,

which was a semi-new phenomenon with less supervision.

Along came, like, rock 'n' roll.

Steele: Rock stars like Elvis

were seen as being terrifyingly sexual,

the new dances were all seen as being so sexual.

So suddenly in movies,

there are these voluptuous women like Marilyn Monroe,

and sex becomes very front and center.

Truhler: The role models that they had

were vastly different than their parents.

Bryant: The Beatniks were really starting to come up --

poets, artists, the actors, James Dean.

Have you ever been in a drag race?

What, are you kidding me?

So there are a lot of different influences

inspiring the younger generations

to really break away from their parents.

Kressley: I mean, their parents were June and Ward Cleaver,

and they were, like, "this is so square."

I think that's the word they used back then.

You're totes square.

Avila: The embrace of new iconic figures

represented that moment

when teenagers began to define themselves

on their own terms and not their parents'.

Young woman: You see, we just like to live and have a good time.

We don't see why our parents should find us so mysterious.

Field: The rebellious teenagers

were making their statements and being heard,

and they were starting to affect and determine style.

Gunn: From tough-boy denim to black leather jackets...

They were looking towards blue-collar workers

for their inspiration.

Orlandi: Before it, cowboys wore jeans.

People in factories would wear jeans.

Teenagers were being inspired by motorcycle culture.

Tiffany: Teenagers were influencing the movies,

and then the movies were re-influencing

a broader culture across America, as well.

Friedman: When teenagers started to rebel against the rules

that they had grown up with,

you see this tension

between doing what you're supposed to do

and being, you know, Brando.

On the weekends, we go out and have a ball.

And what do you do?

I mean, do you just ride around

or do you go out on some sort of a picnic or something?

A picnic? Man, you are too square.

I'm -- I -- I have to straighten you out.

Now listen, you don't go any one special place.

That's cornball style.

You just go.

Mann: Marlon Brando came to Hollywood

rebelling against the conformity of the 1950s.

He was fortunate in that

he had two roles at the very start of his career

that allowed him to be who he was,

so we see him as Stanley Kowalski

in "A Streetcar Named Desire,"

and then we see him as the rebel motorcycle rider

in "The Wild One",

and that's the movie

where the young woman says to Brando,

"What are you rebelling against?"

And he says...

Whaddya got?

Field: Brando iconicized the t-shirt.

Mann: Brando starts wearing this white t-shirt in public,

and the sales of men's t-shirts skyrocketed at that point.

Field: He made it okay to wear a t-shirt as a top.

It wasn't underwear anymore.

Varvatos: There was a freedom hat was coming out

in fashion at that point in time

that was more individual,

became much more about, you know,

what their image was

when they walked out on the street.

Brando -- his clothes seemed effortless.

Mann: I think it's interesting that

the three iconic male sex objects of the 1950s --

Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Elvis Presley --

are very similar on one level

in that they're all rebels.

They're all defiant of social norms.

They dress to confront.

They're hostile, aggressive.

But they also had this vulnerability,

this real feeling of needing to be taken care of.

There's that softness within the gruff exterior.

That helped define how we saw masculinity going forward,

and I do think these three characters in the 1950s

set that trend that has really gone on ever since.

Banks: In the '40s,

America had an inferiority complex about their style.

What is so hugely important about the '40s and the '50s

is that rise of American designers.

Field: Individual style started to emerge.

There was a lot of discovery.

Avila: American style became

globally significant and globally influential.

Kamali: The '40s and '50s

are as timeless as you can imagine.

Even today,

every red carpet is rooted in that period.

Field: We had Europe as the icon,

but we were developing our own thing.

Mann: Old rules were breaking down,

so what was once seen as completely unacceptable,

now suddenly they're rethinking that.

Banks: The big change is that

people stopped hiding what they wanted.

The '50s came to a head

when the kids started to express their independence,

their liberation, their sexuality.

There was a great bifurcation in American culture

between overt sexuality and repressed sexuality.

That tension is what created the '60s.

Boyd: By the '60s,

there are a lot of people in America

who are no longer interested in conforming.

The '60s turned a switch,

and that switch just changed everything.