1930s Woman in Dress

1930s Woman in Dress

Peter Bonilla

1920-1930

In the photo we see a woman, in her mid-20s, photographed outdoors. She is wearing a sun hat and a short-sleeved dress that goes all the way down to her mid-calf, known as a “drop-waist shirt dress”. These dresses were very popular in the late 1920s. The dress features vertical stripes and a cloth band that wraps around her body and sits slightly under her waist. This style of day dress was characterized by its “boxy” look, which was caused by the dropped waist, and also by the folded collar. The collars look similar to modern day dress shirts, except much longer and exaggerated. The collar she has on is a deep V-neck cut but is still conservative and shows no cleavage. This look was popular until the mid 1930s when the new trend was to show a thin waist to give the woman a more hour-glass figure as opposed to this square type of figure that these shirt dresses gave women.