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By 1950 women were long gone from the factory jobs of World War II and were back home (usually in the kitchen and wearing aprons, to judge from advertisements of that era). Domesticity and femininity were the watchwords, and women wore wasp waists, voluminous skirts, and pearls by day and clingy, sequined gowns by night.

The "New Look."

Christian Dior's "New Look" took the fashion world by storm in 1947. Emphasizing the natural curves of the female figure, the shape of Dior's fashions resembled an hourglass. The bosom was emphasized by skintight tailoring; hips were padded; the skirt was midcalf in length, full, and "extravagant in its use of fabric"; the waist was slender, or "wasp." By 1950 the sensuous Dior designs and the hourglass figure reigned supreme in the postwar United States, where, as sociologists have noted, sexuality and maternity...