Sometimes designers used dresses to make architectural or artistic statements. For example, in the 1950s, Dior answered his own opulent New Look with a collection of pared-down A-line dresses, whose silhouette resembled the letter A. These dresses were quickly embraced by scores of other designers, who saw them as the fashion equivalents of the clean lines found in Mid-century Modern architecture and design.

In the 1960s, Yves Saint Laurent proclaimed his fondness for the work of the great geometric abstractionist painter Piet Mondrian by grandly appropriating the artist’s work as bold super graphics on his straight-cut dresses. Embroidered African-inspired Saint Laurent garments followed, as did collections based on another of his passions, the Ballet Russes.

Saint Laurent’s work was often very colorful, but it was dull, dull, dull compared to the silk print dresses and tunics of Emilio Pucci, whose palette ranged from relatively understated combinations of purple, aqua, and white to trippy floral patterns of pink, green, yellow, and orange.

High-school girls in mid-20th-century America often got their first taste of the power of fashion while attending their senior prom. White cocktail or party dresses were widely embraced, but so were billowy gowns in a range of colors, from pastel pinks to lipstick reds. Regardless of the color, a woven mesh called tulle, usually made from silk, rayon, or nylon and almost always starched, was the prom-dress fabric of choice.

Just about every department store sold prom dresses; you could even pick one up at Sears. Some of the 1950s and ’60s labels that were best known for excelling at the form included Emma Domb, Christian Dior, Mainbocher, and Will Steinman.

Last but not least were sweater dresses, which could be worn with tights or perhaps Levi’s underneath. For some reason, wide horizontal stripes were deemed okay on these tight-fitting sweater dresses, probably because the women who could pull off this style were slim enough to negate their potential unflattering effects.

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