Arquivo Curioso – 125 years of woman’s fashion
An evening pause: If you notice, beginning in 1970 the styles exhibit variety, but no longer appear unique to any time period. Before, you could look at the clothes and pin down the decade pretty closely. After, you’d be hard pressed to identify if it was 1980 or 2025. (Except for that idiotic mask in 2020).
Enjoy the weekend!
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
1900 – 2025: 125 anos de evolução na moda feminina.
🎞️ vgraphs/IG. pic.twitter.com/SgVfBrH2dW
— Arquivo Curioso (@arquivocurioso) May 30, 2026
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I would say this video shows the best-case fashion of each half-decade rather than what was far more typical – and notably more hideous. That is especially so anent hats and hairstyles. The 1900s, 1920s, 1940s, early 1960s and 1980s, in particular, were shown to far better advantage than what was normative on the streets of those times. The exaggerated shoulders of 1940s fashion as well as the ghastly tuck-and-roll “up-do” hairstyles of the era are only hinted at here. The teased and sprayed beehives and exaggerated bangs of the early 1960s and the “lion’s mane” coifs of the 1980s “big hair” era are absent entirely.
50’s were the best
I’m inclined to agree, though the 1930s had their points too – especially after the female fashion train wreck that was the 1920s.
No fan of the flappers?
Remember a few Evening Pauses ago, when Howard Jones was lip syncing that “Things Could Can Only Get Better”?
Well, when it comes to fashion, I’d say he was lying. Many of the older fashions may not have been as convenient or as revealing, but at least in this video, they were more appealing than are the most modern looks.
There is a kind of craziness to fashion….clothes meant to show a rugged practical look is neither in practice when actually worn by real people in the real world. Women stress and obsess over clothes meant to be look easygoing and casual. Then again, men will buy a tough looking, giant pickup truck or SUV….to do things a small hatchback could do. At least the sports cars of old made no pretense of practicality. It’s all about image, not reality. It’s emblematic of a culture that teaches people to define themselves by what they publicly consume.