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A Vogue model poses before the Atomium, the symbol of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Bythat time the atom had become part of popular culture.

Blast fromthe Past:

Atomic Age

Blast from the Past: Atomic Age Jewelry and the Feminine Ideal... https://www.chemheritage.org/distillations/magazine/blast-from...

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Jewelry andthe Feminine

Ideal

Fashion in the 1950s

embraced the bewilderingchanges that characterized

the Atomic Age.

B Y D ONNA B I L A K

Spring 2015

Filed in STUFF

SHAREIn the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasakinuclear power developed into two distinctidentities in the public mind: the “destructiveatom” and the “peaceful atom,” the latter apowerful new energy source for a new era.Located between these two poles, Atomic Agejewelry styles from the 1950s—with theirfanciful representations of swirling atoms andelectrons, starbursts and sunbursts—represent the domestication of the atom,mass-produced for the fashion-consciousfemale consumer of the time.


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Atomic Age jewelry presents a materialexample of how the American fashionindustry cashed in on the atom and promoteda feminine ideal that bolstered the country’spostwar conservative values. At the sametime, it captures the public’s fascination andfears about nuclear power and weaponstesting in the wake of World War II.

In the emotionally charged weeks after thebombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a timeof elation and shock, American mediaintroduced nuclear energy. Among the flurryof news about the bombings, the cover of theNew York Times Magazine from August 12,1945, presented an aerial-view photo of thegigantic billowing atomic cloud overHiroshima. The accompanying featureproclaimed, “We Enter a New Era—the AtomicAge,” and informed its readers of the powerscience had unleashed “for better or forworse.” Here readers also encountered the“peaceful atom,” as shown in an illustration ofEarth hovering in a cosmic horizon filled withother planets and symbols of atomic energy.Through sci-fi visuals and accompanying textreaders could imagine a marvelous futurewhere nuclear power could be harnessed tobenefit humanity in a new age of postwarpeace and prosperity. This utopian messagewas presented only days after nuclearweapons had leveled two Japanese cities.

The New York Times article aptly encapsulatesboth the anxiety and optimism that wouldcome to characterize 1950s American society.On the one hand, the magazine cover


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graphically delineates the horrific implicationsof the destructive power of atomic energy. Onthe other hand, its article outlines theawesome energy stored within the atom,stating it “may well be the basis of an entirelynew kind of civilization.” The fundamental(and not so subtle) message that the New YorkTimes delivered was that nuclear power,properly harnessed, could invigorate modernliving and lifestyle, a theme that ranthroughout the Cold War era. Atomic energy,for better or for worse, was here to stay.

“Atomic Age jewelry

presents a material

example of how the

American fashion industry

cashed in on the atom and

promoted a feminine ideal

that bolstered the

country’s postwar

conservative values.

”Weeks earlier, on July 16, 1945, the U.S.military conducted a test blast at theAlamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in


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southern New Mexico. Brigadier GeneralThomas F. Farrell described his amazedreaction to the press: “The whole country waslighted by a searing light with the intensity ofmany times that of the midday sun. It wasgolden, purple, violet, gray, and blue. It lightedevery peak, crevasse and ridge of the nearbymountain range with a clarity and beauty thatcannot be described but must be seen to beimagined.”

Farrell’s vivid description frames the blast as athing of devastating beauty—a notionexpressed in silk and taffeta by Americanhaute couturier Adrian, whose “Atomic 50s”signature collection appeared in the April 15,1950, issue of Vogue.

The elegant evening dress featured in theVogue advertisement is a sartorialembodiment of atomic detonation: thecolumnar body of the gown rises intoenormous billowing folds at the shoulders,designed to evoke the mushroom-shapedcloud formed after a nuclear explosion.Adrian was renowned for his dramatic designsas MGM’s head costume designer and fordesigning sophisticated attire for suchglamorous Hollywood stars as Joan Crawford,Norma Shearer, Jean Harlow, and Adrian’swife, Janet Gaynor. (Adrian’s best-knowndesign is likely Dorothy’s ruby slippers fromThe Wizard of Oz.)

While films and magazines provided womenwith a template for good taste, chic was madeaffordable and attainable through homesewing and “fashion” or “costume” jewelry.


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Just as the retail fashion industry andhome-sewing culture looked to Hollywood forleadership, designs produced by the fashion-jewelry industry closely followed trendsestablished by high-end jewelry houses.Typically, fashion jewelry was factoryproduced and used materials that mimickedor resembled precious materials, likerhinestones, molded glass, faux pearls, andgold-plated or silver-toned metals (whichwere often rhodium plated). Fashion jewelrywas widely advertised in magazines andretailed at such department stores as Searsand Roebuck, Marshall Fields, and Saks FifthAvenue.

A defining element of 1950s fashion camefrom the New Look, a hugely influential andultrafeminine style based on an extremelycurvaceous silhouette introduced by ChristianDior in 1947. Dior’s designs rejected theseverely tailored, shoulder-padded,slim-skirted suits that were typical of WorldWar II fashion. Dior’s description of the NewLook conjures up an image of metamorphosisfrom wartime austerity to postwar femininity:“I turned [women] into flowers with softshoulders, blooming bosoms, waists slim asvine stems, and skirts opening up likeblossoms.” The New Look prevailedthroughout the 1950s as a popular and widelycopied style. And inasmuch as the New Lookwas a statement that wartime rationing wasfinally over, it also played an important role inpostwar economic recovery: the excessiveamount of fabric required to create the NewLook skirt helped restart the French textile


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industry in the immediate postwar period.

The smooth, undulating silhouette that wasthe hallmark of the New Look was in factengineered by undergarments that reshapedfemale bodies to conform with theexaggerated curves—full bust and full hips,emphasized by a cinched waist—dictated bythe feminine ideal. This shape was madepossible with elastic and nylon. Thesescientific innovations in textiles revolutionizedthe postwar undergarment industry and wereextensively used in the corselets, cinches, andbrassieres that molded the female form intoshapely proportions. Crinoline petticoatsmade of nylon or nylon blends were wornunder the skirt to create its bouffantblossomlike shape. The ultrafeminineemphasis that defined 1950s fashions and itspromotion as the universal ideal of beautyconstituted a kind of blueprint forreconfiguring social and gender roles in the1950s that had been disrupted by the war,when women performed traditionally maletasks in the workforce.

To achieve this transformation thefashionable woman of the 1950s required onemore thing to complete her “look”: jewelry.Rules of etiquette dictated that no woman’sensemble was complete without acoordinating suite of earrings and a brooch,and possibly a necklace, rings, and bracelets.Depending on its placement a brooch mightdraw attention to a soft, rounded shoulder orthe delicate collarbone area, thus showing offthe curve of a neckline or accentuating the


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ruffle of a scarf. Earrings drew attention to thewearer’s neck, jawline, face, and hairstyle. Anecklace accentuated the feminine swell ofthe bosom. Knowing how to dress well wassynonymous with social acceptance. Jewelrythat represented Atomic Age motifs was apopular fashion choice for accessorizingdaytime ensembles.

No singular style defines Atomic Age jewelry.It is a hodgepodge of designs representingexplosions, swirls, stars, and sunbursts basedon permutations of an atomic theme, and itreflects the culture of abundancesynonymous with this era. Whimsicalinterpretations of atomic motifs are alsofound in the textile prints used in clothing,furniture upholstery, carpets, and curtains, aswell as in linoleum, china, and flatwarepatterns—all stuff of the perfect home.

By the close of the 1950s the material cultureof the Atomic Age had become fully infusedwith popular culture, embodied in the colossalAtomium, “the symbol of the new World’sFair.” As an edifice the Atomium was part of aworld’s fair tradition of erecting monumentsto progress that began with Joseph Paxton’sCrystal Palace at the 1851 Great Exhibition inLondon, the progenitor of all world’s fairs. TheEiffel Tower, for many years the world’s tallestfreestanding building, was erected for the1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. World’sfairs were ongoing international exhibitionsthat usually ran for 8 to 12 months and were aforum for European and American nations topresent their ideas of progress. World’s fairs


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engaged the public with exhibits of the latestindustrial, scientific, technological, and artisticachievements of the participating nations.And each world’s fair sought to define utopianvisions of the future.

The Atomium, chosen as the symbol for theworld’s fair held in Brussels in 1958, was thephysical embodiment of the “peaceful atom.”It was a 335-foot-tall, stainless-steelarchitectural monument, presented to theworld as a futuristic home. The large globesthat studded the interstices of the Atomiumwere habitable spheres that visitors accessedby way of escalators running throughconnecting tubes. The Atomium was thefuture made material and the “peaceful atom”made manifest.

Vogue reported “on the spot” from Brussels,capitalizing on the world’s attention andinterest in this world’s fair to promoteAmerican fashion in an international arena. Afeature article from the April 15, 1958, issuepresented the fashionable American womanin a variety of social situations, wearing theappropriate outfit for each one. The imagechosen to kick off the Vogue piece is amasterpiece of composition. The model isposed ostensibly to check the sky for rain, butin her upraised palm she also appears to holda sphere of the Atomium in a moment ofcalculated playfulness. Nor was the choice tocomplement her outfit with large pearlearrings a coincidence; they echo theglobular, giant, steel-ribbed Atomium behindher. Indeed, enormous pearl earrings (faux or


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real) were a staple that characterized thefashionable woman of the 1950s. At onceelegant and sassy,Vogue appropriated the“peaceful atom,” transforming it into a fashionstatement about American glamour abroad.

Atomic-themed designs were but one of manychoices available to the 1950s consumer,finding their place among plaid patterns,geometric forms, and stylized flowers. Thatsaid, the prevalence of atomic design in thepostwar American home is manifested inadvertisements of the time as well as in thequantity of collectible items currentlyavailable on eBay and Etsy (usually scavengedfrom “mom’s basement” or “grandma’sestate”). Today online vendors have created anew market for bygone things in which thesheer volume of stuff on the move points tothe past popularity and consumer appeal ofthe atom in 1950s home furnishing andfashion. Atomic Age jewelry takes its place asa Cold War relic alongside science-fictionmovies and literature, children’s chemistrysets, and fallout shelters, whose signs can stillbe seen outside of apartment buildings,churches, and universities.

Spring 2015

D ONNA B I L A K is a historian with abackground in metal arts and jewelry design.She was the 2013–2014 Sidney M. EdelsteinFellow at CHF and is currently a fellow atColumbia University.


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