Fashion Illustration 1930s

In the 1920s, fashionable colors included jewel tones. Fashion, jewelry, furniture and decorative objects often featured jade green, deep reds, amethyst purple, dusty mustard yellow and peacock blue. Find a range of 1920s-era jewelry and fashion on 1stDibs.

What brides wore in the 1930s varied. Some wore long flowing dresses made of satin or silk. Long sleeves were popular and designs often featured only minimal embellishments like appliqués and beading. Because many people faced difficult financial situations due to the Great Depression, brides also sometimes simply wore their best dresses on their wedding days. On 1stDibs, shop a collection of vintage wedding dresses.

To identify 1930s furniture, first see if you can spot a maker's mark in hidden areas, such as the back, base, inside of drawers or under tabletops and seats. Trusted online resources can help you determine who produced your furniture based on these markings, and from there, you can research more to get a rough idea of how old your item is. A piece's characteristics can also be helpful when dating furniture. Many items made during the 1930s are examples of Art Deco furniture. Art Deco furniture is characterized by geometric patterns and luxurious materials, such as shagreen, marble, mother of pearl, mirrored glass, exotic animal hides and rare woods like mahogany, ebony and zebra wood. A certified appraiser or experienced antique dealer can provide an expert opinion on when your piece was likely made. On 1stDibs, explore a range of 1930s furniture.

Yes, people had record players in the 1930s. In fact, record players began to become more common during the decade and continued to grow in popularity throughout the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Thomas Edison made the first phonograph record player in 1877. Shop a variety of record players on 1stDibs.

Who the most famous fashion designer of the 1960s was is open to debate. Many designers helped define the looks of the decade, each influencing style in their own way. Among these notable designers were Mary Quant, André Courrèges, Pierre Cardin, Yves Saint Laurent, Bonnie Cashin, Hubert de Givenchy, Emilio Pucci, Paco Rabanne and Ossie Clark. On 1stDibs, shop a variety of vintage apparel and accessories from the 1960s.

In the 1930s, phones typically looked like rotary telephones. They had either a round or square base with a numbered dial that spun when you dialed and a handset receiver with both an earpiece and a mouthpiece. A cord connected the handset to the base. Find a variety of rotary phones on 1stDibs.

Claire McCardell was the designer often called the Mother of American Fashion in the 1940s. An American designer, she helped introduce women's sportswear to the United States and was particularly well-known for her bias-cut, loose-fitting Monastic dress. When World War II broke out in the 1940s, she designed pieces out of readily available materials like denim, calico and wool jersey, introducing new fabrics for women's clothing that would remain popular well after the close of the war. Many people point to McCardell as one of the first successful American fashion designers. Shop a collection of Claire McCardell apparel on 1stDibs.

Coco Chanel was considered one of the leading fashion designers in the 1920s and ’30s in Paris. The first Chanel shop was established in 1910 on rue Cambon by the young milliner Gabrielle Chanel, who had picked up the nickname “Coco” while working as a club singer. The boutique drew the attention of the Parisian fashion elite, who popularized her wide-brimmed Chanel Modes hats. Soon, she added a sportswear store in the Normandy resort town of Deauville, where Coco set the tone for her defining sense of style — traditionally masculine garments reimagined for feminine shapes, made from simple jersey fabric. Effortless and elegant, Chanel's designs promoted comfort and grace in women’s wear that had been dominated in the previous century by complicated layers of fabric and cumbersome corsets. She followed this success with a couture house, opened in 1915 in Biarritz. In 1926, Chanel introduced her first little black dress, reclaiming a color that had once been reserved for mourning and working-class women. That same decade, she debuted her perfume, Chanel No. 5, as well as the Chanel suit with a fitted skirt, inspired by the boxy lines of men’s clothing and employing a sporty tweed. During the 1920s, she also unveiled the predecessor for the 2.55 Flap bag, which remains one of Chanel's most popular offerings. Shop a large selection of Chanel apparel, bags and accessories on 1stDibs.