This 90 minute illustrated online lecture will follow the changing silhouette of the first half of the 20th century capturing the essence of fashionable dress for film and television. From the turn-of-the-century curvaceous silhouette of sweeping skirts and corseted waists through the liberation of dress in the 1910s that kept pace with the emancipation of women, the angular modernization of an 1920s Art Deco aesthetic, the rise of the natural figure of the 1930s, 1940s wartime austerity to a revival of feminine glamour with full skirts and soft shoulders for the postwar world. Alongside these leading silhouettes there were alternatives available to women via practical sportswear and appropriate business attire.

The talk by Jonathan Walford, curator of the Fashion History Museum in Cambridge, Ontario will include a selection of films that have done excellent jobs of recreating period fashion, and a few that maybe could have done better. These films will act as an inspiration and a warning for costume designers today, especially as more films look towards a pre technological era for setting stories.

COURSE START TIME: 1PM ET (10AM PT)