Mid-century fashion, and its furniture/architectural sibling mid-century modern, is often characterized by its bright colors, cinched high waists, and sleek silhouettes, that being on the catwalk or even on the street or luncheon.

However, the styles were quickly phased out by the turn of the century with circle skirts and button-ups being switched with the short, boxy mod-dresses, and even brighter color mixes and matches. 

But now we are seeing a resurgence of the style, and a fashion interpretation of mid-century modern. Is the style truly making a comeback, Or is it just a figment of the imagination?

A BodyCon dress from PrettyLittleThing

We can see traces of the classic 50’s Hollywood glamor trickle back into modern society. Out with the short bodycon dress and sleek, long straight hair and in with distinct waistlines, silk gloves, and voluminous hair.

Billie Eilish during the 2021 Met Gala wearing a princess dress by Oscar de la Renta (Dimitiros Kambouris-Getty Images)

And it's not only on the red carpet do we see this but also in ready-to-wear runway events like Gucci’s Love Parade set in the appropriate Hollywood Boulevard which encompassed a look into the past of the glitz and glamor of fifties celebrity fashion and red carpet looks. 

Marlyin Monroe at a red carpet event

 Look 36 from Gucci’s runway event

(Murray Garrett-Getty Images)

But those are just looks of high-fashion, what about the everyday day streetwear of the fifties, is it still here? 

In traces, yes! Not only feminine but masculine too is bringing parts back piece by piece.

(left to right, image courtesy of VintageDancer, Angela Weiss- Getty Images, Louis Vuitton)

Harry Styles, known in the fashion world for his notoriously– and humorously– high pants in 2018-2020, with the help of many other fashion icons brought back the high-waisted trousers in bright colors and bagginess, fighting off the cigarette trousers of years past. 

Yorjiro Noda, a Japanese singer-songwriter, pictured in 2021 at a spring/summer Tokyo, Japan Louis Vuitton event was also seen wearing pants reminiscent of the nuclear family era, complete even with a belt. 

Although, I haven’t quite seen circle skirts come back to a societal norm outside of a high school’s decades day or am an average Disney fan’s odd infatuation with them– which could be a whole article on its own– there’s been traces of the daily women’s fashion coming back as well as the men’s. 

While the trend I’m about to mention hasn’t made its way yet to American mainstream fashion, the seeds are planted currently for it to blow up this summer and that is… wide-leg, high-waist, non-denim shorts. 

A visual comparison between the three styles of shorts, (left to right) 50s sun and leisure shorts, YesStyle shorts, and Bermuda shorts from DuluthFlex

These shorts take the width of the Bermuda short, which is currently phasing out of the mainstream, and make it double or triple the thigh width size, pairing this with the cinched waist recreates the style of the 50s casual woman. Currently, they are seen being sold by international online retailers, like YesStyle and Aliexpress, but in theory, will be coming to American retailers very quickly.

As we can see, the fifties are making a subtle comeback into the fashion world with everyday fast-fashion retailers to famous celebrities and top fashion designers. With the general population becoming more and more enthralled with vintage and retro fashion it can be safe to assume that Mid-century fashion is coming back. 

Additionally, with the heightened fear of nuclear annihilation and rising political tensions, it seems necessary that we all start dressing this way to ward off any threats of said nuclear annihilation. That being said, “get in loser, we’re going [to dance the night away at a sock hop whipee!]”