In 1945, at the end of World War II, the center of Western art, music and architecture shifted to New York. With Europe and Asia in shambles, new schools of creative thought took hold in America that emphasized individualism, freedom from the past and color. By the late 1940s, this new minimalism could be seen in Manhattan in the designs for glass skyscrapers such as the U.N. Headquarters and Lever House and in the art of abstract expressionist painters such as Hans Hofmann, Barnett Newman, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt and others. It could be heard in jazz as well. [Photo above of Christian Dior's Bar suit in Paris in 1947 for Look magazine]
While bebop came first immediately after the war, the polyrhythmic, driving form began to run its course by the late 1940s. By then, a new romantic cool emerged in the compositions, arrangements and playing styles of musicians such as Tadd Dameron, Miles Davis, Lee Konitz, Lennie Tristano, Gerry Mulligan, Claude Thornhill, Gil Evans and Johnny Carisi. Songs such as Dameron's Focus, Davis's Deception, Carisi's Israel, Evans's arrangement of Boplicity and Mulligan's Jeru all had a geometric contrapuntal quality and a breezy, gentle and almost feminine articulation. [Photo above of Tadd Dameron in 1947 by William P. Gottlieb]
Let's listen to a couple. Here's Dameron's Focus...
And here's Mulligan's Jeru...
But not all post-war modernism in the arts surfaced in New York. Fashion, for example, remained the purview of Paris, where cutting-edge designers began re-inventing women's couture after the war to outdo each other and stand out. During the war, necessity forced women's clothing in France to be reduced to manly slacks and utilitarian tops. After the war, the race among the design houses of Paris was back on.
On February 12, 1947, Christian Dior unveiled a new, imaginative approach to couture that celebrated femininity with wasp-waist designs, full hips and confident, coy hats. Overnight, the silhouettes of women's fashion began to change. The press called Dior's revolutionary line the "New Look," which featured ensembles that flowed with geometric curves and contemporary attitudes. And because Paris's high fashion quickly found its way into American magazines and influenced worldwide designers, Dior's New Look became a significant turning point and music to the eyes. The new femininity was angular and free, with a dash of cool. By the early '50s, women's clothes in the new American mass market changed as a result, with tight waists and flared skirts.
Here's a brief look at Dior's New Look. As you watch, realize that all of these modern forms—architecture, art, jazz and fashion—were connected, aesthetically, to an explosively new ideal built on lightness and contrasting tones. And all shared the same youthful optimism, the promise of a new age and a passion for minimalist beauty...
And here's Dior's Bar Suit in action....
Bonus: Here's the Billy Taylor Trio in Paris in late 1946 playing Stridin' Down Champs Elysées, a song that illustrates the effervescent spirit of the city when Dior's New Look was being designed...
