even if i don't hear it. ♪ >> announcer: enjoy this special preview of the cnn upcoming series "american style". how you live and what your values are, that's what style is. >> style is how you surround yourself. >> it's each generation finding their identity. >> have you ever broken any rules, selena? >> and looking at the '40s and '50s, there's a tremendous amount of change. >> the bikini was the biggest thing since the atom bomb. it's scandalous. >> hollywood has always been so influential in how women view

themselves. >> i mean katharine hepburn made pants happen. >> going against the grain had become its own unique identity. >> hey, what are you rebelling against? >> what have you got? >> the '40s and '50s were definitely america finding itself, a voice for american style. ♪ ♪

>> in the beginning, the 1940s, american style was very simple, without a lot of adornment. >> coming out of the '30s, consumption was not something you did. i mean, you know, we all hear stories of grandparents who say, hold on, i want to say that tv dinner foil. i'm going to use that again. that's the mentality of growing up in a depression. when you don't have stuff, you work with what you have. >> most women learned how to sew at a very early age, and they were make their own shirts and dresses and, you know, whole wardrobe. >> my mother had a sewing machine. i was constantly telling her what i wanted, and she would constantly tell me that it would have to be something else. >> it was a different mentality.

>> an everyday man would probably own one suit and one hat. >> my grandfather would take my mother to baseball games. he always was in a suit and tie and often a vest, you know, on the hottest day. my mother, who loved to go with him, would say, why are you wearing a suit? and he would say, you know, i'm taking a lady out. i always wear a suit. there wasn't a lot of ingenuity going on in fashion. >> america was still a remarkably provincial country. the leading emphasis not only in fashion but in art, et cetera, was in france. >> americans felt very second-rate when comparing ourselves to europe. we've always seen europe as the leaders. >> americans looked, i think, to europe as aristocratic. we had europe as, you know, the

icon of style. >> before world war ii, we were a nation of copiers. we've been a nation of copiers. >> december 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. the american people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. >> during world war ii, everyone was involved in that war effort. ♪ >> war ration book number two, 180 million of them rolling off the presses. coupons that represent civilian america's future purchases of rationed goods. >> the government rationing that happened as a result of the war dramatically impacted style.

>> textiles are not being used for apparel purposes, at least on civilians. everything's being channeled to the war efforts. >> during the war, extraneous waste of materials like extra pockets would be forbidden by the new rationing rules. >> men's clothing, which used to be identified by having jackets with lapels and pants with cuffs and pleats, all that excess fabric goes away. >> you could not have flaps on a jacket pocket. the pants could not be wider than 19 1/2 inches. >> women were asked to give up their silk stockings so they could be recycled for war purpose. >> off the stockings, girls. they're due for the discard and the war effort needs them. the stockings will be used in making powder bags for firing heavy guns. >> the scarcity of things pushed people to be more creative, like women drawing a line on the back

of their legs to imitate the seam of their stockings. >> it's just a lowdown trick for the eye brown pencil. legs or eyebrows, it's all the same. only a little difference in shape. >> girls would turn tablecloths into skirts, for example. >> people at that stage were very much behind the war effort. it was something that created a sense of community and pulling together. it made people feel involved in what was going on around them because it literally hit them in every aspect of their home and domestic life. >> pre-war women were still predominantly in the household. it was crazy before to have women in the workplace. certainly not even considered that women would be something like a welder. but when world war ii hit, all of a sudden women flooded the workforce. >> but it's really not good to

wear a big, puffy skirt when you're operating heavy machinery. so utilitarian needs required women to suit up and hit the factories. >> the age of rosie the riveter changes women's sense of style, changed how they expressed themselves. >> it was a change in the lifestyle of the woman, and i think that affected what she was exposed to. she had new influences, new environment, new stimulus. >> it was an emancipation for the woman. they had that strength that women have when things are tough. >> wearing the pants and taking on male roles had a subliminal message that there could be a toughness about women that was never identified before. that changed everything.

>> for men, certainly in the '40s, it was considered not a manly thing to be even thinking about wardrobe. you just wore clothes. >> but there was a style that started for men, and it was a very different, very colorful style. >> a very extravagant way of dressing that was embraced by minorities. ♪ ♪ i want a zoot suit >> zoot suits were primarily worn by african-american and latino-american men. >> people who were sort of on the outside edge. >> the suits were long jackets and very full trousers and had various accessories like, you know, a watch fob on a long

chain, et cetera. it was really one of the first youth cultures. >> some might see the zoo suit -- zoot suit as flashy and perhaps it was. but these were the most marginalized people in society. and even though they may have been treated as second-class citizens, when they put on these zoot suits, they suddenly had an identity. they suddenly could see themselves in a different light. >> the '40s were a period when there was tremendous panic, paranoia about youth cultures and particularly when they were minority youth cultures. so there were a lot of racist reactions against zoot suitors. most notoriously in the so-called zoot suit riots in los angeles in 1943. crowds of white men and servicemen were beating up latino and black men for wearing zoot suits.

soldiers who were on leave, seeing these guys and saying, you're unpatriotic. you know, they defied the war rationing efforts. >> the pride of these individuals wearing an the suit was offensive to a lot of conservative white males who were not comfortable with men of color asserting themself in any way, even in the way that they dressed. >> the zoot suit came to be the kind of lightning rod the prejudice and fear and racism. it was the symbol of conflict in the united states. >> hollywood, brilliant tinsel city of lights and fantasy. hollywood, glorified glittering, fascinating, fabulous mythical kingdom.

hollywood, the glamour capital of the world. >> before world war ii, we would head to the paris couture collections. we would sketch, we'd photograph them and then bring back all of those ideas and copy them here. the only place in this nation where anything was happening that was creative an innovative in fashion was hollywood. parson school of design launched the first program in fashion in 1906. where did those early graduates go? they went to the up and coming and then about your jojing it film industry in hollywood. >> hollywood s has always been america's dream factory, and that was especially true i think before the rise of other media like television. americans looked to hollywood movies and they saw the kind of lives they wanted to live, the cars they wanted to drive, the

clothes they wanted to wear. >> film was very escapist. people went to see fred and ginger rogers because they wanted to escape the misery they were living in during the war. >> hollywood was it. these were the gods and goddesses around whom america formed their dreams and their ideals. >> back in those days, there were movie magazines, portraits of movie stars one after another. they're the ones that are projecting style. so you had somebody like rita hayworth, eva gardener, they represented sort of the iconic cha-cha cha. >> everyone wanted to look like joan crawford. everyone wanted to look like marlaina dietrich. >> audrey hepburn, you know, she's the one that owned the crisp white shirt and the capri pant and the flat and your hair back and possibly a little scarf. so many people love that style

because you don't even have to say anything when you walk in the door, you look sophisticated. >> my mom ingrid bergman did a film called "for whom the bell tolled," where she wore very short hair and that hair she told me she had heard a lot of women going to the hairdresser and saying i want the ingrid bergman haircut, very short hair. >> today, when we think about the '40s, we think about big shoulder pads. >> '40s was the age of the shoulder pads. >> joan crawford was very short. she had hims that were about the same width as her shoulders. she was never going to be a glamorous goddess without a little bit of help. but adrian, the costume designer at mg pl did, he said rather than trial to hide her broad shoulders, let's accentuate them. and so he koreas the shoulder pad. so she comes into a room and it is a powerful entrance.

because she's got these big masculine shoulders, and it helps establish her image as a powerful woman who is competing head to head with men and usually wins. >> she's a working woman. and she is a pioneer. it's a woman who is in charge and is a woman who is independent. that's what american style is about. >> adrian came up with another solution for her. he creates it for the movie speak letty lint on," this dress. and it's got big puff fu taffeta on the shoulders and what it does is it creates this illusion that joan has tiny little waist and tiny little hips. this glamorous impression of joan crawford, it goes on to become the first hollywood design that is copied and mass produced and sold in department stores all across the country. >> and so they would have it in the window with a picture of joan crawford, which sold many,

many tens of thousands of copies. >> hollywood has had as effect on the public, wanting to live that lifestyle or wanting to emulate the stars. >> you say it's the same as joan crawford wears in a new picture? >> it's styled the same and it definitely reflects the hollywood influence. >> then may i have it? >> it's yours. >> i thought the '40s were a gorgeous period of time to watch. then they all talked very fast and they had that voice. i didn't know what it was, but i liked it. >> have you ever broken any rules, salena. >> gosh, you're right. shall we make an exception in her case. >> why don't we make up a rule of our own. >> katharine hepburn was a gender outlaw from the time she said being a little girl is a torment and she insisted that everybody call her jimmy. she wore boys dloesz and that was pretty much still the world view she had when she went to hollywood.

she didn't want to the belate game of hollywood, put on your prettyist dress. >> katharine hepburn made pants happen. >> it was seen as being a very tomboyish look, often with mannish jackets. so it was a glar morization of that androgenous look for women. >> smooel she did it beautifully and i think in a very feminine way and she didn't look as if she was trying to be a man and fool all of us. she was catherine hepburn and she is saying here i am and i'm me and i love that aboutler. >> there was a huge pushback against hepburn wearing pants. gossip columnists would spend it the entire column writing about how she wasn't living up to the standards of what will people expected a woman to do in public and how they expected her to be and act. >> it certainly gave women who had never worn pants and thought oh, this is something i simply can't do in my real life, it gave them a lot of confidence about this is okay, i can do it, katharine hepburn does. >> she successfully stood up to what hollywood expectedler to be

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