Did people really wear those in the 50's? I think not. The closest thing to tight black pants in the 50's were cigarette pants & the pants Sandy wore in the end looks nothing like those. Looks more like 70's disco hot pants if you ask me. Anyone who grew up in the 50's know for sure? Genuine 50's attire or a movie fabrication?
shareI wasn't around then but Olivia Newton John has said that the pants were "REALLY from the Fifties".
I remember that style being popular in the late Seventies. I always assumed it was because they were used in Grease, not used in Grease because they were popular at the time.
Exaggerated for Hollywood. Grease wasn't about historical accuracy, it was just for fun. (The 1950s wasn't known for 25-year-old high school students either, and high school prom crowds didn't spontaneously break into highly-choreographed routines, either.)
But yes, pants were worn that tight. You mentioned cigarette pants - Google that together with "Audrey Hepburn" for some accurate-to-the period black pants.
Then there's this: https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/32kdz7/betty_brosmer_the_girl_with_the_impossible_waist/.
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Nothing to see here, move along.
But Hepburns trousers were not that tight. Sandy’s pants at the end of Grease were inspired by Hepburn’s Funny Face cigarette trousers, but they were much tighter. They were designed to cause a spectacle. And they did.
Olivia Newton-John is wearing something akin to the spandex look, but before it was invented. ONJ’s costume inspired a look that became popular in the 70s after being introduced in Grease. Following their debut in Grease, Raquel Welch wore similar pants on stage and tv, but they were loose at the ankle.
The poor ONJ couldnt go take a piss the entire day she had to wear the Sexy Black.Sandy get-up.
shareYes, they had pants like that in the 1950s. In the '50s my mom used to wear pants called "pedal pushers" that were like they had been spray painted on her.
shareThey sure did. I saw an episode of Happy Days and Fonzie's girlfriend had a cousin whose name was Leather and she wore the same tight black pants.
shareVery tight women's pants didn't come in until the early 1960s, and no pants of the period were THAT tight. (Ann-Margaret in 1963 at link.)
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7b/64/2b/7b642b8f0f38cbf587cc3629ca1845ea.gif
But then that costume wasn't meant to look period-authentic, it was meant to look shockingly slutty by the standards of the 1950s and 1970s. And well, it still looks slutty today, so IMHO the look was as successful as a costume designer could wish.