Clara's Pedal Pushers

Another scorcher of a week here in Arizona. It's a little cooler than last week; only 106 today. So this week, since it's still so hot, Clara has some capris – or pedal pushers – from the 1950s.

Up through the 1940s, pants were still scandalous for women to wear. However, pants became suitable for women during World War II, when women wore trousers to work in factories in place of the men who were at war. By the 1950s, many styles of pants were worn by women and girls, including these short pants, known by many names: pedal pushers, three-quarter shorts, capris, or clam diggers. Clara's pedal pushers have some cute trim on the cuff.

Clara also has a matching long tunic for a blouse, with geometric trim at the neck, and large pockets. The tunic style of top was quite popular in various forms through the 1950s.

To finish off her outfit, Clara has some simple ballet slippers. Although Clara's pair for today is quite simple to match her outfit, it was also the style to have bows, buckles, rhinestone clips, or other decorations on similar shoes.

The original tunic and pants were a navy blue with a gingham trim (red and white checks) around the neck, sleeves, and pant cuffs. The original shoes were white.

You may be interested to know that black and white were extremely popular in the 50s. Ladies wore white with black accessories and trim, or black with a little white. Some of the other popular colors for clothing in the 1950s were:


To print Clara's outfit, use this PDF file:
Clara's Dress 26 (731k)

Clara is a free, printable paper doll. Clara will continue to be available on this blog as long as I post new fashion pages for her. You can read the introduction for the Clara paper doll here.

To print the Clara paper doll, use this PDF file:
The Clara Paper Doll (745k)