Late this past Saturday night, I was glued to the television.  I was watching HBO's Grey Gardens: all about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale - Big Edie, and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale - Little Edie. 

It was rather like watching a train wreck: you knew it was going to turn out badly, but you couldn't look away.  In turns it was beautiful and glamorous, cringe inducing and shocking, and ultimately - very sad.  The ladies' latter years are well known, having been documented by the Maysles brothers in the 70's.

But it was seeing their lives depicted in their "glory days," that made their slide so riveting.  And what glory days they were: two beautiful, vivacious women living the high life - beautifully coiffed, beautifully dressed, beautifully turned out.

In that vein, here's a wonderful YouTube video of fashion images from the 1940's and 1950's.  While those decades were already a bit past the Beale's heyday, it shows that fastidious, glamorous look of earlier times.