A Girl Should be Two Things: Classy and Fabulous.

Coco Chanel said it best. Women's clothing has changed through the years. New words have been added, some taken away as the styles have changed. I'm going to use the corpus to take a look at these changes.

Every Day Clothes

Skirt

As one of the most critical articles in a women's closet, I took a look at the word 'skirt'. As you look at the chart of the word from 1810-2000 (COHA), you notice a definite increase of the word. It can be assumed that while there were skirts dresses were most popular for a while, which can be seen in the chart for dress (lower down on the page). This same pattern is seen in other corpora (Google Books), with an increase of the word and a peak in the 1940s.

A look at collocates shows the type of skirts that have been worn (collocates). There are many ways to describe skirts today, but in the past words like "woolen" "coarse" "fringed" and "silken" were used.

An interesting note, the mini skirt was a popular change in the type of dress worn by women, has a steady use from the 1960s-1990s, and a sudden increase in the 2000s (COHA).

Dress

A dress is another stable in the women's closet has seen almost the opposite change as skirts have (COHA). While constantly staying in the high usage of the language it has seen a slight decrease in the past couple of decades. Google books agrees with this, and confirms that while skirt has raised a bit the past little bit, dress and decreased in use (Google Books)

The collocates show many of the same words used to describe dress as they did skirts, with "white" being the most common instead of "black" (collocates). 

Blouse 

We commonly think of a blouse as being an article of women's clothing. A look at some examples in the corpus shows that that wasn't always so, but that the popularity of this article of clothing didn't rise until women started to wear it (COHA). Google Books appears to have similar results (Google Books)

Descriptive collocates don't really start to appear until between 1910-1930 (collocates). 

Jeans

Jeans are another common article of clothing that were established by men before being worn by women. While looking at the corpus for the word "jeans" with "her" as a collocate, you can see that it begins in the 1940s with a increase up until today (COHA). Google Books won't show a chart, but the list give similar results, but having jeans with the "her" collocate start in the 1930s (Google Books)

Outerwear

Blazer

Again, another article worn by men but eventually used by a women. If you do just a search for blazer in coha, you will see that the increase doesn't happen until the article is worn by both men and women (COHA, with a complimenting search for blazer with her as a collocate here). Google Books shows a steady increase of the word as a whole (Google Books)

Peacoat

While not extremely common, I thought this was an interesting article of clothing to look at, as it is yet another example of men's style creeping into women's style. Coha gives a minimal use of this word until the 2000s, where it jumps up, and not so coincidentally has most use of the word for a women's article of clothing (COHA). Google Books again shows the exact same pattern, with the huge increase in the 2000s (Google Book)

Scarves

Scarves are less used today for warmth then for style. A look at the collocates for this word show this, with the common words today being colors and designs, and words like woolen until rank 10 and heave not until 14 (collocates).

Footwear

Tights/Stockings

These words are almost interchangeable today, and even though the use of them has drastically dropped they show a sort of opposition in use. Tights rise up during the past couple of decades, while stockings had a high use and steadily dropped. (Coha: tights stockings)

Heels

As these are also parts of the feet, it was hard to look up what I wanted in the word heel. I used the collocates shoes and wear to get my results. If you look at these, you notice an increase and significant peak in the 1940s (interestingly enough the same thing as skirt) (coha: shoes wear)

Flats

It is easy to assume that women have been wearing flat shoes for a majority of their history. This is an example where we have needed to create a word for something we've already had because of the increase or newly creation of a word. With heels and pumps becoming increasingly popular, we needed a word that would explain a flat nice shoe. Coha shows that this is a new invention, only giving use in the 2000s (COHA). A deeper look into Coca shows that this has the most popularity in just the last couple of years (COCA).

Extras

Bikini

One can not have a discussion about women's clothing without talking about the bikini. It was named after the Bikini Island, and was seen as revolutionary as it was one of the first swimwear to show the navel. The corpora show the start of this and the increase of it as well (COHA). Modesty appears to have played a role in the popularity of the bikini as its biggest increase isn't until the 2000s. Bikini doesn't really appear in Google Books until the 1950s, and again doesn't increase until the 2000s (Google Books)

Tankini

As the use of bikinis rose, so did other forms of swimsuits. The tankini became a more modest form of the two piece bikini, and has been used in its place by many people. Coca shows that this isn't a necessarily serious word, and can mostly be found in spoken and magazine genres (COCA).Tankini doesn't show up until the 2000s in Google Books, just as it was in Coha (Google Books).

Necklace

Necklaces are common accessories with all women's outfits. They have been in popular use through the ages, as seen in coha. It has had a rocky lifespan, dropping in the 60s and 70s to rise again at an all time high during this last decade (COHA). The use of the necklace seems to correlate with when women were prosperous enough to have fine jewelry.

Using the collocates in coha, you can see that longer necklaces are in style now, as they were in the 1900s and the 1920s. (collocates). It also shows that precious gems were commonly used in necklaces, but aren't anymore.

Earring

This is another common accessory, one that I assumed had been worn for many decades. Coha shows that there was some but minimal use until the 1940s, where it has mostly continued in growth.(COHA). Google Books doesn't show a huge increase in the use of earrings until the 1970s, but it has increased ever since then. (Google Book)