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How to date a photo from the 1950s: full skirts, square prints and the first colour snapshots

· 5 min read · The Memory Palace Team

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Short answer: A photo from 1950 to 1959 is often a square or small black and white print, sometimes with a wavy deckle edge or a month and year printed on the border. Women wear full skirts with a fitted waist or slim pencil skirts; men wear short hair and suits. Colour prints exist but are still a minority.

Last updated: 2 November 2026. Every year on this page was checked against the museums, archives and photo-history sources listed at the bottom.

The 1950s are the decade of the family camera. Box cameras and twin-lens cameras made square prints, slide shows became a family evening, and colour prints slowly arrived in the album. Because so many photos survive from these years, comparing a print with others from the same box is especially useful.

Formats and prints

  • Square prints. Many cameras of the decade used 120 or 620 roll film in a square format, so square black and white prints are typical, usually with a white border.
  • Deckle edges and printed dates. Wavy deckle-cut edges were popular in the middle of the century. Some labs printed or stamped the month and year of processing on the border or the back: read it as "this month or a little earlier".
  • Colour prints. Colour negative prints became more common but remained a minority; colour only became normal in the 1960s. Kodak colour prints from 1954 to 1959 typically have a magenta image colour. From October 1958 Kodak paper carried a faint circular EKC seal on the back.
  • Slides. Kodachrome and, from 1955, Ektachrome in 35 mm made slides popular. See Slides: Kodachrome and Ektachrome.
  • Negatives. Nitrate film was made until 1951; 1950s negatives are almost all acetate safety film.

Clothes and hair

Dior's New Look of 1947 shaped the decade: a fitted bodice, a small waist and a full skirt below the knee, often held out by petticoats. Next to it came the slim pencil skirt, twin sets and neat blouses. Hair was short and curled, or pulled back in a ponytail for younger women. Glasses with upswept frames are typical.

Men had short hair, often combed back with hair cream, and wore suits with narrower lapels as the decade went on. Teenagers appear as a group of their own in the late 1950s, in jeans and leather jackets.

In the background

Rounded post-war cars with chrome, scooters and mopeds, television aerials on roofs and new housing estates are all typical. Like every object, they give an earliest date: the photo cannot be older than the model or the building.

Quick checklist

  • Square black and white print, perhaps with a deckle edge?
  • A month and year printed on the border or the back?
  • Full skirt and small waist, or a pencil skirt?
  • A colour print with a magenta tone (mid to late 1950s)?
  • A faint circular EKC seal on the back (October 1958 or later)?

Try the free photo date tool

Not sure yet? The free photo date tool asks what you can see (the material, the colour, the edge, the back, a printed year) and turns your answers into a period, with the source behind each year. It needs no account and uploads nothing. For digital photos and scans, read when was this photo taken.

Once you know the year

Write the year in soft pencil on the back, and put it at the start of the file name when you scan it. Then hang it with its date in your palace: in The Memory Palace each photo gets its year, the people in it and the story that goes with it, in a room the family can walk through together. You can start your palace for free.

Date a photo from another decade

Previous decade: The 1940s (1940 to 1949). Next decade: The 1960s (1960 to 1969).

Start from the overview: when was this photo taken, or the seven general clues in how to tell when an old photo was taken. All guides on old photos:

Sources

Questions people ask

How can I tell if a photo is from the 1950s?

Typical are square black and white prints with a white border, sometimes with a wavy deckle edge or a printed month and year. Women wear full skirts with a small waist or slim pencil skirts, men short hair and suits. Colour prints exist but are less common than black and white.

What does the date printed on the border of my photo mean?

It is usually the month the film was processed or printed, not the day the photo was taken. Read it as that month or a little before. A roll of film could stay in the camera for months, so a Christmas photo may be printed in March.

Why does my 1950s colour photo look pink?

Kodak colour prints from the mid and late 1950s have a typical magenta image colour, and fading can strengthen the effect. Prints kept in the dark for decades often shift towards red as the cyan dye fades.

When was this photo taken?

Reads the date taken from digital photos and says when only a file date is left. For paper photos and scans, a checklist with sources estimates the period.

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