The 1950s late 1940s into the 1950s
Poodle Skirt
A felt circle skirt appliquéd with a poodle motif - pure teenage novelty wear, and probably the single most recognizable garment of the decade, even though it actually originated in the late 1940s.
If the circle skirt is the sensible parent, the poodle skirt is its novelty-obsessed teenage kid - same basic construction, but built entirely to be fun and a little silly. It's hard to think of a garment that says "1950s teenager" faster, even though it's actually a 1947 invention (designer Juli Lynne Charlot is credited with the original appliquéd felt skirts) that then became a defining craze of the following decade.
Felt is really what made this craze so accessible in the first place - unlike woven fabric, felt doesn't fray at a cut edge, which means an appliqué motif could simply be cut to shape and glued or blanket-stitched directly onto the skirt without any hemming or finishing on the shape itself. That's a genuinely low-skill, low-equipment craft project: no sewing machine strictly required, no pattern grading, just a template, a pair of scissors, and a full circle skirt as a blank canvas. Poodles were the signature motif, often with a real chain or leash appliquéd on for extra dimension, but the same basic technique got applied to hot rods, musical notes, playing cards, and just about any other novelty image a teenager wanted broadcasting off her skirt.
That accessibility is exactly why homemade versions spread as fast and as widely as they did - home economics classes across the country, already teaching girls basic garment construction, could turn a felt circle skirt and appliqué into a genuinely satisfying beginner project with a fashionable, of-the-moment result, rather than a purely academic sewing exercise. It plugged directly into the broader story covered in the rise of teen fashion - this is a garment teenagers could make themselves, customize entirely to their own taste, and wear as a genuine badge of belonging to a specific youth culture, at a moment when "teenager" was crystallizing as its own consumer identity separate from childhood or adulthood for really the first time. I don't think it's an exaggeration to call the poodle skirt one of the most democratic garments in this whole section - you didn't need money or a dressmaker, just a sewing class and an afternoon.