Mid Century design centers around the 1950's, but actually ranges from 1940 (around the end of World War II and rationing) and 1963 (part way in on Beatles hysteria).

It was also the atomic age, in the middle of the nuclear bomb threat and the cold war between Russia and America.

But it was also the age of vinyl and plastics, melamine plates, art deco - which is an influential visual design style which first appeared in France during the 1920s, just before World War I.