The costume history image in our minds of a woman of the 'Roaring Twenties' is actually likely to be the image of a flapper. Flappers did not truly emerge until 1926. Flapper fashion embraced all things and styles modern. A fashionable flapper had short sleek hair, a shorter than average shapeless shift dress, a chest as flat as a board, wore make up and applied it in public, smoked with a long cigarette holder, exposed her limbs and epitomised the spirit of a reckless rebel who danced the nights away in the Jazz Age. The French called the flapper fashion style the 'garçonne'. | I believe this dress above is my very favorite though I have to say I LOVE everyone of them and would love to get the chance to wear any of them It would be such fun Which one would you like to wear ?? Leave a 'comment' and let us all know |
Highly detailed 1920's Wedding cap ..love the lace High fashion until the twenties had been for the richer women of society. But because construction of the flapper's dress was less complicated than earlier fashions, women were much more successful at home dressmaking a flapper dress which was a straight shift. It was easier to produce up to date plain flapper fashions quickly using flapper fashion Butterick dress patterns. Recorded fashion history images after the twenties do reflect what ordinary women really wore rather than just the clothing of the rich. From 1913 the hemline had begun to show a little ankle. Between 1916 and 1929 hemlines rose steadily, faltered then rose again. In 1918 skirt lengths were just below calf length. Calf length loose dresses circa 1918 compared with those of 1920 where the waist has shown a definite drop, but the length remains steady around the calf area. In 1919 skirt lengths were calf length. Between 1920 and 1924 skirts remained calf length with fluctuations of an inch or two according to garment style. Skirts were actually still rather long, but were designed to confuse. The slender flat-chested tanned body and face of a 15 year old became the desired silhouette of the bright young things of the 1920s. Health and beauty clubs helped women refine their silhouettes whilst getting fitter and healthier. It was a difficult time for the former matrons of Edwardian society, the previous leaders of fashion whose style of dressing became as passé as their rounded figures and older faces. More youthful women who could party all night and carry the boyish fashions well were all the rage. “ The New Woman of the 1920s boldly asserted her right to dance, drink, smoke, and date—to work her own property, to live free of the strictures that governed her mother’s generation. She flouted Victorian-era conventions and scandalized her parents. In many ways, she controlled her own destiny.” ― Joshua Zeitz, Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern Hope you enjoyed my blog on 1920's fashion I enjoyed compiling it for you Most of the dresses are photographed by & available to see at The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York | The flapper fashion style flourished amid the middle classes negating differences between themselves and the truly rich, but continuing to highlight some differences with the really poor. The really rich still continued to wear beautifully embellished silk garments for evening, but the masses revelled in their new found sophistication of very fashionable flapper clothes. By 1926 skirts were at their shortest in the Twenties decade and showed the knee until 1928. The whole leg as far as the kneecap was revealed this was the height of flapper fashion. The one above is actually a night gown ..can you imagine waking up wearing this in the morning. Those were the days. “Now I am old-fashioned. A woman, I consider, should be womanly. I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney and uses language which would make a billingsgate fishwoman blush!” ― Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links |