1920's Women's Fashion

The picture below is one I recently came across of my great grandparents and two friends. It inspired me to write a little about women's fashion in the 1920s.

My great grandmother is the woman in the hat and my great grandfather is the man on the right.

When we think of the 1920s we think of the “roaring 20s”. Strongly independent women were dubbed "flappers". The flappers had a lifestyle like no one had seen much of before the 1920s. In actuality flappers did not truly emerge until 1926. A fashionable flapper in the 20’s had short sleek hair (like the bob), a shorter than average shapeless shift dress (dubbed the flapper dress by many), 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. In fact, the slender flat-chested, tanned body and face of a 15 year old became the desired silhouette of the bright young things of the 20s. Big busted girls turned to bandaging their breasts flat, but many adopted the Symington Side Lacer, a bra that could be laced at both sides and pulled and pulled in to flatten the chest.

Picture above is of actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford wearing fashions of the early 1920s.

Actress Alice Joyce in a straight evening gown with a sheer beaded overdress, 1926.