Fashions in the 1920s: The Birth of Modern Style

Morals, customs, technologies, moods, and fashions in the 1920s shifted from repressed and conservative to assertive and independent.

Cigarette smoking, fast driving, and "necking" in the back seat of cars became popular with young people especially women.

Young women dressed for ease of movement and style rather than for traditional social acceptance.

Clothes, along with the characters wearing them, became more colorful. Accessories like handbags, gaudy necklaces, bracelets, and pocket flasks became the norm.

Why do you think we still talk about 1920's fashion eighty years later?

The answer is because the styles and fashions were iconic, timeless classics that still shape the clothes we wear today! It's not simply a matter of beautiful styles, but also the "modern" attitude and spirit.

Birth of The "Boyish Look"

Beautiful spirited young women like Zelda Sayre (F. Scott Fitzgerald's girlfriend), Coco Chanel (of Chanel #5 fame), Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks shaped modern women's attitudes, styles and fashions forever.

Fashion designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel has been given credit for being the "creator of the modern woman."

Chanel adapted men's clothes into comfortable, stylish, and androgynous, yet sexy, clothes for the modern woman.

Women's fashion certainly took on a "boyish" look during the twenties.

Hair
Woman's long hair was replaced by very "boyish" styles that fit beneath the cloche-style hats that were popular.

Along with short skirts, short women's haircuts became symbolic of woman's desire to assert themselves in American society.

"The Bob", The Shingle ("boyish bob"), and The Eton Crop (a la Annie Lennox) among others were very popular during during the twenties.

More soon about fashions in the 1920s.

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