This document summarizes changes in women's fashion and lifestyle in the 1920s following World War I. Women celebrated new social freedoms by adopting a boyish, androgynous look with short hair, loose clothing allowing movement, and less emphasis on feminine curves. Behaviors also shifted as women began smoking, dancing freely, and socializing openly with men. This signified women's growing independence during the era.

1. “This is the period of short skirts, shirt shrift,
Flappers short credit and short names.”-Vogue 1924
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Summary
Before
Attitude
Dance
HAIR + Make UP
Dress
After
Works Cited

2. “ In the 1920’s
women celebrated the financial
social freedoms they had earned
and Summary
during the war by inventing a totally new
look. Now leading more active
lives, women wanted clothing and
hairstyles to match. As
the fussiness
of prewar years dropped
away, women cropped their hair into
easy-to-manage, boyish bobs and began to
wear shorter, loose-fitting garments that allowed far
greater freedom of
movement”
-(20th century Design)

3. DURING THE WAR: boys and the girls broke out
of society's structure; they found it very
difficult to return
“They found themselves
expected to settle down into
the humdrum routine of
American life as if nothing
had happened, to accept
the moral dicta of elders who
seemed to them still to be
living in a Pollyanna land of
rosy ideals which the war
had killed for them.
They couldn't do it, and they very
disrespectfully said so.”

4. ATTITUDE
OUT IN
Men Smoking Women Smoking
Dancing During the Day Dancing All Night
Covering Chests Flattening Chests
Secret Sex Lives Active Sex Lives
Curvy-feminine bodies Skinny-boyish bodies
Conformity Rebellion
Female Elegance Girlish Innocence
“Make a home and lead her “Mix a cocktail and take her
in” out”
Shortage Excess
Feminine Androgynous
Classic Jazz

6. hairand
MAKEUP
• RED LIPS
• DARK EYES
• SHORT HAIR

7. Drop the
hemlines, loose
the corsets. Tape
your chest and
shorten your
sleeves.
“I make fashions women can live in and feel
comfortable in.”- Coco Chanel
“To achieve the new slim line –
modern, minimal, geometric- the
surface of the body was broken up
by shapes of contrasting
color, dismantled and reassembled
rather like a Cubist painting”
DRE
MOD

8. 1929: The Great Depression ends the extravagance
Once roudy Flappers marry and settle by 1930’s.
CHANGE: women’s freedom to enjoy
themselves alongside men. It became much more
common for women to enjoy drinking, dancing
and even active sex lives. “Within a couple of
decades, the freedom to play would grow into the
freedom for women to work alongside men as
well.”

9. works consulted
• "1920s Fashion." Bowling, Beatniks, and Bell-Bottoms: Pop Culture of 20th-Century America
(Five Volume Set). Boston: U·x·l / Thomson Gale, 2002. 263-265. Print.
• Gaff, Jackie. 20S & 30s: Between the Wars (20th Century Design). Milwaukee: Gareth Stevens
Publishing, 2000. Print.
• Herald, Jacqueline. Fashions of a Decade: The 1920s (Fashions of a Decade). New York: Facts
on File, 1991. Print.
• Unknown. Flapper1923. N.d. Style High Club, Unknown. Style High Club. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.
• Unknown. Great Depression. N.d. Weblogs, Unknown. Weblogs. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.
• Unknown. Flappers. N.d. Flappers, Unknown. History 1900s. Web. 9 Apr. 2010.
• Unknown. Flapper. N.d. 1920's Photos, Unknown. Flickr. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.
• Unknown. Flapper. 1923. Grace Magazine, Unknown. Grace Magazine. Web. 10 Apr. 2010.
• Watson, Linda. Twentieth Century Fashion: 100 Years of Style By Decade & Designer Volume
4: Fashion Designers G-m. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. Print.