25. What Were Some of the Things That Lead to a Change in Fashion in the Early 1920s?
Women's fashion changed and so significantly in the 1920s because of the social and political changes that occured in this exuberant decade.
Social Life and the Arts
After the horrors of the Get-go World War, when thousands of immature men died fighting in the trenches, in that location was a full general relaxation of social rules. What followed was a decade of parties, typified past the new dance crazes, such as the Charleston, and a growing involvement in jazz music. The arts flourished with Modernism and, after the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925, the Art Deco movement. Literature included novels such equallyThe Great Gatsby by the American F. Scott Fitzgerald, works from the Bloomsbury grouping, including Virginia Woolf, plays by Noel Coward, or poetry by T. S. Eliot, includingThe Waste matter Land (1922). In Hollywood the film industry continued its steady growth, with influential starlets such as Louise Brooks, and in 1927 the introduction of the 'Talkies'.
Political and Economic Upheaval
However, the decade also saw much political, economic and social upheaval. Women'southward emancipation connected on from the Suffrage Movement of the previous decade. In 1919 women over the age of 30 were granted the right to vote. However, it was not until 1928 that women were granted equal voting rights as men assuasive them to vote at 21. There was growing industrialisation, and major investments were fabricated on the stock exchanges. Meanwhile, poorer sections of British society were hit economically and discontent was expressed by the General Strike of 1926. Finally, the chimera of the Jazz Age of the 1920s finally burst on 24 October 1929 when the New York Stock Substitution crashed. The Wall Street Crash led into a period of financial hard times known every bit the Great Low.
Style
In the immediate post-war period the lost youth of Europe were replaced by androgynous looking women who emulated and aspired to the slim, direct figure of an immature boy. This aesthetic replaced the maternal, feminine, 60 minutes-drinking glass effigy of the Edwardian age and before Gibson Daughter. Constricting corsets were gradually replaced by lighter foundation garments, such every bit brassieres, get-go invented in 1914, and girdles. Flesh coloured silk stockings came into fashion, manufactured with back seams, although cotton wool lisle stockings were popular for more than everyday use and sports.
Many women cropped their hair into a short bob, trimmed at the back with shingling-clippers. The look was dubbedgarçonne, meaning 'boyish' in French. Frequently the bob was styled using the 'Marcel Moving ridge'; a method of waving the hair along natural lines using a pair of tongs, first invented past Marcel Grateau in 1872. The new smart, short hairstyles suited a new way of lid introduced in 1923 known as a cloche. These hats had deep, shut-fitting crowns and no brim.
The await for the 'bright young things' was thoroughly modern, with clean lines and a feel of ease and comfort in the vesture they wore. Eligible ladies were presented at courtroom Drawing Rooms, subsequently appearing in stylish London order and were photographed wearing the latest designs from London and Parisian designers for the pages of Faddy and other, increasingly more numerous, varieties of women'southward magazines. However, it was still possible to see older or less flush women dressed in Edwardian clothing.
Designers, Dressmakers and Section Stores
Gabrielle Chanel, known as 'Coco' to her friends, opened her couture house in 1919 and was one of the leading designers of the 1920s. She was famous for her piece of cake-to-article of clothing knitted garments, including sweaters and twin-prepare ensembles. Her wear combined luxury with simplicity and was oft teamed with stunning pieces of corrective jewellery. On 5 May 1921 she launched her first perfume, Chanel No.five. Other influential designers working during the 1920s included Poiret, Jeanne Lanvin, Vionnet, Schiaparelli, Edward Molyneux and Norman Hartnell, who opened his couture house in 1923.
As the number of designers who produced couture lines increased, and then did the number of section stores who offered ready-to-wearable trickle-downwards copies of the almost upward-to-appointment designs for the masses. With women'due south emancipation, gradually more and more young women were going out to work, and thereby increasing the corporeality of coin they had to spend on the latest fashions. Meanwhile, in that location still continued to exist a big percentage of article of clothing made at dwelling house or by local dressmakers. In response to this market, a growing number of women'due south magazines offered patterns and advice on making women's and children's article of clothing for the home dressmaker.
Trends
Skirts
The beginning of the decade saw ankle length skirts and dresses, with a slightly dropped waistline. Lanvin, in particular, specialised in producing dresses with slightly flared or tiered skirts, with additional width over the hips. However, as the decade progressed, the line became more tubular with the skirt becoming increasingly cutting in a direct line with the bodice. Skirts were at their shortest c.1925-1926, coming to simply below the genu. Towards the end of the decade the look became more than feminine, hemlines became longer, first unevenly with handkerchief skirts or cut longer at the back than the front end. Past 1929 ankle length skirts were back in fashion.
Egyptmania
The 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings in southern Egypt led to a catamenia of Egyptmania, with Egyptian inspired motifs and hieroglyphics appearing on a variety of decorative fine art objects as well as clothing
Cosmetics
Also in this decade the use of cosmetics became increasingly popular. Both Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein had begun experimenting with new facial creams and a new multifariousness of more pare friendly products began to emerge on the market. The fashion was for doll-like faces with pale faces, plucked eye brows, rouged cheeks, and reddish lips with the paint practical to the central lip and Cupid's bow to produce a "bee-stung" silhouette.
This weblog mail service was originally published on the Royal Pavilion and Museum's website.
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