1920s fashion is intrinsically tied to the women's liberation movement.
The time is post-World War I. Having taken on men's roles in the workplace as their spouses went to war, women discovered a newfound sense of independence and freedom. Coupled with the celebratory spirit that came after the end of a brutal war, women in the '20s were ready to shed the confines of Victorian dress and embrace a whole new outlook through fashion.
It could be argued that in the 1920s – specifically post-1925 also known as the Roaring Twenties – fashion symbolised the beginning of women's social liberation. This time of looser silhouettes and the invention of modern fabrics like jersey or rayon stockings coincided with achieving the right to vote.
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After a decade of rising hemlines, for the first time, women of the '20s wore looser clothing that revealed their limbs. Boyish silhouettes were favoured over fit-and-flared styles. The popular tubular “la garçonne” look, aka the flapper topped off with a cloche hat, became the typical uniform of the day, in no small part thanks to Coco Chanel, who popularised the style and became one of the most prominent designers of the period.
Sportswear and daywear also came into favour; while sportswear had long been an acceptable form of casual wear for men, women soon came to adopt the more movement-friendly styles thanks to designers such as Jane Regny and Jean Patou, who took inspiration from tennis, the most popular sport for women in the ’20s.
As for evening wear, cocktail dresses became popular that merged the effortless, shift day dresses with more expensive fabrics, often featuring velvet, fringe and designs inspired by surrealism or Art Deco.
Below, take a look at the hallmarks of 1920s fashion from La Garçonne to the Little Black Dress.
One can't talk about 1920s fashion without thinking of the dazzling descriptions of glamour and excess in The Great Gatsby. The Jazz Age was a term popularised by Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald, referring to this period in the 1920s when jazz music, hailing from African-American roots, became the music of the youth. The accompanying dance called the Charleston replaced the waltz, and its upbeat rhythm required the dancer to be quick on their feet and flap their arms, giving rise to the term “flapper” to describe the dancers. As a result, outfits had to adapt to allow women to move freely, which meant shorter hems and often beaded fringes that swung along.
After quite literally rolling their sleeves up and contributing to the economy during the war, women were certainly not going to go back to the restrictive (and at times suffocating) styles of the Victorian era. A boyish, more masculine shape or “La Garçonne” was born that featured straight, loose cuts that flattened the breasts and hips.
Coco Chanel, again, was at the forefront of the trend, as was Jean Patou, a new French designer, who popularised the two-piece sweater and skirt looks in luxurious wool jersey, as well as morning dresses and sports suits. Elsa Schiaparelli, queen of fashion surrealism, referenced the Art Deco movement's practical and functional artistic approach. The result was collections featuring geometric prints, linear shapes and touches of gilded glamour.
Popularised by milliner Caroline Reboux in 1908, the small, rounded hat style gets its name after the French word for “bell”, and went hand-in-hand with the bobbed hairstyle.
In fact, Coco Chanel also wore the bobbed haircut, a radical, bowler hairstyle that was first heavily criticised by conservative members of families before becoming the standardised cut of the ‘20s. Remember when Lady Mary first chopped off her locks in an early season of Downton Abbey, eliciting shock and horror from her grandmother (played by Dame Maggie Smith, may she rest in peace)?
Another one of Coco Chanel's major contributions to fashion is the Little Black Dress (LBD). Before this period, black was primarily associated with mourning and was not considered fashionable for evening wear, but Chanel’s 1926 little black dress in a crepe de chine was entirely modern. The look became a mainstay thanks to its flattering design and universal appeal. The LBD soon became a staple of women's wardrobes still today and laid the foundation for its enduring status as a timeless classic in fashion history.
