Popular Washington, D.C., hostess Mrs. John B. Henderson attempted to start a mass movement against what she considered vulgar fashions, appealing to prominent women’s clubs and colleges for help.

Helen Lansdowne Resor was the most powerful woman in advertising at the time. The head of women’s advertising at the J. Walter Thompson Agency, she worked her way up from secretary thanks to her keen understanding of selling to women. She was the first advertising executive to push sex appeal as a method of marketing to women, often focused on getting male attention. Flappers also received criticism from women’s rights activists like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Lillian Symes, who felt flappers had gone too far in their embrace of licentiousness. End of the FlappersFrom 1925, skirts were climbing steadily and ‘ the Flapper went out shopping for her crown‘. For the first time in history it was smart to be practical – and to wear clothes that demanded less care. Women’s magazines were filled with patterns based on the ‘new Paris styles’ and if a girl could sew, all she needed was the proper material and a large table, on which to lay out her new future dress.

No one knows how the word flapper entered American slang, but its usage first appeared just following World War I. Anna May Wong broke barriers as the first Chinese-American movie star. Her image as a flapper off-screen was encouraged by movie studios to increase her appeal beyond the exotic roles in which they cast her. The fad didn’t last the year. The Flapper – 1920’s fashion art by Coles Phillips 1920’s fashion – The Paris Exposition of 1925 If I ever find any of you using face paint in this house, I’ll take you in hand.” pronounced my father at the dinner table.” Powder’s bad enough – I’ve stood for that, too much of that in fact, but we’ll have no ‘ Painted Ladies’ in this house!” I stood up, regained my composure, and swept majestically from the room. 1920’s makeup tutorial bookThe infamous La Garconne [ Bachelor Girl ] novel by Victor Margueritte, with its beautiful and risque illustrations by Kees van Dongen, and its risque story line of its heroine – Monique, who dressed like a man, smoked cigarettes and has multiple sexual partners of both sexes, perhaps copper fastened the image of the 1920’s flapper. F. Scott Fitzgerald found his place in American literary history with “The Great Gatsby” in 1925, but he had already garnered a reputation before that as a spokesperson for the Jazz Age. The First World War, was where it all really began. Red Cross uniforms were simple, understated and prettily functional. The health and fitness craze which swept the western world, had boarding school girls marching in line around the school grounds; actress Isadore Duncan, with her loose Greek inspired robes, encouraged normally respectable middle class women to leap about in ‘nature dances’ and tableau’s. The popularity of movies exploded during the 1920s, though the screen versions of flappers were typically less permissive than the real-world versions. The first popular flapper movie was “Flaming Youth,” released in 1923 and starring Colleen Moore, who was soon Hollywood’s “go-to” actress for playing flappers onscreen.

Hair was shorter, skirt hems rose, and corsets were banished. Those early bright young things, in their fringe flapper dresses, comprised a mixture of classes for the first time. 1920’s Flapper Style The illustrations of John Held Jr perfectly capture the 1920’s flapper A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Zelda was a stylish, free-spirited young woman who met Fitzgerald in 1918 while he was stationed there in the military. She was 17 at the time and—as the daughter of a prominent local judge—her hedonistic escapades scandalized her family.Anita Loos’ book “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and its follow-up “But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes” were famous satires of the world of flappers. The books focused on flapper Lorelei Lee and her male conquests. The first film version of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” was released in 1928 (another version was released in 1953, starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell). Caroline Reboux, the “Queen of the Milliners.” is generally credited for inventing the famous bell shaped Cloche hat. As early as 1921, she responded to the new Eton crop style haircut favored by many Parisian women, by creating a hat to fit snugly by placing a length of felt on a customer’s head and then cutting and folding it to shape. The style took off and became an iconic image of 1920’s fashion. By mid 1925 – with hair cropped close to the scalp – cloche hats almost resembled bathing caps.