Flapper.
Today the word is mainly used in reference to fashion trends and brings to mind long strands of pearls, short dresses covered in beading, finger-waved hair and smoky eye make-up. In fact, many histories of the American 1920s gloss over the flapper’s history as simply a novelty fashion trend. While fashion was a huge part of the flapper persona, the way she chose to look was about much more than a haircut and exposed skin. In his book, Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity and the Women Who Made America Modern, Joshua Zeitz gives us an in-depth look at this controversial figure who literally dragged America out of its stifling Victorian stupor and clearly paved the way for today’s society.
Changing Society's Perceptions
Thoroughly researched and well-illustrated, Flapper is an engaging account of the Jazz Age and the women who shunned the traditional female roles their mothers and grandmothers had dutifully filled to celebrate a general naughtiness. These were young girls who blurred gender roles by taking on a more masculine lifestyle; they wore their hair short, drank and smoked liberally, and explored their sexuality. But this behavior didn't eradicate their femininity, it simply provided a much-needed adaption to society's perception of what a woman should and shouldn't be.
In every way the flapper modeled herself in contrast to the Victorian ideal and this was most obvious in her appearance. This New Woman wore loose, sleek, short dresses that came well above her knee and was incredibly liberating in comparison to the exaggerated, corseted and padded silhouette of the Victorian woman that restricted a woman's breathing and natural movement to the extent that they could do little more than take dainty steps. Combined with her bobbed hair, smoky eye make-up and pouty red lips, long scarves and necklaces and heels, the flapper always looked ready to dance, climb into the back of a car or crash a party.
Iconic Figures
Zeitz singles out F. Scott Fitzgerald as the “premier analyst” who inspired (and was inspired by) the antics of his muse and wife, Zelda, the “prototype” of the flapper. He also gives credit to a number of cultural figures who had a hand in propagating the flapper mystique. Writers, film stars, artists, clothing designers, the flapper was much more than just a trend. There was Lois Long, who filled her columns in the New Yorker Magazine with scandalous tales of the flapper nightlife; and coquettishly seductive screen starlets Colleen Moore, Clara Bow and Louise Brooks who immortalized the Betty Boop-like flapper on the big screen, though Hollywood was relatively hesitant to cash in on the trend.
There was also the neophyte French fashion designer Coco Chanel, herself the epitome of a New Woman, whose sleek, androgynous clothing redefined femininity and sexuality; and the art of illustrator and New Woman Gordon Conway and her American counterpart, John Held, whose illustrations brought the visual of the flapper to the public, long before Hollywood put its own spin on it.
A Time of Change
Dancing (perhaps the Charleston) all over the cultural landscape, Zeitz provides not only a look at the prominent social figures of the Jazz Age, but offers equally absorbing descriptions of the changing atmosphere in 1920s America. He covers every angle – media manipulation, advertising, cars, smoking, athletics, dating, literature, sex, drinking, fashion, movies, feminism, higher education, racism and economics. Social history should always be this good. At a time when the media and the advertising industry was beginning to understand its the potential for manipulative, everything in America seemed ripe for change. Female athletes, increasingly freed from Victorian fashions, began to emerge. Dating and courtship left the parlours of the family homes. Hints of personal sexual freedom emerged and started its slow revolution.
By today’s standards, the flapper seems relatively conservative and for the most part history has written her off as little more than an oddity of the time. Zeitz argues that the seemingly frivolous lifestyle of the flapper was the beginning of the modern age, not only for women but for society as a whole. His engaging social history delves beneath the surface of this short-lived party girl persona and discovers she was in fact, the key to change in the 1920s.
Catherine Solmes - Currently residing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and writes whenever she can. Contributes to www.northernstars.ca, www.thisnext.com and ...
