The flapper, the heroine of the roaring 20′s

Posté par admin
mardi 23 août 2005 [n° 346]

The flapper : a definition

John Held Jr who defines the “Roaring Twenties“, immortalized the flapper in his cartoons by drawing young girls wearing unbuckled galoshes that would make a “flapping” noise when walking.

F. Scott Fitzgerald described the ideal flapper as “lovely, expensive, and about nineteen.”

Warren Fabian, the director of the film “Flaming Youth” (1923) , declared : “They’re all desperadoes, these kids, all of them with any life in their veins; the girls as well as the boys; maybe more than the boys.”

The scandal of freedom

The flapper was definitely modern, and offended the older generation because she defied conventions of acceptable feminine behavior.

A flapper’s appeal to parents by Ellen Welles Page, Outlook magazine December 6, 1922

THE FLAPPER
by Dorothy Parker

The Playful flapper here we see,
The fairest of the fair.
She’s not what Grandma used to be, –
You might say, au contraire.
Her girlish ways may make a stir,
Her manners cause a scene,
But there is no more harm in her
Than in a submarine.

She nightly knocks for many a goal
The usual dancing men.
Her speed is great, but her control
Is something else again.
All spotlights focus on her pranks.
All tongues her prowess herald.
For which she well may render thanks
To God and Scott Fitzgerald.

Her golden rule is plain enough -
Just get them young and treat them
rough.

Defense of the flapper

Flapper Jane

“That fact is, as Jane says, that women to-day are shaking off the shreds and patches of their age-old servitude. “Feminism” has won a victory so nearly complete that we have even forgotten the fierce challenge which once inhered in the very word. Women have highly resolved that they are just as good as men, and intend to be treated so. They don’t mean to have any more unwanted children. They don’t intend to be debarred from any profession or occupation which they choose to enter. They clearly mean (even though not all of them yet realize it) that in the great game of sexual selection they shall no longer be forced to play the role, simulated or real, of helpless quarry. If they want to wear their heads shaven, as a symbol of defiance against the former fate which for three millenia forced them to dress their heavy locks according to male decrees, they will have their way. If they should elect to go naked nothing is more certain than that naked they will go, while from the sidelines to which he has been relegated mere man is vouchsafed permission only to pipe a feeble Hurrah!

Hurrah!”

“Flapper Jane” by Bruce Bliven Published in New Republic, September 9, 1925.

Flappers symbolised the revolution in fashion and style.

Fashion

The outer clothing of flappers1 is even still extremely identifiable. This look, called “garçonne” (“little boy”), was instigated by Coco Chanel.

Style

Flapper station

The Fashion of the roaring twenties www.authentichistory.com

Music

Flappers embodied the modern spirit of the Jazz Age.

flapper music!

The Jazz Age Page : The Sound Room, The sound room dock

In the early 1920s Fred Waring was a student at Penn State, where he formed Waring’s Pennsylvanians (which featured a trademark glee club) who entered radio on pioneer station WWJ in Detroit.

Glorianna (Pollack / Clare) by Waring’s Pennsylvanians (Fred Waring, Tom Waring, Curly Cockerill, Poley McClintock, Freddy Buck, Ernie Radal, Art Horn, Bill Townsend, Jim Gilliland, Nelson Keller)
record : 12-14-1928 New York, New York Victor
21836

Fred Waring’s America

Photography

Louise Brooks : Jazz Age Portraits The Louise Brooks Society

20′s : Cecil Beaton :

Cecil Beaton Paula Gellibrand, The Marquesa de Casa Maury 2, 1928 gelatin silver print, 12″x16″

Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) National Portraits Gallery

____________________

The 1920′s experience

Jazz Age Culture

The 1920′s experience

Flapper culture

Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s Ohio State University History Department.

Audio and Visual Resources Related to 1920s (music, speeches, sound, images, fashion) at Digital History

Deauville dans les années 20

Exposition de photos sur le thème des «Stars et dandys des années folles»
Jusqu’au 31 août. Chaumet au Royal Barrière, bld Eugène-Cornuché, à Deauville.

Lady Wimborne, 1925
Photographie de Cecil Beaton

Chaumet Paris – Deux siècles de création

Mode

Paris: la haute couture hiver 2005-2006

Christian Lacroix Défilés haute couture-HIVER 2005.06

Dessous chics “Dans un pur esprit “Cotton Club”, Huit exalte la femme fabuleuse et scandaleuse des années folles. Dans le tourbillon d’un Charleston, elle n’est plus femme de l’ombre, elle est émancipée, femme élégante faussement rangée”
_______________

La mode féminine véhiculée par les catalogues Texte de Shirley Lavertu, canada


  1. Flapper fashion in Christy’s fashion pages [back]
  2. Staley Wise Gallery [back]
Fashion

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