The 1920s were a great time for fashion: women in short dresses and fringe with strands and strands of beads wearing their short hair in elegant fingerwaves could be seen enjoying jazz at popular speakeasys. It was a time when the liberation of fashion paralleled the newfound liberation of women, who’d just won the right to vote. Constricting whalebone corsets and the round full figured matron look fell out of style and were replaced by loose hanging dresses with short skirts and a fashion for the boyish look. These modern women who were seen as brash for their independence, excessive makeup, drinking and smoking were termed flappers.
Making the perfect 1920s flapper costume requires not only the right combination of those elements to capture that exciting style but also the right attitude when wearing it. Flappers were women on the cutting edge, blatantly flaunting the rules of their elders, engaging in completely “unladylike” behavior and having the time of their lives.
There are several rules to keep in mind when constructing your flapper outfit. The core of your outfit will be the dress. The flapper style emphasized a boyish physique with flat chests and straight hips so shapeless and loose dresses with a low waistline make the most authentic garb. Leaving arms and shoulders naked is also required for that “flaunting of society’s rules” look. As for colors, fashions of the time dictated neutrals such as beige, cream, sand and navy. This era was also the origin of the LBD (the little black dress), invented by Coco Chanel.
The right makeup and accessories will make your 1920s costume stand out in the crowd. As mentioned before, short hair in bobs or crops is the most authentic hairstyle of the period. Women wore their hair in fingerwaves, or covered in a cloche hat. If you wear the hat make sure it is tight fitting and pull it well over your eyes, covering your forehead. This was the style of the time and it will also lend an authentic air to your posture as you will have to hold your head at a specific angle to see anything.
As for makeup, a pale cream or ivory face powder was used with deep red and red-brown lipstick colors. For the most realistic look, lipstick should be applied in a cupid’s bow shape on the upper lip and the lower lip should be exaggerated while the width of lips deemphasized. Make sure to apply it at least once in public in the course of an evening for that real rebel touch. Eyes should be made up dark using black liner all around the eye, black mascara and liberal amounts of dark gray, turquoise or green eye shadow. Thin, downward sloping eyebrows complete the authentic 20s effect.
T-bar shoes were all the rage in the 1920s because they didn’t fall off your feet while dancing. Find yourself a pair, wrap yourself up in long strands of beads, sick a cigarette in that long holder and you are ready to step out into the night as the most authentic flapper since 1926.
Now you can walk the walk but can you talk the talk? Here is some fun 1920s slang to pepper into your evening’s conversation:
All Wet – a bad idea or person (he’s all wet)
Applesauce! – an expletive (ah applesauce)
Bank’s Closed – no kissing (sorry Mac, the bank’s closed)
Bee’s Knees – something great (that’s the bee’s knees)
Berries – something attractive (it’s the berries)
Bimbo – tough guy
Breezer – convertible
Butt me – I’ll take a cigarette
Clam – dollar
Copacetic – all right
Don’t take any wooden nickels – don’t do anything stupid
Dry up – get lost
Fire extinguisher – chaperone
Fish – college freshman
Hair of the dog – a shot of alcohol
Horsefeathers – an expletive
Jake – okay (everything is Jake)
Now you’re on the trolley! – now you get it
Ossified – a drunk person
Struggle Buggy – the backseat of a car
You slay me – that’s funny
