How did Fashion contribute to making 1920s America the Roaring Twenties - Essay Example

September 25, How did Fashion contribute to making 1920s of America the “Roaring Twenties”. The fashion of the “Roaring Twenties” perfectly presented the Jazz Era. It was made for the energetic Charleston and fast vehicles. Music, art, literature mirrored the changing in American values. American people were hungry for news and events in the Twenties; every morning they hurried to the newsstand for the fresh periodicals, and, at night, they listened to the radio which became their favorite entertainment.

Politics, alcohol prohibition, Al Capone, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and then the Depression years were defining signs of that epoch. The fashion, nevertheless, is reckoned as the special contribution to the “Roaring Twenties”, and it is so much more than flapper dresses, bare knee, feathered headbands and short hair, the cliché, which modern people associate with that epoch. Women of the “Roaring Twenties” defied social customs and announced their rights loud and clear. They began smoking and drinking alcohol in public, and that was a social taboo prior to that time.

Refusing from bustles and corsets clothing designers gained the freedom and greater variety of creative expression. Outfits became daring and, even, provocative. Women of the twenties preferred short dresses and rolled the stockings beneath their knees, as well as wore bright-colored lipstick. Bare knee and short hair were socially acceptable for the first time in western history of fashion. Flappers, the brightest representatives of that fashion epoch, did not actually emerge until 1926. A true flapper had short, smooth hair and a flat chest; they wore a short shapeless shift dress and make-up in public.

Flappers exposed their legs and arms as well as smoked with a long fashionable cigarette holder; they spent all nights long by dancing to emphasize the rebel spirit. Beyond such transformation in style, the twenties were marked by female rebellion against gender-based standards. Finally, the 19th Amendment of Constitution granted the woman with voting right. As an indicator of surrendering to the inevitable, the American men became more and more accustomed to the womens new social and political position.

High fashion before the “Roaring Twenties” was for the wealthy women. However, flapper’s dress had less complicated design than prior fashions; so many women became very successful in dressmaking flapper dresses at home. The flapper style was democratic fashion that negated the differences between social classes. Although, the wealthy women continued to wear their rich silk garments for evenings, they wore fashionable flapper’s dresses during the days as casual clothes. The courses of dressmaking and millinery became extremely popular among women who wanted to be fashionable but could not afford to buy the clothing by retail prices.

Many women found in industry of fashion mass production the way to earn money to support their families. Contemporary clothing became commonly acceptable because not wealthy social groups of women could afford these relatively inexpensive ready-made flappers dresses. The “Roaring Twenties” were the epoch, when women from the different socio-economic groups had equal opportunity to wear high fashion due to the simplicity of creating elegant flapper styled clothing. It was an epoch of liberation, not just from the ordeal of the World War but from social narrow-mindedness and obsolete traditions; the war had caused so much pain and suffering to people, so that everyone desired to feel and sense the life in all its various manifestations.

The people of twenties needed to express themselves without restriction in any possible way, and the best way to do it appeared through the fashion; so, dramatic changes in the appearance allowed people to reflect their spirit, thoughts, dreams and desires just perfectly. Works Cited F. Scott Fitzgerald (2012). The Great Gatsby (e-book). Free e-Book at Planet eBook.com. 193 p.