When a lot of people think of 1920’s fashion, they probably picture something a little like this…
Typical Flapper Costume found on eBay
But not all women dressed like the stereotypical “flapper” – and not all flapper dresses or outfits fit into this image, either. The 1920’s had a wonderful array of styles – and some women during the 20’s even started adopting a more androgynous look – one of my personal favourite 20’s (and 30’s) styles for women!
To illustrate the different styles that women were wearing during this amazing decade, I thought I would do a little digging and see what examples I could find of 1920’s fashion beyond the typical “flapper” look – and how better to do that than by finding photographs of regular, everyday women in the 1920’s and seeing what they were wearing?
It was so much fun searching and finding these photos, and this post honestly could have included so many more! What I have included in this post are just a small number of the incredible examples I found of 1920’s fashion worn by everyday gals just like you and me. 🙂
Enough chatter, time to make with the photos!
Some of my absolute favourite of these examples were taken by everyday women in photo booths!
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I know you can’t see the entirety of their outfits, but I just loved these and had to share them!
The more androgynous style of women wearing trousers was just divine!
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I love these photos of regular women in the kitchen…
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I’d love to look this good while cooking, just sayin’!
Here are some gorgeous gals in some very beautiful and glamorous clothes…
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*Sigh*
Some more wonderful group photos where you can see many women wearing many different kinds of dresses and outfits – including swim suits!
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The rest of the photos I will share don’t really fit neatly into specific categories or groups, but were wonderful examples of some 1920’s fashions so I just had to share them as well!
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I hope you all enjoyed this post and getting a peek at various different styles from the 1920’s! I know I loved putting it together! Do you have a favourite 1920’s look? Or a favourite out of these amazing photos? What do you think of 1920’s fashion? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
I read somewhere (which sounds so dubious, like most people who say that are just making up stuff and hide behind it, but honestly, I read this somewhere! :’)) that our idea of the 1920s flapper, is actually “invented” by the movie industry in the 1950s! Which explains the big difference between our ideas of the 1920s, and the actual photos! But these photos are absolutely beautiful!!!
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That would definitely make sense! 🙂 And I agree, these photos are beautiful and the girls all look amazing!
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I want to crawl into those kitchen pictures and live there! We have a museum here that is a preserved 1920s ‘boom town’. Twice a year I dress up as a 1920s homemaker in one of their small houses. I cook and sew, and let the kids try their hand at using a manual egg beater and treadle sewing machine. My favorite moments are when a kid asks me if I really live there. My answer is, “Only on special days like this, but I’d like to live here all the time.” 🙂 I love so much about that era. Did you enjoy Downton Abbey?
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So do I! 🙂 And that 1920’s museum sounds so amazing!!! Have you ever done a blog post on it? I would LOVE to see it and I wish I lived closer, because it would be so awesome to be able to go!!
I watched the first few seasons of Downton Abbey, but stopped for awhile, I’m going to have to start up again and finish it! I really loved the way they styled the entire show, it was so gorgeous and I loved watching while sewing. 🙂 It kept making me weep buckets of tears which is why I ended up taking such a long break, but I’m dying to see what I missed!
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Downton did have some heartbreaking moments. That caused me to take a break from it for awhile, too, but now I’ve seen the whole thing. The ladies’ outfits are to die for!
It is a shame you don’t live closer, because the museum can always use more people in period clothing to inhabit the business and dwellings in the boom town on those special days. I have not done a blog post on the museum, but I have enough pictures to put a post together. It might take me a couple weeks or so, but stay tuned. 🙂
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Glad to hear I’m not the only one who had to take a break! You’re right, the ladies’ outfits were just breathtaking, I’d love to raid the wardrobe department! 😉
Wow, that sounds so amazing! I hope I end up in your neck of the woods one day so I can go! I’ll definitely be looking forward to your post!! 🙂
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Love the post. Appreciate the photos of African American women. Love the hats.
Just no to the bathing suits, and too much fur! 🙂
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Thank you!! The photos of the African American women were some of my absolute favourites – they look so classy and sophisticated! 🙂
I wouldn’t mind trying a 1920’s bathing suit, just to see what it was like to wear one – they’re so different from our modern bathing suits! And I agree, the amount of fur worn in the 1920’s was obscene and painful to see. I’m totally against wearing fur, but it was an undeniably huge part of vintage fashion, unfortunately. 😦
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Love the pictures!
It is so crazy to think that it was this decade the fashion changed from big elegant dresses to a much more easier style with women being able to wear pants and have shorter hair! (A few years ago, I actually had a project where I was going to talk about fashion in the 1920s)
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I know! It was such a dramatic change, but such a wonderful one! 🙂 Did you ever finish your project? I’d love to hear your take on 1920’s fashion! 🙂
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Yes I did, but unfortunately I do not have the project anymore (might have been on an older computer that I don’t have anymore, because this project was in 2012 or in 2013) and it was a video where I spoke in Norwegian about the fashion, so I would have to translate it to English if I should have posted it.
The reason I chose to talk about this decade is because Coco Chanel is my inspiration, so then I had a really good reason to talk a lot about her, hehe.
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That’s too bad that you don’t have the project anymore, but it sounds like it was amazing! 🙂
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Well…not that amazing, I was not a very good student at that time, but I had my reasons because I was so tired all the time and did not get much help either.
But I am much better today 😉
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Aww, I’m sorry to hear you were struggling at the time, but I’m so glad to hear you’re doing better now! *hug* ❤
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❤
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This is a great article sweetie. So many people automatically think flapper when they hear 1920’s and this is great to educate people that flapper wasn’t the common every day look. Love it.
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Aw, thank you Carlie! I’m so glad that you enjoyed it! 🙂 ❤
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This is a great entry! Thanks for all the great photos. We rarely see these examples and the clothes were adorable back then… The 1920’s flapper outfit is akin to the poodle skirt of the 50’s. Those cliched costumes have made people forget what the true, everyday fashions of those times were.
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You’re so welcome and thank you so much for your wonderful comment! 🙂
You’re right, the 1920’s flapper outfit really is like the 1950’s poodle skirt! Both decades had such gorgeous clothing that often get overlooked, and it was so much fun finding examples of every day clothing from the 20’s for this post! 🙂 The flapper dresses may have been stunning (and they truly were!) but they definitely weren’t for every day wear, and the clothes regular women were wearing in the 20’s were beautiful in their own right! And I LOVE that young women were wearing pants! 🙂
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Absolutely love this! Thank you so much for taking the time to gather so many diverse beautiful evocative images. Just a heads up though that the pic labelled 1920s Paris was actually taken in 2012 to promote the film The Artist. Not sure if I can put links in comments but I’ll try, here’s one that explains it http://hoaxoffame.tumblr.com/post/109945041464/fake-no-but-often-miscaptioned-explanation. Fooled me the first time I saw it too 😘
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Thank you so much for letting me know! I removed the image because it definitely doesn’t belong in the post. I thought it looked oddly modern when I found it – should have done more digging. Thank you so much again for the head’s up, I really appreciate it! 🙂
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