Women's fashion in 1920s London: Going out!

Be it seated elegantly at the Café de Paris, while ogling at the Prince of Wales or dancing at the Criterion Ballroom, what would a fashionable Londoner wear as she went out for a night of sophisticated revelry?

For inspiration, think American-born actress and fashion icon Tallulah Bankhead on the London stage in the 1920s. Particularly in her role as Jerry Lamar in The Gold-Diggers at the Lyric Theatre in 1927. (Watch a flash from the play here, courtesy British Pathé).

Some representations of the 1920s suggest that women spent all their time dancing in so-called ‘flapper dresses’, a tiara on their bobbed hair and a long string of pearls dangling from their neck, gracefully manipulating a cigarette inserted into a long holder.

While some women did and looked like this some of the time, there are other aspects to 1920s female fashion.

The term first became associated with girls and young women towards the end of the 19th century and seems to have picked up during World War I. Women’s lives changed during the war as they took on male roles, particularly in the metal industries, transport and the civil service.

The impact of this was noted in The Times article ‘Future of Courtesy. Women’s New Place in the World’ (25 August 1916): “The young woman of to-day likes to look her best; but she also likes to be capable, active and self-supporting.”

Maybe this liberation from old behavioural norms led to the use of ‘flapper’ – originally used for “a young wild duck or partridge” – for confident young women. Or it came from teenage girls wearing their hair in long pigtails tied with large bows that flapped in the wind, before adulthood necessitated them putting up their hair. Flappers were said to be frivolous, fast and flirtatious, obsessed with having a good time and with clothes.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s open the first chest of drawers.

All through the 1910s, various bra-type garments were in circulation – brassieres, bust-bodices and bust supporters. Earlier versions were more like camisoles or vests with vertical boning to create a ‘monobosom’. The new decade saw the introduction of “bandeaux”, wide stiffened bands with shoulder straps used to flatten the chest.

The ‘modern’ bra with its two distinct triangular pieces of fabric or cups, sometimes credited to Caresse Crosby, didn’t become common until the end of the 1920s. Until then, your foundations would start with a camisole and knickers, which could be combined to create – you guessed it – ‘camiknickers’!

‘Corselettes’ and even corsets stayed in style, but were different to the earlier ‘hourglass’ or ‘S-bend curve’ shapewear. Before tights became popular, corsets’ appendages were useful to hold up stockings made of cotton, or real/artificial silk. Bare legs were unthinkable, so stockings were a must!

While daywear didn’t change during the 1920s, hemlines did. They had been creeping up since the beginning of the war and continued to move upwards until around 1927 – usually the year people have in mind when they think of 1920s fashion.

The straight silhouette, with looser clothing, considered as the 1920s “look” appeared earlier, around 1918. By the late 1920s, skirts and dresses grew longer and more fitted, marking the beginning of a new fashion trend.

You could put on a one-piece ‘frock’ or a skirt and blouse/jumper combination, but to achieve the popular ‘low waistline’, blouses had to be worn on top of skirts. Outside, dresses were covered with matching or contrasting jackets and coats, often lined and/or trimmed with fur.

Between the wars, fur was so in vogue that “summer furs” were worn during the warmer periods. Suits were another popular choice, their jackets getting shorter as the decade progressed.

Into the late 1920s, the simple dresses with straight lines provided a perfect canvas for beads, sequins, spangles and rhinestones spectacularly embroidered on plain silk, georgette or metal fabrics. Fringe details would often catch the light when the women moved, defining the iconic ‘flapper dresses’ — worn not just by young women, but everyone who could afford them.

Another popular style was the ‘robe de style’ or ‘period dress’, which resembled the 18th-century side-hooped gowns associated with French couturier Jeanne Lanvin.

Luxurious evening coats were often made in fabrics brocaded with metallic threads, trimmed with the ubiquitous fur. Often these coats did not have any or few fastenings, so had to be held close by the wearer, framing her face.

In 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald published his first collection of short stories, Flappers and Philosophers. In ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’, the eponymous heroine is persuaded by her frenemy cousin to let a barber cut her beautiful long hair much to everyone’s shock. In the early 1920s, women often put up their hair at the back but teased out curls in front, so it looked as if it had been bobbed. Only in the mid-1920s, did short hair become ubiquitous leading all the way to the so-called Eton crop.

On 8 April 1920, the Daily Mirror published ‘Clothes and Manners’, an article about a new play performed in London a few days earlier. Other Times was written by Harold Brighouse who, as the son of a manager of a Lancashire cotton-spinning firm and former textile buyer, probably knew a thing or two about clothes. The improbable plot sees “elaborate manners of mid-Victorian days” contrasted with “slangy, jazzing young England” when “a very modern set of girls and boys” are stranded on a remote Scottish island.

The young women have to make do with the Victorian clothes of the resident Colonel’s late wife, which effect their behaviour: “You may think you know what to think of the lightly clad flapper as you see her light clothes. But then you may easily reform her if you put her in a crinoline. […] Her movements will be different, and those will alter her manners. You cannot Jazz in a crinoline.”

PS: Before you accuse us of ‘decade-ism’ (yes, that’s a thing), we know that fashion changes do not neatly occur at the beginning and end of decades or centuries. And that 10 years of fashion history cannot be summed up in a thousand or so words. In this and future posts, we will focus on what we can glean from the museum’s collections, and not just those kept in the Dress & Textile stores, as there are fashion-adjacent objects in every department.

Beatrice Behlen is Senior Curator, Fashion and Decorative Arts at London Museum.