By Deutsche Presse-Agentur
The Roaring Twenties were a time of enormous change in European and American society and the decade has left its mark on art, music and of course fashion.
“People still sense the glamour of the period today,” says Robert Herzog from the State School of Fashion Design in Stuttgart.
Women’s emancipation was one of the main driving forces in the 1920s, which can be seen in the clothes, make-up and hairstyles that dominated from Weimar-era Berlin to New York to Buenos Aires.
If it had not been for the World War I, women’s emancipation may never have happened, according to image consultant Stephanie Zarnic.
During the war, women on both sides began to take up employment in large numbers – due to the loss of enlisted men from the workforce.
“That led to a realization that the tight corsets and fashions of the past constricted a woman’s movement.” That was once factor leading to the abolition of the corset and the birth of modern women’s fashion.
“That’s when women began to wear trousers,” says Zarnic.
Some of the fashion world’s biggest icons rose to fame in the post-war period. Coco Chanel of France played a crucial part in freeing women from their corsets, says Zarnic. Germany’s Marlene Dietrich achieved her fame in the 20s – and remains an icon today.
It’s no surprise that a trousers style called the Marlene Cut has become a trend again in Germany recently.
Practical factors can be seen behind much of the feminine style of the 1920s that we recognize today.
“It was a time when women’s clothes became manly,” is how Herzog describes the change. The androgynous look of a woman wearing a suit is a legacy of 1920s fashion, according to Zarnic. Along with wearing trousers, women also began wearing clothes with straight cuts.
“The narrow waist was no longer something they were striving for.” It was accompanied by new hairstyles such as the Page Boy cut.
This androgynous look is once again a big trend in Europe.
“Fashion repeatedly draws inspiration from the past,” says Gerd Mueller-Thomkins from the German Institute of Fashion in Cologne.
Herzog agrees: “The androgynous look is very present in fashion right now.”
For women that can mean wearing very wide pleated pants or a fully buttoned blouse.
Mueller-Thomkins sees other parallels between modern fashion and the 1920s.
“Asymmetry was an element of the 1920s,” he says, noting that asymmetric cuts are back in many of today’s European skirt and jacket designs.
Skirts became shorter in the 1920s as an expression of provocation, according to Zarnic. Some women delighted in being called vamps and were eager to be the equal of men in dancing, drinking, smoking and flirting with the opposite sex.
This was most obviously expressed in nightlife fashion in the form of knee-length shift dresses without waistlines. These dresses were surprisingly transparent and it’s that transparency that is back in fashion today.
The straight cuts of the 1920s had their counterpoint in the very feminine decoration added to clothes, especially sequins and feathers.
“There was an enormous hunger for life and a desire to experiment,” says Herzog.
What about men’s fashion of the 1920s? “Men put their focus on elegance,” says Zarnic. That lead to the rise of pin-stripped suits, brogue shoes, gelled back hair – and most important of all – hats.
The classic men’s hat is in fashion again on Europe’s streets. Young men in particular have rediscovered this elegance and are wearing hats, ties and bowties, according to Mueller-Thomkins.
Women have also rediscovered the brogue, according to Zarnic.
Mueller-Thomkins sees point of contact in modern tailoring with men’s clothing from the 1920s, the period which marked the transition from hand-sewn clothing to mass manufacture. Today, handmade clothes are among the most expensive you can buy.
The unexpectedly high respect which our fast and furious modern society pays to traditional handmade garments suggests a desire to turn back the clock.
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