Groundbreaking Piece in the New York Magazine of 1915 Called The Flapper

Flappers were not in fact only concerned with standing out and being noticed. They were not simply fashion and image-driven, selfish women, but were strong, self-willed, independent young feminist citizens who were fighting passionately for their right to stable equality amidst a prominently male-driven world. These women pushed aggressively for their social, professional, and sexual freedom which they felt were hard-earned and well overdue. Many flappers wished to pursue positions in careers which would otherwise be deemed unacceptable for the average women of the time. They hoped that by breaking away from social normality's that they could eventually obtain equality in all important aspects of life while hopefully also allowing them entry into many professional fields which would normally be unaccessible to women.

The flapper was the harbinger of a radical change in American culture. She was a product of social and political forces that assembled after the First World War. Modernization adjusted the American life. Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz analyzes the people who created the image of the flapper. This work is an incorporation of narrative, statistics, and scholarly work that provide a distinct insight on the “New Woman.” Joshua Zeitz asserts the flapper was not a dramatic change from traditional American values but reflected the “modern” decade under mass media, celebrity, and consumerism.

It was very popular to be a flapper. That was the cool thing to do and people saw flappers as these New Women. The older women would never "personify a lifestyle condemned by conservatives as undermining morality and religion" especially through the way the acted and dressed.

The 1920s was a very special time for woman. Women started standing for up for themselves and making points to men that women can do just the same as them, and that women should be equal to men and have the same rights. That’s where flappers came from. Flappers were basically woman who stood out and did what they wanted. Women's rights were changed drastically because of flappers, now women are more equal to men. Flappers had a large impact on the American culture going from woman’s right, music and their fashion.

Thanks to Coco Chanel, the iconic flapper image most closely associated with the roaring twenties came about. The flapper and flapper image didn’t actually come to be until around 1926 and even then was only in style for about three years. Typical flappers were women who appeared to have a bold attitude and were independent women who didn’t adhere to the previously innocent housewife image. A flapper usually had a bob haircut, a shorter than average dress, a flat chest, wore tons of make-up, drank illegal alcohol, smoked with a long cigarette holder, exposed her limbs and danced the Charleston. This was a drastic change from the typical American housewife to the reckless rebel. The flapper dresses stressed above the knee hemlines and construed straight, sleek shapes. This was the first time in centuries women’s legs were being seen in a garment. (1920s Fashion 1) Flappers loved to jazz up their costume and even their image. Many flappers’ dresses were adorned with jewels and intricate beading. The main object of the flapper image was to appear almost boyish rather than looking feminine. (1920s clothing 1)

Flappers in the 1920s where the girls and women that dressed less modestly. They also disobeyed the rules that most women and girls followed. They did what others would not ever think of doing in this time period.

A flapper was a modern woman of the 1920’s with bobbed hair, short skirts, and dramatic make-up. (sparknotes.com) The flapper was also used to represent a new type of young woman. It represented a woman that was bold, rebellious, and energetic. Only a small percentage of American women were flappers. The image of the flapper had a huge impact on the rest of the nation’s fashion and behavior. Most women began to cut their hair short. It was called bobbing. Many parents wouldn’t allow it. To the older generation, it seemed taboo to have short hair. Some of the daughters of these people felt old-fashioned for not having their hair cut short. (Hakim, 42) Before the twenties, it was rare for a woman’s ankle to be glimpsed upon beneath long skirts. Yet, during the ’20’s, the ankles were highly visible as the hemlines for women’s skirts rapidly went up and up, as

“Colleen Moore was known to have “personified the ‘flapper’ of the 1920s.”(#1 nytimes.com/Fowler) “The term ‘flapper’ first appeared in Great

Flapper by Joshua Zeitz is a book that tells an epic story about the American women during the time of the 1920’s. For a better understanding, a flapper would typically be a young girl who blurred the gender roles by taking on a more masculine lifestyle. They wore their hair short, drank and smoked frequently, and explored their sexuality. With this behavior, it didn’t destroy their femininity; it just simply provided the society’s perception of what a woman should and should not be.

Frederick Lewis Allen, in his famous chronicle of the 1920s Only Yesterday, contended that women’s “growing independence” had accelerated a “revolution in manners and morals” in American society (95). The 1920s did bring significant changes to the lives of American women. World War I, industrialization, suffrage, urbanization, and birth control increased women’s economic, political, and sexual freedom. However, with these advances came pressure to conform to powerful but contradictory archetypes. Women were expected to be both flapper and wife, sex object and mother. Furthermore, Hollywood and the emerging “science” of advertising increasingly tied conceptions of femininity to

The Roaring Twenties also know as a new era which was a great time for a revolution.We think of this “New Era” as a freedom for women. Now women were “breaking down the spheres of Victorian values (Zeitz). ” In 1920, the powerful women's rights movement gave the women right to vote after so many years. Now they started to become more independent and had less restriction put into them.This time period gave rise to the flapper girls who smoke, drank, and had sex as they pleased.Many women became rebels, where they started to wear short dresses and tight bathing suits which exposed their skin, and put makeup on. All these actions taken were considered immoral and disrespectful. The early 20th century was a battle between modernism and

The Gibson glamour girl preceding the flapper wore long tresses, a high-neck starched shirt, and a long skirt over restrictive undergarments. The flapper did not adhere to these types of restrictions. Pantaloons and corsets, the Gibson girl’s undergarments, were not conducive to the dancing of the flapper or the need for physical freedom. They were replaced by underwear called step-ins (Rosenberg 2). The flapper fashion showed much more skin than the Gibson girl’s outfit. She wore a loose fitting dress that came just to the knees, with a dropped waistline and often showed the arms. The look worn by the flapper was called the “garconne” meaning little boy. The hair was first cut very short into a “bob” then even

As a whole, the 1920’s was a symbol for social rebellion. Prior to the 1920’s, women were conservative in regards to how they dressed; most never showed any ankles or anything scandalous. During this time period, women began to now change. After watching several actresses in theaters act in movies, women began to act like the actresses that they watched. These women, called “Flappers,” drank, smoked, and dressed in what was scandalous back then. Women also rebelled against their traditional domestic roles. Before the 1920’s, women would just pretty much strictly stay at home or work in factories with poor conditions. During World War I though, women stepped up and had to work the higher paying jobs that the men worked, which opened many new doors to women. They now had jobs

A typical flapper had short, bobbed hair, and wore a short baggy skirt with turned down hose and powdered knees. Their dresses often exposed her arms as well as her legs from the knees down. Flappers were thought of by their elders as being a little fast and brazen, since they were no longer confined to home or tradition. However, Flappers did not just symbolize a revolution in fashion and way of life; they more importantly embodied the modern spirit of the Jazz Age—they symbolized, “an age anxious to enjoy itself, anxious to forget the past, anxious to ignore the future”.

The 1920’s is known world over for its glamour, glitz and fashion. Flapper dresses were in their height of style which accompanied the new-found jazz music of the era, this was very evident in the city of London at the time.