Essay On Fashion In The 1920s

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Describe what was innovative in fashion , art and society during the decade of the 1920s:

The 1920s was a period of unconstrained optimism with people looking to the future and putting their trust in technological progresses. The First World War had changed the very fabric of society, and in its wake had brought women unmatched freedoms, and of course this was reflected in the fashions they chose to wear.

From silk sack dresses and T-bar shoes to tight-fitting cloche hat and elegantly casual sportswear, the story of Fashion is never just a story. Fashion is part of culture, and it`s not created in an ivory tower. It is a visual language , full of clues were we can read about the morals and values of the society that produced …show more content…

Another sport that became incredibly popular, particularly with women, was swimming. Women had been allowed to swim in the Olympic Games of 1912 and from there on the sport grew in popularity- especially during the second half of the 1920s after Miss Gertrude Ederle’s 1926 swim across the Channel beat the record by two hours. Even more impressive, when you consider that at the time, the record was held by a man.This official Olympic seal of approval for swimming as a female-friendly sport was a quick development for more modern and practical women’s swimming costume.The Edwardian culottes and skirt combination was replaced in the 1920s with woollen jersey sleeveless tank suits, reminiscent of earlier male swimming costumes. These semi-elasticated garments came in a wide variety of colours and patterns, and were infinitely more suited to water pursuits than their historic counterparts. As the swimwear company Jantzen, declared in its advertising slogan of 1929, this was ‘the suit that changed bathing into swimming’. The dramatic redesign of women’s swimwear was only possible because ideas about women and modesty had moved considerably in line with the other cultural developments previously highlighted. This more liberal attitude by society to women and their bodies was also reflected in a related cultural phenomenon - the exponential rise in the number of outdoor public swimming pools in the inter-war

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