1920-1930 Photographs of Real People in
Flapper Dress Fashions Fashion History 1920s
By Pauline Weston Thomas for Fashion-Era.com
1920s Fashion Photographs of Real People
These are original family photographs of ordinary people in everyday
clothes and taken 1926,1927,
1928 and
1929. My special thanks to Helen Dudzic of Pennsylvania,
USA and Carol Morgan of Cardiff, UK who gave me these marvellous costume
history photographs which are such great images.You can read more detailed text about 1920's fashions
in flapper fashion. You can see
some 1920s wedding photos here.
More line drawings are available
here.
Relatives of Helen with this photo taken in USA c1929
Click thumbnails
~
This is a wonderful happy relaxed old USA photograph from Helen Hudzic
of two sisters in the 1920s. Both wearing their best
partying flapper frocks. The old studio photo may well have marked a special birthday or an
engagement. It could even be a wedding photograph as the woman on the
right is wearing a white or light toned lace dress and both appear to wear
exotic magnificent orchid corsages. Orchids were a very popular
decorative floral fashion for both women and men of the 1920s. If you
see the film
Aviator you will notice orchids used throughout the 1920's scenes.
The dresses are very fashionable looking for any era and
look more than just ordinary fashion wear. These were special dresses in my
opinion. I'd estimate the old photograph above was taken circa 1929 - 1930.
Elements which suggest this include the softer waving hair of the late 1920s and
the rounded necklines.
Most importantly the dress on the left shows evidence of a more normal waist which
returned circa 1929-1930 dependant on how fashionable the dress.
The skirts are also longer than those of 1926 when skirts
were at their shortest and interestingly both of these have curved scalloped
hems a favourite feature of late 1920's dresses, just like the line drawing
sketches from my pages of 1928 and 1929
here. These women appear to have a confidence and assurance that came to ordinary women as they became more and more emancipated and
acquired a new sophistication. Have you noticed those really stylish shoes.
You can see in this 1920s photograph how the skirt was just that bit shorter c1928 in
this image below. The dress has godet inserts, a popular style addition of
dresses of 1928. Some were inserted as handkerchief godets as the hemline
dithered and was gradually falling in 1929. The hemline plummeted after the
Wall Street stock market crash. The fox fur with its tails was often
referred to as a scarf or stole in USA. In the UK it was often called my fox or
tails. The line drawing shows a swathed scarf effect collar giving a
similar line as the fox.
Helen also sent me this old mid 1920s photograph of 2 younger girls in wrap coats
with fur trims. The whole look from coat, to hair to footwear is so
very representative of flapper fashion styles then. You can see more
twenties line drawings
like this at the silhouette's page on
1926 and 1927.
The old photo of Helen's relatives wearing coats is in the
same time frame as the photo below. The old photograph below was known to be
taken in 1926 and is of Emily Lewis of Cardiff, South Wales. When you
enlarge the image you can really see the deep hem on the skirt which appears
to have been shortened in tune with the ever rising hemline of the era.
The picture shows it is not as short as fashion plates or commercial fashion photos in
magazines of the same date, but shows a woman trying to keep up to date with
the rapidly rising hemline.
Finally I have a hat photo on the right that Helen sent to
me from PA and it compares very much with a similar style in the image of Emily
Davies taken in 1926 in Cardiff, UK, but 6000 miles or so apart. The hat
fashions are amazingly similar which shows how modern communications and in
particular silent movies had begun to make a real impact on fashion and
style. You can see more about hats in fashion in
hats
section on the twenties here.
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