Fashion

N.Y. Court Ruled That Women Can Smoke in Public
(Hearst’s Sunday American, 1917)

A brief notice from 1917 reported on the arrest of three women for smoking in the Times Square subway station in New York City.


When the socially astute, forward-thinking judge recognized that no real crime had been committed they were released, but in the high fashion world feminine tobacco abuse, these women are often said to be the Rosa Parks of nicotine:


Mary Driscoll, Edna Stanley and Elsie Peterson


let their names live ever more!

The Flapper as a Religious Force in the World
(Literary Digest, 1927)

Scorned for too long by churchmen as an ambulatory example of folly, the flapper at length finds herself defended by the Church. She is not, in this new view, the brainless, overdressed Jezebel that she has been pictured to be. ‘She is a symbol of the times. As she sweeps down the street, she is like nothing so much as a fine, young spirited puppy-dog, eager for the fray’.


Unlike some members of clergy, the wise sages of Hollywood were clearly numbered among those who held favorable views about flappers, but they didn’t always produce films that were sympathetic to their causes; for example, the editors of Flapper magazine hated this movie.

Flapper Beauty Contest
(Flapper Magazine, 1922)

This funny announcement from the yellowing pages of FLAPPER MAGAZINE made it clear to one and all that all flappers were eligible to enter their Flapper Beauty Contest:

You don’t have to be beautiful to be a flapper, and if you’re not a flapper you wouldn’t be considered beautiful. So there!


(But we’re sure it helped)

The Flappers and Their Fashion Rebellion
(Flapper Magazine, 1922)

In the attached column, a high-spirited editorial writer hails the Flapper Revolution and singles out Paris fashion designer Paul Poiret (1879 – 1944) for being so out of step with the women of his day for continuing to design long dresses:

When flappers rise en masse and say that they can see no reason for giving up a style that means comfort, freedom and health, then indeed, out of this welter of strikes, injunctions and warfare may be seen a glimmer of hope for mankind.

M. Poiret, designer of Paris, has seen fit to take up the cudgels on behalf of the long skirt, and therefore he cannot object if the shafts of ridicule are hurled at him in return…

‘Canonizing the Flapper”
(Vanity Fair, 1921)

The following is an excerpt from the review of the New York production of the 1921 play, A Bill of Divorcement by Clemence Dane (born Winifred Ashton 1888 – 1965). With much enthusiasm, the reviewer wrote:


We know of no better expression of the creed of the new generation than that which Clemence Dane has drawn up….


What followed was a very short soliloquy which beautifully summed up not only the philosophy of the modern woman, but the philosophy of much the Twentieth Century.

Flappers Defy the Paris Dictators
(Flapper Magazine, 1922)

Will Paris succeed in imposing long skirts on the flappers of America?

Not if most of them have their way! When Paris started the short skirt fad and America eagerly aped it, the dressmakers figured that it would probably run its course and then die a sudden death. But no! For American flappers may be fickle but they know a good thing when they see it. And they intend to hang on to it.


Click here to read about another icon of the Twenties: Rudolph Valentino.

Yves Saint Laurent Takes Over the House of Dior
(Coronet Magazine, 1958)

When Christian Dior died quite suddenly in 1957, the eggheads of the fashion world got their knickers in a twist as they wondered who would serve as the creative force for the great fashion house that he had established just ten years earlier; all eyes turned to his very young assistant, a 21 year old man named Yves Saint Laurent (1936 – 2008).


Click here to read a 1961 article about Jacqueline Kennedy’s influence on American fashion.

The Invention of Nylon
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

Last week, two of the nation’s leading manufacturers of synthetic textiles were taking important steps to woo the feminine heart from silk to synthetic hosiery. The E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Company announced that it had laid plans for construction of a new $7,000,000 plant near Seaford, Delaware, for manufacture of a new synthetic yarn called ‘Nylon,’ which, used in hosiery, was expected to compete successfully with all types of silk stockings.

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