Understanding The 1930's Glamorous Girl Friday's Fashion

The draping and free flowing lines of thirties fashion contrasted nicely with shoulder pads and tailored suit jackets for a glamourous and sophisticated look.

Source: Pattern Book Public Domain

By Despite the other stamps, the original owner of the photo is NBC-National Broadcasting Company, who had the photo taken and distributed it. (eBay front back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Source: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

Glamour is Back

There are fashions that are touted as nuvo. In reality that simply revisit the glamour that was so common in the fashion of the thirties. In what other era could the women's dress suit sing sex appeal? Taking some of the lines from thirties fashions can help a girl hint at the vampy and vixen, but within a way that shines above it all class.

Good Riddance to Corsets and the Man Cut

Style in the 1930's was born in the economic depression , but it did not reflect austerity measures. Women were increasingly out in about in the world. A young Girl Friday she wanted to make her mark in the working world. The fun but boyish cuts of the 1920's were more appropiate for the speakeasy and not the office. Victorian clothing that gloried the hobble skirt did not provide the ease of movement that active young women wanted. Young women for the first time were finding their way into downtown office buildings. Fashion accommodated the traditional business suit for women by making it attractive and practical.

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Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (Photo by Alexander Bassano, 1932) Art Deco was reflected in Women's fashion in a fun yet feminine way.

Source: Public Domain

Source: Public Domain Flickr

Tailored Tasteful Impressions of the Feminine Form

Women in the public eye were not just the party girls out for a night on the town. Young women wanted ease of movement that showed all their girlish assets, but in a sophisticated way. Tailored was the working girls choice and hemlines fell as the fun mood of the twenties passed. It was now about tasteful serious business attire. Daywear used pleats and draping to bring feminine and chic to the office.

New fabrics made line flow in women's clothing possible in the 1930's. New fabrics like wool crepe and rayon made fashions that moved with the feminine form and easy to wear.

Eveningwear in the 1930's took on more deep notes of sophistication will remaining sensuous. Gowns were longer and bright; as amazing metallic fabrics were introduced. Eveningwear took on some tailored features like shoulder pads, but it aimed to be forward thinking and as modern as the Art Deco hotel ballrooms these gowns appeared in.

Daywear was meant to be practical; but feminine and sweet. Day dresses were not beyond revealing a little cleavage., The fashion goal was to provide comfortable dresses.Dresses that were easier than ever to care for were now in demand. The introduction of more blended fabrics meant clothes were easier to launder. The more easily laundered a day dress was the more likely a girl was to expand her closet with seasonal everyday wear. Dresses for the first time wear not delegated to house wear and church wear.

Spring and summer clothing was an available in fabrics that suited the seasons. Textile advancement meant they it was easier than ever to mass produce daywear in complex pastels and bright primary colors. it was no longer just a few in the fashion elite , who were interested in new seasonal colors. Advances in manufacturing meant that even in economic hard times; the working girl could replenish her closet more often.

Aware that there were a lot of young stenographers living at the YWCA who needed good fashion advice a prominent Italian designer provided it., Elsa Schiaparelli gave advice in Photoplay magazine in 1936.Elsa was a premier Italian fashion designer who was opposed to young working women wasting money on cheap trendy clothing. She understood that young working girls went out to socialize after work, and she saw a well made suit as being appropriate for date night after work.

She wrote"Being a business woman myself, and a busy one [ as well as a movie fan] I myself was faced with a problem that I’m sure is a common one with girls and women in America who ” go to business”; that problem being what to put on in the morning and look smart all day long in, even if it means a late dinner after office hours.I found that a good suit solves most problem". Elsa Schiparelli thought the working girl should invest in a few good suits and leave the trendy eveningwear to those with money to spare. She thought it was perfectly dignified to be seen often in a well made suit with smart ;but not exaggerated lines.

Faux Geometric Gems and A little Beaded Bag

Accessories for the women out in public; were more than a strand of beads and an everyday purse. Accessories made the outfit. Shoes matched purses, and many were brought with seasonal fashion trends in mind. Art Deco still defined fashion choices for many women in the thirties. Jewelry was big, bold and many times geometric. Nostagia for the Victorian beaded bags was reflected in the design of smaller more delicate evening bags. Manmade gems were more likely to appear on a young women in the thirties as most could not afford the real gems.es made buying real gemstones difficult. As accessories including hats, gloves, outerwear , and jewelry made bold statements that reflected the forward thinking of young women in the thirties.

Glam goes Technicolor

Bob's in the 1930's placed on emphasis on structured curl and hats worn to the side accommodated the more complex curls.

Source: Public Domain

Bring Sexy Back With the Not So Boyish Bob

Bobbed hair was now longer a statement of rebellious female youth for young women by the time the 1930's.. More women were in the workforce Even those busy being modern wives and did not want to spend hours on their hair. Elaborate long styles just did not fit in to the modern girls day. While bobs of the twenties were meant to be boyish and carefree, bobs of the thirties accommodated hats . Bobs were also designed around the popularity of defined feminine curls.

Perming techniques' meant even a straight haired girl could have a feminine bob. As the thirties progressed the hair got longer with medium bobs with tight curls held together with bobby pins gaining popularity.This meant t that hats worn to the side of the head became popular. No girl wanted to crush the curls that she arranged .Girls who did not want to bother with the bobby pins, wore short hair parted in the middle of the head with some well defined finger waves

The Promise of Glamour for The Business Girl

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Clara Bow The Original Hollywood Bombshell: 1920's Sex symbol

Publicity photo of Clara Bow for Argentinean Magazine. (Printed in USA) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Clara Bow The Original Hollywood Bombshell: 1920's Sex symbol

SUMMARY

Long before Marilyn was giving her male fans the ,"the seven year itch", Clara Bow was bringing the boys to their knees with her steamy presence on the silver screen.

This film made Clara Bow a household name.

What "it" really meant

Clara Bow was the first Hollywood steamy bombshell. She set the stage for these likes of Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, and Katie Perry; to be the celebrity that embodied the ideal sex appeal. It was the effect that would bring men to their knees and be imitated by every young woman. She had sex appeal long before that term was in common usage. Her agent coined the term “it Girl” at the time when no one dared used the word sex and simply referred to it as, it”. She was the girl who had it all together and was out to get her man.

Clara Bow showed more skin on the screen then the silent film audience was used to seeing

Source: Wikimedia Commons

A Star Grows In Brooklyn

Clara Bow started life in a way that did not foresee her rise to glamour girl Hollywood fame. She was born in Brooklyn Née in 1905. Her birth took place in a cheap Brooklyn tenement during a heat wave that was breaking temperature records. Later, her mother would tell her that she did not bother to get a birth certificate, because she had assumed the heat would kill her and her infant Clara.

Both Clara‘s mother and grandmother were thought to epileptic at a time when it could not be effectively treated. Uncontrolled seizures were thought to have caused mental problems in both women. Clara mother was mostly emotionally absent from her as a child. Clara father was mostly absent from her childhood. He had moved out of the family apartment shortly before Clara was born.

Clara’s mother had frequent male visitors that were introduced to Clara as uncles. Clara recalled that she would hide in the,”cupboard” when her mother was keeping company with strange men.

Clara Bow was the ideal flapper girl, charming and bold.

Silver Screen Escape

To escape her dysfunctional home life Clara would go to movies often Mary Pickford, Mae Murray, and Theca Bara were the most popular actresses of her day. Clara would stand in front of the mirror imitation the different acting styles of these women. Clara wanted to be a Hollywood actress. She was a shy girl with a speech impediment, but since movies were silent she was not deterred from her goal of wanting to be discovered and move to Hollywood. Clara’s mentally unstable mother felt that acting was an ‘evil profession “.

Her mother did everything to discourage her interest in movie acting. Once when up set with Clara from practicing scenes from popular movies in front a mirror, Clara’s mother threatened her with a knife. Hoping to escape poverty and life with a broken family Clara continued to hold on to her dream.

Her natural sex appeal kept her fans coming back for more.

A Star Is Born

In order to spark the interest of readers movie fan magazines in the late teens and early twenties sponsored various contest to give readers a chance for small walk on roles in silent movies. Many American teenaged girls dreamed of being discovered by a studio and getting a lucrative contract as a result of winning these kinds of contests. Clara was one such twirl she entered as many contests as possible using borrowed money to have a tin type portrait made to enter a beauty photo contest in Motion Picture Magazine. This was the Fame and Fortune Contest of 1921. A young and ecstatic Clara Bow, only sixteen at the time won a screen test. The screen test landed her a trip to Hollywood

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The Rise and Fall of the Girl who had "it' all.

Between 1922 and 1929 Clara Bow was Hollywood’s it Girl. She was the ideal flapper girl, independent young women who was charming, witty, and not afraid to flaunt her felinity. She played a variety of working girl roles in her films. She portrayed manicurist, waitresses, and department store clerks. No longer did young girls wait a home to be married, but they had jobs that got them out and about in the world. A girl had a larger choice of professions than young women did in Victorian times... Women cut their hair, dances, drank in speak ease’s, support themselves, and fought for the vote. The Flapper Girl symbolized the new freedom young workmen had and Clara Bow symbolize the Flapper. . In The Plastic Age (Preferred Pictures, 1925) Clara got her first wide spread fan base.

Variety, on July 14, 1926, exclaimed, "Clara Bow! And how! What a 'Mantrap' she is! And how this picture is going to make her! Miss Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she steps into camera range." The movie Mantrap was Clara Bow’s first mega hit .The movie made Clara a household name and an international star. She went on to make several successful films until 1929. Clara fell out of favor in the Great Depression because Hollywood became to view actresses like Clara as immoral and frivolous. She tried her hand at a couple of talking films but she did not have a voice suited for the new talking motion picture’s Her career ended in 1933 at the ripe old age of 26.

Clara Bow made a total of 56 films during her career. These included silent and the few attempts at making it in the talkies. Only about 36 of these films exist in some form today. About 16 of these films are available on video. The others lie in the Library of Congress waiting for a future generation to rediscover and appreciate the first sex symbol on the silver screen Clara Bow. The films available are the following:

Down to the Sea in Ships (1922)
Capital Punishment (1925)
The Primrose Path (1925)
Free to Love (1925)
The Plastic Age (1925)
My Lady of Whims (1926)
Dancing Mothers (1926)
Mantrap (1926)
Hula (1927)
It! (1927)
Wings (1927)
The Wild Party (1929) - (her first talkie)
Dangerous Curves (1929)
The Saturday Night Kid (1929)
True to the Navy (1930)
No Limit (1931]

A young retired Clara Bow married a cowboy and settled down on a ranch. Her marriage did not go well and she was haunted by substance abuse problems and frequent mental breakdowns. Clara Bow died in relative obscurity in 1965.

A girl just wants to have some fun! Is all a young women mimicking the flappers on film would say. Even many the films themselves tried to show the moral dangers of becoming a fallen women. By the mid twenties all women had the option of shorter hair

The influence of Flappers on Film

In Midwestern towns across American the films that starlets like Clara Bow did brought the culture of the big city to young women. The movies tried to make light of girls who smoked, drank, and danced as the antics of passionate youth. Yet, a girl who was brave in the world and chose defy the virginal Victorian attitudes of her mother was something to take note of. If young women were free to vote then why not dress as they wished and kiss who they wished.

Most women were not rejecting traditional roles, but allowing themselves to have personal freedom before they married. Women had the vote and the right to some extent goes out in the world as they chose. Women didn’t object to showing off their sexually, just they wanted to be considered ‘nice’ girls as well. The daughters of these women later worked to not be sexually objectified. Midwestern girls in small towns where just for the first time seeing that publically displayed sexual definition could become trendy. Small town girls did not show up in speak easy dancing on tables, but they now could wear lip stick and ride in cars with boys alone if they were home at a decent hour.

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The New Courtship Culture of the 1920's

 

Prohibition and the Victorian protestant values it represented became the perfect place for youth to rebel

The Plastic Age (1925) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Americans have a renewed interest in the 1920’s. It was brought on with a renewed interest in movies like the Great Gatsby. It is one of the first decades many think of as modern. Still, the 1920’s  courtship culture did not change society overnight. It happened slowly in the decades before, when the optimism that occurs at the turn of each century became tempered by the reality of the continuance of less than positive human behavior. The Victorian ideal of women just did not fit with women who had helped end slavery and settled the West. World War I reminded the growing number of college educated women that maybe men alone should not be trusted with the political welfare of the world.

Prosperity and the culture of youth now defined a great deal of American popular life.  A growing young middle class was America’s new consumer and they were interested in being individuals not part of the old static classist Victorian society./
This was the America of Amelia Earhart and the hope of technology to redesign the world. Women were not just going to go from the home of their parents to the home of a husband. Men wanted women with a little spunk and a chance to share youthful fun.

Many historians feel the modern form of courtship started in the 1920’s. The Victorian upper-class had influence growing middle class in the previous century through media. Rituals and regiments that regulated who and how young women considered as a marriage partner ruled the day. The lower classes still enjoyed the freedom of choice when it came to partners from their own social class. Common law marriage was still a great deal more common among the urban and rural poor.  Ceremonies and periods of social acceptable engagement were still rare occupancies even in the 1920’s for girls from poor urban and rural communities.

In the decades leading to the 1920’s church and community still defined dating. Courtship was supervised by the parents and friends of young people from good families. Courtship only took place between couples who genuinely saw each other as acceptable marriage partners. While there may have been some attempt at finding potential compatibility based on personality during the courtship process social class, religion, race, ethnic background, determined who a single person could court.  There was a level of seriousness to unmarried couples spending time together; it was never simply for the fun of it.

 Dating for the first time started to occur outside the women’s home. Young men increasingly had employment outside the family farm and could afford to take the girl out to activities such as movies or dances.

  Young men who had literally seen gay Parie  now saw drinking as a man’s activity that one could do without the Churches approval. The creation of publications geared towards mass audiences crated a growing media defined culture. New York was now defining fashion and cultural attitudes in small Midwestern towns. The Spanish Flu and WWI once again reminded youth that life could be short, and they were unwilling for the older generations to define and control their lives.

The need for typist and other clerical workers meant that a large number of small town and farm girls went to the cities to stay in boarding houses with other young women. They did what all good daughters did and sent money home or saved for marriage.

 Yet, they were free from prying parent’s eyes and free to date. Most dated with friends because a good time girl was fun, but not easy. The young men had pocket money and one in a group might have a car. A respectable date at a local church dance might end up with a stop at a Speakeasy. 

Forbidden dances and music gave these young people the feeling of breaking free from the monotony and restrictions of their parent’s generation. Young men who had seen the horrors of modern war, could celebrate their youth and life before they settled down to there restrictions of married life.

Movies, books, and plays spread the concept of finding romantic love by going out with members of the opposite sex. Parents of flappers were many times blamed for these wild girls trapping unsuspecting young men in marriage. Young girls were urged to avoid the tragedy of being marked women by being associated with Flapper culture.

 Still urban parents were reading Darwin, sending their girls to college, and were becoming consumers who defined popular culture. They wanted their young girls to impact the world and be trend setters. There was a certain pride wealthier parents took in progressive child rearing techniques. They were raising a generation to define a brave new technical world where Science simply matter more than Christ They were much more tolerant of their youth defining their own futures.

Women on the silver screen were clever and campy. 

The real vamp also came to ruin in these films, but her journe

y to ruin had great appeal to girls stuck in one horse towns who only had the movie house to escape the boredom of small town life. If a girl could not become a typist, move in with roommates, and go to jazz filled speak easy, she could cut her hair and sneak some shine in some local boys car after the church dance.

"Syncopating Sue", 1928. "Cheesecake" stereo card view of a scantily clad woman doing "Charleston kick." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Eventually, respectable society found dating as an acceptable way for young people to meet acceptable spouses. Businesses sought to get the dating dollars of young folks, by encouraging all sorts of outings from miniature golf to bowling. Dates to the park for panics and to the beach for group outings, lead to couples sneaking off to do what raging hormones demanded. 

The best society could do was encourage courtship to become marriage before a young couple was tempted beyond necking. Good girls had to walk that fine line between fun loving girl and loose girl.  The age of courtship became younger, and public schools sponsored events that encourage young people to break up into couples and have active dating lives. The amount of time a young people were suppose to court became longer and longer. By the time depression era hit, putting off marriage until financial stability was established became the ideal, but being social while waiting was expected. 

The double standard of a boy having many girlfriends was encouraged so he would settle down without having wondering eye became the norm.  Still young women had increasing freedom to choose their life mates and have a single life that was somewhat self-defined.

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Flappers: The Fun Feminist

Page from magazine "The Flapper" for November 1922. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Cover of a 1922 edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's book Tales of the Jazz Age, painted by John Held, Jr. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Norma Talmadge (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Photo of a girl in "flapper" garb. Taken in Moscow, Idaho in 1922. Donated by Dave Bumgardne. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cover of magazine "The Flapper" for November 1922. Shows actress Billie Dove in football uniform. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Coming of the Jazz Age

Life for young American women was rapidly shaking off the remnants of the prudish Victorian era in the 1920’s. The upper and middle classes were experiencing a rapid growth in wealth after WWI. During World War l many married women were employed for the first time. They worked for wages that were much lower than men would work. Some women stayed in jobs after the boys came home. Modern inventions like the type writer meant that more and more young unmarried women were employed in office pools. It was in this new and exciting world for young women with some financial independence that the flapper girl appeared.

 A young single working girl sharing a room with other girls her age out to have a good time, before she settled for domestic tranquil try that marriage brought. She was a girl who cut her hair, wore cosmetics smoke danced and drank in speak easy. Not too long after the flapper decade started she voted as well.  She was also more in control of her courting life then any generation of girls before her. She was probably more sexually advent us as her time with the boys was not chaperoned by anyone. She deliberately ignored all the previous conventions of acceptable nice girl behavior.

Giving Credit to the Gibson Girls

The girls, who would throw off the last vestiges of ideal Victorian womanhood, could in fact give a little credit to their mothers a few generations before. The Gibson girl was a gay 1890’s version of a more indecent less fragile Victorian girl. These girls were first portrayed in the in drawings of Charles Dana Gibson; a Boston artist .The Gibson girl had slightly shorter hair, was likely to attend college, and engaged in sports. They still had angelic faces surrounded by lavish curls, but they could ice skate, ride bikes, and in general keep up with the boys. They did not take to the fainting couches because their corsets were too tight

The ‘Flappers’ Get Noticed

The name ‘flapper ‘ was first used in Britain to describe independent working girls living in London and enjoying full   non chaperoned social lives. The phrase was referring to the girls who, like young birds, were trying their wings in a big urban modern city.

Popular authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and artist such as John Held Jr. coined the term:” flapper’ in the United States and provided written and artistic presentations of what this trend among young women meant. Fitzgerald described flappers, as ”lovely, expensive, and about nineteen", making flappers the object of affection to many American young men. Held portrayed the flapper girl in all her finery wearing unbuckled goulashes that made a flapping noise when she walked.

Flappers Redefine Fashion

The flapper style with its short simple dresses and short hair brought the whole concept of style to middle class young women. Fashion had been only in the realm of upper class women before this time. The whole idea that women would wear a dress just for certain social occasions was something the ordinary women could not fathom. The flapper look was simplistic enough that now girls could afford that special dress to go out for a night on the down.

Flappers on the Silver Screen

Some very early film stars spread the flapper fashion craze by appearing on the silver screen donning short hair and short dresses. These were the starlets of the Jazz Age. They promoted a culture; where urban living, jazz music, and  the speak easy were very appealing to young men returning from war and young women who were anxious to enjoy their youth.

It was not that the flapper girl was totally carefree. Society worried about the girls who appeared to have loose morals. Screen Flapper starlet Anita Page did a film called, “Our Dancing Daughters” who portrayed a gold digger flapper who tricked a sugar daddy in to marriages. The fallen girl literally met her early demise by falling down the stairs in as a result of drinking too much.

Flappers Redefine Fashion

The flapper style with its short simple dresses and short hair brought the whole concept of style to middle class young women. Fashion had been only in the realm of upper class women before this time. The whole idea that women would wear a dress just for certain social occasions was something the ordinary women could not fathom. The flapper look was simplistic enough that now girls could afford that special dress to go out for a night on the down

 For wealthier young girls looking for the ideal flapper dress there was the designs of Coco Chanel. Chanel used fabrics that traditionally been used for men’s clothes. This meant the dresses were durable and easy to move in. Chanel shunned the elaborate laces used on the dresses of upper class Victorian women. The dresses also were more basic in their coloring. Beige, cream, navy blue, and black were common colors for these shorter shapeless dresses. Chanel’s poplar “Garonne Look” was most associated with young flapper girls.

With the new look everything the flapper wore was different than what her mother wore. Gone were corsets and the less restrictive girdle came on the scene. Gone were bodices, replaced by less restrictive bras and camisoles with netting for support. Heavy black hosiery which most women wore up till the end of World War I was replaced by flesh and pastel colors stockings that were rolled pass the knee. Underwear was lighter too. No more bloomers hidden under layers of petticoats. Short knickers and simple slips helped the flapper achieve her stream lined look.

Does She Dare Bob Her Hair

Women had started bobbing their hair during World War I. It was probably just seen as a practical move from girls who went from being in the home to being in the factory to replace the boys who had gone over seas. Many men of the period noted that when young girls cut their hair they seem to become more outspoken.

Flappers as Fun Loving Feminist

Soon girls who cut their hair were wearing short skirts, rolled stockings, and long beads and calling themselves, “flappers”. Of course the simple bob would soon become waved bobs, as perking and coloring hair soon became acceptable for young women.

The fun of the jazz age ended with the coming of the Great Depression. Frivolous behavior was blamed for the fall of the stock market and society became much more stoic.

Still women did not return to long hair and restrictive corsets. Women had the vote and were now in the working world. Even lower class women made an effort to follow fashion trends that very few people could afford to buy off the rack. Women were now present in offices, classrooms, and factories working along side men.

A girl getting a college education or participation in sports was not seen as a usual thing. Dating for purely social reasons was acceptable. The age that most women married had increased and the number of children she would have decreased. The flapper girls had set the stage for the emergence of the modern American women who would have an identity that was more than wife and mother.

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