submitted by anon 💛💜

Model Hannale Sherman on the terrace of Condé Nast's Park Avenue apartment, 1928. This 30-room penthouse, designed by Elsie de Wolfe, was the scene of Nast's many legendary parties. Sherman wears a crepe de chine skirt and jacket over a cream-colored blouse, by Hattie Carnegie, and a hat by Rose Descat.

Photo: Edward Steichen for Vogue via the Condé Nast Store

FWIW, "mauve" was one of the coal-tar dyes developed in the mid-19th century that made eye-wateringly bright clothing fashionable for a few decades.

It was an eye-popping magenta purple

HOWEVER, like most aniline dyes, it faded badly, to a washed-out blue-grey ...

...which was the color ignorant youngsters in the 1920s associated with “mauve”.

(This dress is labeled "mauve" as it is the color the above becomes after fading).

They colored their vision of the past with washed-out pastels that were NOTHING like the eye-popping electric shades the mid-Victorians loved. This 1926 fashion history book by Paul di Giafferi paints a hugely distorted, I would say dishonest picture of the past.

Ever since then this faded bluish lavender and not the original electric eye-watering hot pink-purple is the color associated with the word “mauve”.

"a modern flapper in an old fashioned gown" by arthur kales, 1923

Lillian Gish as "Letty” in The Wind, 1927

A young lady photographed in New York City, 1925.

1926: “This girl has all of [the] trends and she’s not loath to wear them at once: bell earrings, a dog collar worn as a necklace, a large beauty spot on her cheek, an ivory cigarette holder, a design to cover the vaccination mark on her arm, heavy bracelets, an anklet, a photo of a boyfriend on her stocking, an anklet watch, fancy garters worn below the knee and a mirror fastened to her wrist.”

Waiting for wristwatch anklets to make a comeback

ok so i was saving 1920s gomens for a comic in mind but i have so much schoolwork rn that i'm not sure when/if i'll get that done SO. HERE SHE IS.

BURLESQUE DANCER CROWLEY.

she's taken permanent residence in all of my sketchbooks, this isn't even half of the drawings i have of her I LOVE HER SM

Some insight into the designs and fashion of the 20s would be so cool, especially since it's kinda hard these days to sift through just costume listing :'0

Yeah, sadly, the usefulness of a Google search is greatly diminished these days. You can still find articles written by actual human beings and genuine historical garments, but you have to wade through a lot of junky costumes and AI bullshit to get there. I can't possibly fully explain 1920s fashion here, though. It's a broad enough topic to write a sizable book about...which is why people have written many books about it. Check out some books. There are things you can get pretty cheap from resellers, everything from academic screeds about the politics behind the fashion trends of the time, to clothing catalogue compilations from the 20s, to giant coffee table books full of glorious photos.

Here's a PDF version of one of those clothing catalog collections. There's an entire preface about 1920s fashion in general too.

There are some pretty well made blogs about the topic out there as well. Vintage Dancer is one of them. The front of the site is unfortunately kind of cluttered with ads for costume apparel and modern clothing inspired by the 20s, but scroll past that to the historical bits and you'll find pertinent things.

There are some great fashion YouTubers too, like Karolina Zebrowska. Although she's not focused heavily on 1920s fashion, she talks a lot about early 20th century fashion in general. She also talks a lot about the historical context of those fashions.

Also, try online museum displays. The Met Museum has a searchable collection, for instance. Look up 1920s fashion, 1920s dresses, 1920s suits, etc.

Cameras were popular and accessible in the 1920s. Look at pictures of what people actually wore. You can find these images in free government photo archives, or licensing libraries like Getty Images (you don't have to license anything to look at it). And there's always Shorpy. Poor old, underappreciated Shorpy. Their archive is searchable.

So hey, to anyone who does femme historical fashion anywhere between 1885 and 1950-

Cornell University has the entire archives of Good Housekeeping up from that time period. And Good Housekeeping used to have English-language fashion plates with clear instructions as to fabric, colour, and cut.

They were ads for the personal shopping service Good Housekeeping apparently??? ran around this time???? and they are a fucking goldmine if you're remotely interested in fashion history or if you're looking to build a 20th century historical wardrobe.

Just, like, look at this?????

An itemized layout of every piece of a young bride's (aspirational) wardrobe in 1930. Including prices. And then below it, a fashion plate, with English-language descriptions of what all these things are and what fabrics they're made of. And an ad for Good Housekeeping's fucking personal shopping service again. XD

IDK, most people who do historical fashion on any kind of serious level probably already know about this??? but I didn't and was stunned and overjoyed to find out that this existed. my research at the library gave me a bunch of high-level overviews that weren't helpful for more than colour and cut.

SO YEAH. THANK YOU CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

submitted by anon 💛🧡

Joan Crawford photographed by Irwin Bueller, 1928.

Illustrations from Irish Fairy Tales by Arthur Rackham (1920)

Mademoiselle Ledue, a performer at the Folies Bergère, ca. 1924

Clara Bow ❤︎︎

Très Parisien, 1923