Flapper - Women - Women's Health

May 19, 2012


		1 Introduction 2 Origins 3 Flapper behavior 4 Flapper Slang 5 Flapper dress 6 End of the flapper era 7 See also 8 External links 9 Alternative Usages

Women's Health Women

Flapper

Wikipedia

The term flapper in the 1920s, referred to a "new breed" of young women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered "decent" behavior. The flappers were seen as brash in their time for wearing makeup, drinking hard liquor and smoking.
Image:LifeFlapper1922.jpg|thumbnail|250px|right|"The Flapper" by F. X. Leyendecker

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Origins

Flappers had their origins in the popular contempt for prohibition. With legal saloons and cabarets closed, back alley speakeasies became prolific and popular. This discrepancy between the law abiding religion-based temperance movement and the actual ubiquitous consumption of alcohol led to widespread disdain for authority. Flapper independence may have its origins in the Gibson girls of the 1890s. Although that pre-war look does not resemble the flapper identity, their independence and feminism may have led to the flapper wise-cracking tenacity thirty years later.
The term flapper first appears in United Kingdom|Britain, based on a perceived similarity to young birds vainly trying to leave the nest. While many in the United States assumed at the time that the term "flapper" derived from a fashion of wearing galoshes unbuckled so that they flapped as the wearer walked, the term was already documented as in use in the United Kingdom as early as 1912. From the 1900s into the 1920s flapper was a term for any impetuous teenaged girl, often including women under 30. Only in the 1920s did the term take on the meaning of the flapper generation style and attitudes, while people continued to use the word to mean immature.
A related but alternative usage in the late twenties was a press catch phrase|catch word which refered to adult women voters and how they might vote differently than men their age. While the term flapper had multiple usages, flappers as a social group were well defined from other 1920s fads.
Image:Flapper mag 1922.jpg|left|thumb|Flapper Magazine's by-line, "Not for old fogies" was a sign of the Roaring Twenties

Writers and artists in the United States such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Held Jr., and Anita Loos popularized the flapper look and lifestyle through their works, and flappers came to be seen as attractive, although reckless and independent.

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Flapper behavior

Flappers went to jazz clubs at night where they dance|danced provocatively, smoked cigarette|cigarettes through long holders, and dated. They rode bicycles and drove cars. They drank alcohol openly, a defiant act in the period of Prohibition. Physical intimacy without sexual penetration became much more common, often refered to as petting. Some even threw "petting party|petting parties" where petting was the main attraction.

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Flapper Slang

Flappers had their own slang, with terms like "snugglepup" (a man who frequents petting parties) and "bamey-mugging" (sex).Their dialect reflected their promiscuity and drinking habits; "I have to go see a man about a dog" often meant going to buy whiskey and a "Handcuff" or "Manacle" was an engagement or wedding ring. Also reflective of their preoccupations, they had many ways to say fantastic, such as "That's so Jake" or "That's the bees knees."

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Flapper dress

Image:Margaret preston painting flapper 1925.JPG|thumb|Flapper (1925) by Australian painter Margaret Preston

In addition to their irreverent behavior, flappers were known for their style, which largely emerged as a result of the musical style of jazz and the popularization of dancing that accompanied it. Called gar??onne in French language|French ("boy" with a feminine suffix), flapper style made them look young and boyish. The short "Bob_cut|bob" haircut became popular, only to be replaced later by the shorter "Eaton" or "shingle" which slicked the hair and covered the ears with curls. Flappers did away with their corset|corsets and pantaloons in favor of "step-in" undergarment|panties. Without corsets, flappers wore simple bust bodices to make their chest hold still when dancing. Without the added curves of a corset they promoted their boyish look, and soon early popular bras were sold to flatten and reduce the appearance of the bust. Flapper dresses were straight and loose, leaving the arms bare and dropping the waistline to the hips. Rayon stockings were attatched to garter belt|garter belts. skirt|Skirts rose to just below the knee by 1927, allowing flashes of knee to be seen when a flapper danced or walked through a breeze, although the way they danced made any long loose skirt flap up to show their knees. Flappers powdered or put rouge on their knees to show them off when dancing. A round hat called a cloche usually finished the look. Perhaps most scandalously, flappers also took to wearing make-up, previously restricted to actor|actresses and prostitute|prostitutes. Popular flapper make-up styles made the skin pale, the lips red, and the eyes black-ringed. All of this encouraged the development of shocking dance styles such as the Charleston (dance)|Charleston, the Shimmy, the Bunny Hug and the Black Bottom (dance)|Black Bottom.

Despite all the scandal flappers generated, their look became fashionable in a toned-down form among even respectable older women. Most significantly, the flappers removed the corset from female fashion and popularized short hair for women. Among the actresses most closely identified with the style were Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, and Colleen Moore, as well as cartoon characters such as Minnie Mouse.

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End of the flapper era

Despite its popularity, the flapper lifestyle and look could not survive the Great Depression. The high-spirited attitude and hedonism simply could not find a place amid the economic hardships of the 1930s. In many ways, however, the self-reliant flapper had allowed the modern woman to make herself an integral and lasting part of the Western World.

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