Many important things happened in the 1920s (Prohibition, jazz music, Art Deco...) But in my mind, one of the more significant developments of the decade was fashion entering the modern era. After decades of rigid Victorian style (think corsets and petticoats), fashion was finally becoming more relaxed, and women began to don what we now know as sportswear.
The movement, led by flappers (young ladies who pushed social norms by drinking, smoking and wearing then-risqué styles like short hemlines and excessive makeup), paved the way for what fashion has become today.
This important shift was championed by a few women who quickly became fashion icons in their own right. Between Coco Chanel, the fashion designer who was responsible for popularizing a more casual, less constricting silhouette, and the German-American actress Marlene Dietrich, who pioneered androgynous style, there were plenty of leading ladies who defied preconceived notions of femininity and beauty.
Always Wearing Pearls!
Fashion designer Coco Chanel, born August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France, is famous for her timeless designs, trademark suits, and little black dresses. Chanel was raised in an orphanages and taught to sew. She had a brief career as a singer before opening her first clothes shop in 1910. In the 1920s, she launched her first perfume and introduced the Chanel suit and the little black dress.
"Fashion fades, only style remains the same."
"That Dress" ...
So great is Coco Chanel's legacy that fans make pilgrimages to her Paris apartment (although she also lived in the Paris Ritz for 30 years), which is preserved as she left it and endlessly referenced for style - as is every image of her and every tiny thing she ever designed. From her use of monochrome to her oversized 'costume' pearls and cuffs, everything is still sublimely, continuously referenced.