 What we're going to do is Begin a conversation about what was the essence of 20s fashion and there'll be some images ongoing behind us and They are meant to just broaden our discussion, but also perhaps lead to some questions from you in the audience So I'm just gonna get myself assembled here. It looks like I have everybody's water So If I can share it with you So Jan was kind enough to bring some images from the Brooklyn Museum Collection at the Met to show the transition from pre-20s fashion in terms of silhouette to 20s fashion, so I'm going to just ask Jan to elaborate on that a little Okay On your left you see a dress for about 1905 This is the Bellapok period and the silhouette was perhaps the most extreme silhouette that of all in costume history because it really deformed or reshaped the body so that the Buzum which was the called the monobusum or the powder pigeon was one bulk in the other bulk was the Was the derriere This is not as exaggerated as it might be in the in the in the behind part, but the the the corset that was worn under this was very heavy and it it pushed the front made the front straight and Did not separate the breasts and then And the push the behind out so the woman's Shape was actually an S curve and the revolutionary Designer Paul Poiré whom some of you probably know referred to this as two great semi circles towing a barge So Poiré was quite actually instrumental in changing that silhouette which happened in about Began at 1908 1909 so on your right you see a dress from around 1910 1911 and you can see now you have an upright position of the body in natural position and the waist has raised raised up to under the Buzum and the line is much is much straighter This dress is also however worn with a corset That is is more upright and perhaps a little bit more restricted and it's not Shaping the body in an unnatural manner, I will say both of these fashions were are Very complicated in construction and very difficult to get into there many many hooks and eyes Very diabolical often the hooks and eyes are actually sewn on an opposite Alternating opposite positions. So you have to really focus on doing each one and there are many snaps And layers and you have to find what snap goes with what I etc. So You really had to have someone dress you and I think that's a really important aspect when we talk about what happens in the 20s So this is what happens Well about 15 years later 1926 here here we are with a completely tubular Unfitted shape that was prevalent That we really associate as the shape of the 20s although as we talk We will know that that is not the only shape of the 20s So here you have something that has no hooks and eyes that slips over the head and Was easy for a woman to put on By herself, but I must say dressing a mannequin or or putting it on a dress form is another story Because the dress form of the mannequin can't wriggle into a dress like a body can So those are the three this is the history of the 20th century silhouettes up to the 1920s Thanks, Jan I think that one of the things that was most important in the exhibition upstairs youth and beauty was to Express something of the body consciousness of the decade and it was it was a highly important subject matter both in high culture and popular culture and Underpinning no pun intended Some of the new designs was this incredibly new liberated sense of the body and it had to do with the way people Regarded proportions as well as the desire to see the body as something active and not restrained by clothing or by codes of social behavior and Of course, it was the first great era of dieting and this is from an ad for a scale Where you see all these lovely young women doing their calisthenics and exercises In collage on on the top of the scale. So Just by way of background There were other aspects of behavior in the 20s that led to the refashioning of clothing designs including the sporting life and the fact that People were doing more physically more outdoors more actively men and women So I wonder if people want to comment a little about just the notion of sports clothing well You know looking at these pictures the women are still dressed You know as women in skirts, but women did start wearing knickers like the men and they were golfing their fanatics about golfing like the men and Was not Look down upon our unusual for a woman to have a knicker suit just like a man Their knickers didn't have the fly in the front buttoned on the side But that's about the only difference between how it was styled and they would either they'd wear a jacket They'd wear a tie and a vest and look a lot like the men did on the on the the green No, is that a transition Lisa that occurred from early to late like you know, I don't really know how it happened I don't know who really pioneered it. I just know it was accepted and and it appears in magazines and in catalogs So the the look was being sold. So obviously it was mainstream They still were skirts on the tennis court But they were flying planes by the early 20s and there was like the first woman taxi driver And you know it was interesting there were because of World War one women had to do those jobs because the men weren't around and it started introducing trousers and more sportswear into women because you know, that's what history Was dictating at the time. Mm-hmm. I would I would say that is just exactly right these the sport that really Produced the was the impetus though for the bifurcated garments was was The bicycling which became very mainstream for women in the 1890s and you see Photographs of women dressed in very manly shirts and ties and they had to have their garments had to be split in order to ride a stride a bicycle even unlike Riding habits You could ride side saddle on a horse which women did do Up into the 20th century primarily, but you couldn't ride sad saddle on a bicycle So I think that was a that was a big Shot in the arm for women wearing wearing pants. Yeah, they realized it was comfortable So how did the the use of either trouser-like clothing or Modified skirts that were either shorter or sportier in some way, but I guess we're like a lot. Yeah How did that relate to the viability of pants for women as regular clothing not sport clothing were Were pants actually part of a woman's wardrobe aside from her? Not in the be not in the beginning of the 20th century, but again Paul pour a In 1910 1911 showed Bifurcated garments which were called the jup coulotte and you know what we refer to as coulotte's They were very shocking at the time, but it you know the momentum began to build very slowly and then tennis players also Suzanne Langen and and Well, she was with they were still wearing shorter skirts actually in the in the in the 20s, but by the late late 20s What was it there was another tennis player his name I Scared me right not Helen wills was the other one Alvarez I think was wearing at war coulotte's on the tennis court, but that wasn't until 1929 1930s Yeah, you know the introduction of the shinwazari movement Was pajamas right and there was a lot of you know Chinese style tunic and pajamas and I came just came across a photo of a woman in 1924 the Easter Parade you know in New York City and she's on Fifth Avenue and she's got this Fabulous shinwazari fur trimmed trousers, you know silk pajama trousers and you know a tunic top and her You know this beautiful hat and she's there for the Easter Parade all dressed up and that's you know No one's looking at her scans, so it was you know I think it was accepted because you were wearing you know ethnic a costume. Yes. It was a bit of a costume, but It brings us to yes the other aspect of Influence was Styles historical styles from various Foreign places including Asia and Egypt and this is a spread from Vogue from the 20s and you can see where very self-consciously aspects of both cuts and draping are being drawn from historical styles so One of those Features is the sash the which Moves up and down the body various years in throughout the 20s, but you have this sort of belted look in the low waist and I wonder if there was any Special Significance to that. I mean those were those were hard to wear Silhouettes if you actually get down to it Perhaps you could talk about fit or how the the sash moved and changed over the course of the decade What? The one and one on the far left there that actually her sash that she's wearing because every Catalog was selling this look. They actually called it the Egyptian belt. So, you know, that is that is actually Look very Egyptian looking that particular silhouette But anything that and and they actually would hug the hip and come in the front too And there'd be some ornament, you know, right there in the the G spot which was very interesting Continually surprised me is just how indiscreet all of that ornament is and it's it's usually such a pastiche I don't know if I was I went right to the crotch exactly and And it was sometimes really just crude in terms of the layering of stuff It was that something that was more Restrained in high fashion and and less restrained in homemade clothing or definitely the couture Didn't do anything quite quite so outlandish or crude looking, but I also think it's interesting that You know, there was always in in the history of costume was always emphasis on the waist or the placement of the waist but the waist was always defined one place or another and I think this is the and this is the first time that the the waist actually They basically disappeared or it went way around the the around the hips And it's sort of that idea of being completely antithetical completely opposite to what came before to the to all of the associations with the with the Bellapok and the was old-fashioned in the pre pre-war Life really and at the same time it was it was this moment of a very Athletic slender live ideal body, so it's it's in a way surprising that the waist disappears But then again these were fashions that were very hard for larger women to wear if you see some of the rare advertisements for The versions of these dresses made for larger women they look pretty Yeah, I mean the illustrations are always very elongated and very lean But when you see photographs of actual women, you know wearing them, you know, there is absolutely by 22, you know There's no waist so if your hips are wide The fabric is on your sides is as wide as your hips so you become this block You know and it was very very difficult for anybody with curves to wear that It's not made for any kind of bust at all if you're tall and skinny and have boy hips You are in like Flynn, you know, you look great and everything, but if you didn't if you were short and you know No, you know a little round Forget it. That's why everyone wanted to be on the Hollywood 18-day diet which originated in the 20s People who became more active and they were more sporting and they were out doing things and you know that led to all Everyone wanting to stay fit to look wonderful in these new chemise shapes where and the influence of The androgynous look Where the girl looked more like a boy. Yeah, exactly. In fact, they called the flapper in France Garcon Met the men's word men in in French and it was a look of Like a boy With the short head too, right? Yeah, and use was this is something we we had talked about Did the notion of youth being the ideal and I it's part of the content of the exhibition as well There was this sense that youth held all of this promise and it held physical ideals and Just sort of a higher A higher existence is sort of ideal period of one's life What's occurred to me in just learning about fashion in the 20s and I I know all of you can speak to this is That there was such incredible variety. We know in our sort of hackneyed view of the typical Halloween flapper dress one thing and it is like rigidly associated with the 20s But when you start looking through the journals through the magazines, you see so many different Silhouettes so many different Shapes and hemlines and then again you have the sort of shifts Year by year or two years by two years. I chose just sort of as brackets for our conversation Vogue pages Actually the one the left is from Altman's from a Altman's catalog from 21 and on the right is a Vogue page from 28 and you do see the disappearance of this sort of backward-looking turn of the century Shape that you see On the left where the waist is more where it originally was but look at the variety in the right in terms of pleading versus The layered scalloping and I think that was a revelation to me just how varied the shapes could be Over the course of the decade. Yeah, I mean we say in our shop. It's like it was anything goes I mean once you really start looking at all the research They tried every kind of design element possible a lot of times it was very garish, you know and terrible But anything that was coming out of France any kind of design, you know The Americans were desperately trying to knock off and reproduce and get on the backs of women for you know $12 and 98 cents. So you know, they tried everything all the bells and whistles because They saw it in Paris magazine. So it must be good, you know, but all of it together And it was primarily from Paris correct that that these fashion Ships are coming. Yes. Absolutely Paris was the capital and as much as Americans would like liked We're always looking for their own indigenous style It was it was it was Paris that everyone looked to but there there there were basically I would say two strains of Costume were designed in the 20s and one was this streamlined shape that that built over the over the decade and was Who we associate a lot with that with Gabriel Chanel, of course And then the other was a romantic the romantic look with full skirts That's you and you see both of those on that page on the full skirted There was in particular Jean-Laure Van was the proponent of these the more romantic styles And there was a particular style called the robe to steal which had very very full skirts We're usually ankle length and had side hoops sort of like 18th century dresses And that was a dress that so and you know this dress here you have lots of ruffles and more fabric So they coexisted Now we're going to tap into Lisa's Life a little here to talk a bit about some dresses. She selected that are from the shop for Boardwalk. Yeah, just I just to illustrate how quickly The waistline changed in the 20s. I mean it was really pretty revolutionary How the look just went from old-fashioned to completely a 20th century modern woman in a span of just a very few years It's pretty amazing this dress here. I'm sorry. It is a little dark on your left You can't really see the detail, but there's lights down a little a sorrow just on the yeah, that there's you know It's purple chiffon. It's a better day dress like for a luncheon or something Summer and there's a sash that goes exactly at the waist You know it has an under piece built in that you can't see that snaps and hooks up the side That's linen that holds the bust in and then there's the chiffon that goes over it for the drape And it's long it would hit you like right up, you know above the ankles like low and that was you know like 1918 and still played up until 1920 easily would no one look at scants at you if you were wearing that and And then you see the this is only about 22 Okay, so it goes right back down the hips. It's still long Because which was a tough very tough look to wear because you know if you were short definitely you had to be tall So not only did the hip that go down the hips, but then it was long also The beating the heavy heavy beating on the chiffon the the kind of tubular look Bear arms. There's absolutely no under piece holding you in. It's just chiffon fabric on it and The little sash at that at the session at the hip. So the whole thing was just slipped on just there was no way to No, it's just there's no side. No, nothing and You were Costuming the first season for 1920 correct. Yes So you could go either way didn't we would use we might sneak into this a little bit Only in nightclubs with very young women because Paris was coming out with this look a little earlier hadn't really reached America so it depended on who the girl was wearing this but it was like the real fashion forward set, you know Yeah And this is what I call like true flapper So it's all the way down the hip, but it's short at the same time, you know They did a lot of this kind of handkerchief hem was perfect for dancing short kicky and again There's absolutely no under piece at all. Yeah, it's all you're all hanging out Yeah, we're going to get to underwear in a little while Censorship And then I couldn't resist we have a couple of stills to show some of Lisa's artistry and That of her staff, which we just learned this evening is 55 strong in terms of yeah when we're at more full tilt bogey It's 55 which is amazing. Yeah, can you say a little bit about these two exquisite dresses as I think they're both incredibly Lucy's dress on the left is it's a printed chiffon, which is she is fashion forward because oh Sorry, that somebody was gonna have something and And So the length is still on the long side, but you could see it's hitting her more at the hip She was getting her stuff from Paris, you know story wise because she's her boyfriend was not key very rich He would be ordering her these clothes She has kind of a you know a cocoon style coat that's brocade And actually it's it's cut velvet and that part of the coat is original It had old fur on it. That was you know fur is Gets very sad after a hundred years. So we replaced the fur with Fox, which is still vintage Fox And where did you find the vintage box? You know I go to so many of these vintage Exposed and shows, you know the Metropolitan, you know vintage show It's like four times a year in New York and one of my vendors had this it's like an 80s Fox Thing that we recut but it was beautiful fur So and then we had to reline it and you can still find you know, there's inspired fabrics still Inspired by the prints of the time and she has more of a clothes hat instead of the wide brimmed That was still Yeah, and Margaret on the right this is when she first starts working in the dress shop and So she's basically like a model on the floor wearing one of the dresses that they would sell in the shop But it's not on the hip. It's at the waist and it's long it's silk It's it's and it has a set-in sleeve. So it's still that old-fashioned styling, but there's some beading some decoration and much more in keeping with what a woman would probably buy in America at that time And could you just say sorry just gonna assist about 1920 then yeah Yeah, so, you know her dress on the right is more like The the silhouette is like the purple dress, right? She's wearing yeah Can you say just a little before we move on to some of the men's clothing? What the sort of proportions are to your use of vintage versus newly fabricated garments About like how many oh, okay, or well who wears the vintage who wears the news Well the background for the most part wears the vintage suits and you know men's clothing men's suits Didn't hugely drastically changed through the 20s So we have a little more leeway with the men It was more about the shoulder got padded and bigger, you know as you get towards the 30s, you know Pants got wider and then they started introducing zippers late in the 20s So we tried to do as much button fly as we can and keep the silhouette skinny And tight because that's what it was for the suits had come out of sack suits, you know in the teens but once After World War one young men came back from the war and I don't think they wanted to look like their dads or their grandfathers and Just completely just so I completely changed Men That would be like when men started wearing the Oxford bags and yeah, exactly or sweaters for sportswear That's right. Yeah, young young youth. It's a youthful. Look, you know, they didn't want to look like a banker and a bowler Which was what it was before and that you had mentioned when we were talking about the The soft collars. Oh, yeah I mean instead of that's right because they you know, they were soft collars in the uniforms and were one So when they came out of the war last thing they wanted to do was put on a hard starched collar Which was very uncomfortable. So soft collars start to become mainstream now Nucky here is wearing a starched collar because he didn't you know, he's the old you know the old school and Has a certain authoritative You know look of course He everything's custom made for him He has the money and he has a tailor making all his things So everything that he wears on the show we make because it has to look fresh and new and like it's made for him, right? And and the color is just sensational. Yeah, yeah Yeah, we talked about that because of course when you see old movies everything's in black and white So you think everybody must have worn sepia colored clothes. Well, that's not true And until you read about it, right or get color catalogs or some sort of color something I mean they were doing neon colors. Some of the knits are so bright. It's amazing So where do you glean your color choices from? I mean what inspires you to go in and you know, I Love color John loves color So, you know for him he's a bit of a showman and a dandy and it's a boardwalk on Atlantic City, you know That's all that subtlety was because he atmosphere. Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, he's like the ringleader So in a way, we wanted to you know, make him the he's the showstopper when he walks down the boardwalk right if you recall up in the exhibition if you've seen youth and beauty upstairs the portrait of Paul Cadmus by Luigi Lucione. He has this brilliant bright green tie on and It makes a lot more sense. Yeah, if you think about just how important color was no It's a boldness to to to get out of the Victorian age to get out of the black to get out of the You know, I'll live. It's all about life. Everybody was you know, yeah, happy happy happy and it's one big party So now we're Anyone like their water I have to We are now We're gonna talk about dressing from the inside out because one of the thank you to most important things about 20s fashion is the way it fits the body in terms of a new kind of sleekness and a Silhouette and All of a sudden the magazines are just filled with Ads for and really sexy ads for lingerie for corsets in a way that simply wasn't the case before the 20s because it was completely inappropriate and now you have Really long explanations as well as well as to why you should choose this form of undergarment So you had these one-piece blousey things you had the two-piece whether it was a Bando or a more shaped brazier and Drawers as my grandma used to call them But then on top of that you would have your new fangled corset, which was an improvement over the old So here are here are your silky under things and I love the fact that the brand is called kicker-nick bloomers and Then you have the more supportive components the elastic girdle Which Lisa has explained to me goes on top of your silky's which is not something I understood and then the dawn especially with maiden form in the 20s, which is when I think it's Ida Rosenthal starts That company the support bra for those larger women who can't just wear the bandos or the little handkerchiefs so Comments the line was always straight across and with straps to accommodate the style of the dress which often an evening gown had this sort of shape or V shape and so it'd be straight across and My grandmother's bra from 1920 that I have it was part of her Which she took on her honeymoon was just a little piece of silk with two ribbons straps and No support whatsoever. It's all shredded now, but There were also the pants were usually wide and called step-ins step-ins Like what we think they start calling him teddies in the 80s, right? But yeah, it was a step in and you know, it's funny too This picture doesn't show it, but if you look at some catalogs if you had bloomers or you had you know silk bloomers Let's say they would cram the top of the bloomer into the top of the hose It was such a bulky weird like what it's like nobody really thought through all these layers and you know It's really funny and no wonder, you know women rebelled and were rolling their stockings down because I made absolutely No sense to be stuffing your underwear into the top of your stockings You know and the the clips for the guard, you know The garters for the stockings are like right in the middle of your crotch And you're like how do you sit with that some some really odd odd, you know designs that you know came and went Things are evolving. Yeah, they were evolving. Nobody was really figuring it out quite yet Yeah Rolled up stockings was a place to keep your flas. Oh, yeah I think what's Interesting though is these sort of, you know, we now cringe at girdles even though a lot of people pour themselves into Spanx but there were these major steps in progress and to the front lace corset and then the rubberized girdle which you see these just Jubilant ads for this new kind of material the stretchy girdle and you can imagine how Wonderful that was for people They had to be awfully hot though. Oh, yeah But you know women still took them off in the bathroom, you know when they went to dance they had the nightclubs. Oh, yeah Nobody was you know check your corset someplace, you know, maybe they're you know, they had to wear it out the door But they weren't wearing it on the dance floor Yeah, actually in the in the in the 20s the corsets still were not they had Elastic inserts small elastic inserts, but elastic actually a full elastic garment was not a Possible technologically to be made until the 1930s because they had to figure out How to process latex so that it could be made into very long strands and That didn't happen until about 1930s. So these corsets still are you know, they're still really corsets and I was thinking before we were talking about the body shape that Vogue is just replete with ads for corsets and the text saying it's about Slimness it's about making you slim and make you know, that's what the corset was for it Wasn't reshaping as much as it was to make you look slim even though you you weren't it wasn't your semicircles again It wasn't your semicircles. Yeah, but the thinnest girls Wouldn't wear corsets, correct? Or would they so they reap the full benefit of the freedom of the silky under things and You made an interesting point When we had our little discussion previous to this Lisa about shapes of women's bodies today and how the a lot of the women you fit Don't conform to the kind of bust line that was Acceptable or oh, yeah common. Yes, and they're very sad, but You know we get when we fit background, you know, and we get somebody with a full Bosom and you know, we make we make kind of mass produce our own underwear So we get the right silhouette and there's no underwire and it's just basically kind of an elastic Tube we put on them with straps just to sort of hold them in but everything goes south and they look in the mirror And they're you know, they're just like, oh my god. No, I can't you don't make me. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, you gotta And we make them but then the clothes fit them correctly. Otherwise, you know, if you're up in front, it looks bizarre You know, it doesn't work with the car. They weren't doing darts, you know Yeah, which is mind boggling to me that there were blouses were not darted So because it wasn't made for any kind of uplift everything hung lower, you know So if it doesn't make sense for you to be out here It's just strange, you know, so changing ideals underwear is very important That is the foundation. If you don't have a good foundation, nothing looks good on top of it, you know and the other Changing feature, of course in the decade are the hemlines and this is amazing to me on the left is a group of dresses that are more or less the same in terms of hemline and These are both from later in the decade on the right is more of a an accurate assortment of the kinds of hemlines and their edging I'm sure I'm not using the right terms, but you know from these tubular skirts to Layered things and as you mentioned the handkerchief Jan is this something that was unique To the 20s in terms of the variety if you compare it to the teens or you know the first two decades of the century well in the teens there was a lot of asymmetry that that Was part of the style a lot of sort of different Layers of things that that were draped asymmetrically so It's not necessarily a new concept I I Would say is this from 1928? Yes, you know, yeah, because that's when that would be my Because that's when the hemlines began The unevenness of hemlines became the style and that's when hemlines began to drop So they started dropping with with just sort of one long piece at the hem or handkerchief points Or this there's a great examples actually and then by 29 they really Dropped Exactly this transition was Kyle you remember you were talking about you know how the underwear was straight across to look good underneath You know the straight across 20s dresses it's because they were cutting the fabric straight They didn't start doing bias until later in the 20s and that's another reason why These kind of layers work so well because they're cut on the bias So they started doing bias at the hips, which is much more flattering for you know a nice Drapey flowy feel but before it was just a squint, you know It was cut on the grain and not against the grain so that's a that changed a lot with the The way the underwear was worn to later. I Want to make sure we get Kyle brought just an amazing array of Contemporary fashions for us to look at that were inspired by the 20s I just want to take a very quick look at my favorite subject the bathing suit Because it's such a big part of the works of art upstairs Bathers and swimmers were a major subject for artists in the 20s in part because you could reveal the body that way In a way that referenced all the ideals of physical Strength and vigor What we have here are early 20s and late 20s on the left 21 on the right 25 after you have the real spread of the California suit, which is the knit suit and Early on you still have these heavy cotton dresses Notice as well stockings hats which which sort of do continue. These are from Altman's and What I love about this is is they look fairly idealized in terms of how they're worn I just want to jump to the real thing On the left the early suits on the right you can see just how Revealing the knit suits were You start to get a lot of these are this is a group of max senate bathing beauties He had these films of bathing beauties all the time and they're just fabulous always posing with some sort of Provocative accessory here the apples they're all eating but as you pointed out Lisa as well You couldn't wear these off the board I mean no no you there's no way you you would enter you know You come down the stairs and go into a cabana and change and I mentioned to you a lot of times You'd rent your bathing suit right people just didn't have bathing suits, you know your general public So you'd be wearing somebody else's nasty old wet wool suit Sounds great and hygienic and You'd have to go and change the cabana stay on the beach You know in your swimsuit if you wanted to go on the boardwalk you had to be in clothes Otherwise it was considered indecent you'd be arrested And that the rule was in the early 20s that you were only this was a law of some type that you were you were not allowed to show more than nine inches of Leg and so you had to have a boot or a stocking or whatever and and only show Not and you could be arrested. Oh, yeah They had beach patrols with measuring tapes and they'd come and they The beach they weren't sure. Yes. They're usually women in full length skirts There's lots of pictures of you know actual women being measured and then there's a famous picture of like Two women being physically lifted and thrown in the husk out You know to be taken to jail because they dared show their legs. Yeah, that was the the Kellerman That's a picture and that Kellerman Being hauled away in a police car. That was a very clingy one-piece suit She wore this was a professional swimmer competitive swimmer who actually Invented her own You know like Olympic suit. I want to move now to these beautiful photos that Kyle provided of contemporary designers Here's our here's our 20s boardwalk Runway excuse me our 20s runway and then we're going to segue to Some of these images and Kyle's going to talk about how many contemporary designers are rifting on the 20s Which it's really a 20s moment. I love it. So Kyle these are Mark Jacobs for spring summer 2012 and I don't know that this exact look will hit the stores as it is But you can see the influence on that Show me on the right. Yeah, move to the next one how these dresses have Have a similarity of all this stuff that goes on sort of below the waist with the emphasis at the hip Are these your photographs Kyle? Are these your photographs? There those aren't mine. No, but they're from WWD And I think what's interesting here is that he's actually celebrating all the bunchiness and Excess fabric that was typical of a lot of 20s designs and he's used a luxury fabric Which a lot of the evening wear of that of the 20s was done into move your mic a little closer. Oh, sorry That's okay. Here we go for some more and these are also mark and I think the the one On the left it almost looks like a 60s dress to me, but it's sort of channeling the 20s You know they get these all mixed up because those were the fun eras in fashion the 20s in the 60s and Her hat of course is pulled way down like a cloche where it's just above the eyebrow I Do think that given what went on in the 60s with the short skirts and the tubular dresses that it's hard to pull apart The references sometimes but other times it's a lot clearer. I think this is maybe one of the most synthetic in terms of mixing the 60s in the 20s and This is philosophy by Alberta Freddie She's taken the dress and actually make it made it long To the or the hem at the same length that it would have been done in the 20s Stead of usually today when they make these sort of influence they go very short Which if you're if you want it to look correct It has to be longer like this and she has the same kind of geometric folds And the band and the coat and the shoes modern fabrics usually Here's another one of hers very Much the feeling this is very sporty Looks like if it was in white linen, it would be a tennis dress or Golfing and you still have the lowest waist and I paired it with this one in part because it had that sort of low belted look but also The jacket came into use in the later 20s with you know pretty fancy Ensembles and dresses and the jacket was when you think of it That was pretty new wasn't it that kind of dress jacket Carnegie Carnegie and yeah, that was Chanel's one of Chanel's contributions. Definitely that's straight Hip-length jacket This is I love this comparison. This is Ralph Lauren today and he seems to have the hat Perfect perfect. Yeah and the colors and you know, it's knit and The accent of a scarf around the neck done in that way with the longness Slender silhouette there too. Yeah Can't help it on those models. They're slender This is a one of his other hats close up at this is spring summer And we talked a little bit about the androgyny and the tie How frequently did women was it a type of woman who would wear a tie or was it a certain kind of? Event or the working women were ties, you know early in the teens too, you know, that's true Collars, you know, they were usually small and broader and they'd wear their corsets But they'd have a little black tie with a midi blouse or something. Yeah. Yeah So what was different about the 20s tie anything in particular more boyish, you know As you can see, you know, it's a night a relaxed neck. It's like a boy short shirt in the way Well, this one almost looks like it has a starch collar doesn't yeah. Yeah It's a beautiful photo and These are Tori birch and she's Done the sportswear look from the 20s even even the shoes kind of have the same feeling the sort of golf shoes and the geometric I just Found these lovely ladies That new kind of patterning which was very modern And then the long flapper beads, I guess they're called And there's Clara Clara bow in it the it girl with her sweater pleated skirt, which was good for movement and This one is Albert Albert of Faredi. It has that same detail little At the hip with the flounce below for movement for doing the Charleston a little sleeve and These are philosophy for pre-fall. So these are brand new real 60s 20s Yeah, it's hard to pull that apart. Yeah, very sure. Yeah, but if you look at the silhouettes and the influence It really has the decorative Details influenced from the 20s and look at the small heads too that really strikes me when you In the in the artwork too in the show the very small heads with the I'm glad you pointed that out Yeah, yes, so many of the girls today Don't have a pulled back hair. They haven't all down right this really sort of various has that looked And these are Ralph Lauren again from his show This just to show the that kind of the banding of the ornament the decoration In the Maribou, yeah before I forget I do want to thank Rima Ibrahim who put this PowerPoint together. So thank you Rima But now we're Happy to open up for questions and I you know, there are a lot of topics we raise It's it's hard to do all of 20s fashion in an hour, but hopefully you'll bring up some of the Things you're most curious about so there are microphones on either side and Yes Everyone hear that did social dance influence costume of the 20s or did 20s costumes influence social dance? Is that what she said? Yeah, that's Jan's question. I Would say Maybe a little bit of both, but dance was dancers were the other very Important influences on the progression of women having more freedom and in dress starting With the tango in 1910 There was a big out cue and cry at that time when women started doing the tango and showing their ankles and their legs And it was all considered very indecent and the designers started Developing special tango dresses which had more fullness Around the the knees so that the leg wouldn't be so indecently exposed And it went on From there Irene Castle. Maybe many of you know who she was She was a great influence and she bobbed her hair in 1913 and she was just the epitome of the The lissom athletic vital Modern modern young woman and yeah, and then the jazz where you talk about that a lot and yeah catalog to jazz and the Charleston Which required a shorter skirt. Oh, yeah, so I think that required. Yeah, right I would say that probably the Charleston did Encourage the shortening of skirts But there are regular features about Irene Castle and Vogue and what she wears to dance because she she believed in corset-free Dancing and also said that young women wouldn't have to die it if they would dance every night. So She was all about the kind of unstructured garment But I would I would certainly say that the Charleston must have encouraged people to wear shorter Skirts because you just had to move your legs a lot. Well, you know was there was a whole bunch of dances You know, I can't name them, but the bottom it was that whole nightclub, you know Kind of a scenario. So yeah, it was it was jitterbugging. It was it was energetic. Yeah, the jazz age. So it was a you know They had to be free to move around. Yeah, absolutely We have to mention is a door dunking though if we're talking Thinking is a door dunking. Yeah in her Grecian robes and everybody was emulating her in the 20s She was not into underwear. So Yeah Well, maybe the automobile did that have yeah Well, certainly the carcodes for men as well They had first used to wear these coats that were almost like lab coats or dusters dusters. Thank you Right, but they're split and you can easily sit That was earlier. I think in the 20s when the cars first came in and they didn't have any protection So you had to have the goggles in the hat and the what the duster. Yeah How about women? I think it's everybody more mobility though in general women had more mobility once the automobile came in So it they also wanted to be able to get around More easily and you couldn't wear those you could wear those early fashions that we You saw earlier in With any comfort getting it out of cars so I Think that these things sort of evolved in tandem or together and and the fact that women were even allowed to drive meant that they you know it encouraged a Different way of wearing clothes and different clothes. I think it's hard to do a sort of chicken and egg kind of thing But everything was changing. I mean the fact that young people Went off in cars in the evening boys and girls together leaving the home and doing their courting unshaper owned in In you know the the slang for the backseat of a car in the 20s was the struggle buggy and You know you see it in novels of the period where this is you know a young girl going off or being picked up in a car There was no telling who she'd be when she got back and you know Yeah No, you know we we never use anything that's synthetic So, you know we only use natural fabrics because if synthetics just don't drape the same They don't hang the way you know you wanted to hang to get the silhouette that you want We're lucky in that there is a lot of fabric being made and printed and that's reminiscent of the 20s or inspired by the 20s, so It's out there. We have to hunt for it Yeah, we have to hunt for it and when we're lucky enough to find real vintage fabric. We use it also, but yeah, no Synthetics only naturals. Oh Yeah, he's good friend of mine, thanks Yeah in terms of clothing all those cross-dressers of the 20s Well, you know in fact drag balls started in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance and It was quite a thing and as you know a lot of Whites looking for entertainment regularly went to Harlem where let's just say codes of social behavior were less guarded and There were these set venues. I mean ongoing venues for regular drag balls. So I think and there were very famous Harlem transvestites and this was something that was much harder to do downtown and We had a great program here on the gay Harlem Renaissance and this is one of the things that came up So in that in that context, I think You know it did occur. Yeah Well, if you read, you know Yeah, would you mind standing up and just saying the question so it's a long one. I don't want to miss quote you Well, I think just as was the case downtown anyone correct me because you're all very knowledgeable There was ready to wear there were homemade clothes and then there were high-style things and I'm sure there was all of that at play in Harlem as well because you know, there were Many wealthy Harlemites at that point in time. There were working people there were Sort of Creative people making their own designs. So I don't think it was monolithic If you read some of the novels though, like if you read any of Carl Van Vechten's novels Because he wrote about Harlem a lot What's really interesting to me is that the color palette was apparently very vivid in terms of what was in fashion in Harlem brilliant brilliant colors and If you read Any of his books you get a lot of those descriptions if you read any of if you read home to Harlem Claude McKay is home to Harlem That's another one where you really Hear about vivid descriptions of vivid vivid colors and patterns. So I think that was one of the the keynotes of Harlem costume Anyone I just you know any kind of bohemian or artist, you know, like it is now There's really no difference in the attitude of you know, you go into these villages go into Brooklyn young people put together you know style themselves in a huge variety of ways and I think because you know socially things were Becoming modern so fast I think that artists and young people felt freer to style themselves in any way They wanted to do and reinvent You know themselves and not adhere to what their mother War what their father wore so it was really interesting got a lot of interpretation and a lot of interesting You know things put together and when you see photographs of these artists and I'm another fantastic They're just wearing whatever feels good. Yeah, and they look really fresh and modern and they could be walking down the street today You would never even look twice. It's pretty interesting. Yeah, I think one of the things about the 20s too is that Given the range of cuts and fashions you could be as sexy as you wanted to be you could be really outrageously sexy or you could be completely prim and pleaded and be ribboned and I think that that was a shift because unless you were an actress or You know a prostitute prior to that time It was really hard to walk around in a very revealing dress whether it was because of the cut or the sheerness of the fabric and It was a lot easier in the 20s for the first time to do that Yes, the question was whether or not the designs the fabric designs of Sonya Delane who was a French Cubist inspired artist very much into beautifully Wide-ranging spectrum of colors and abstract designs had an impact. Chan you wanna can you I Can't say that she specifically had a huge impact on on the clothing production, but certainly those geometrics and were a big part of 1920s patterning she Of course did make her own clothes which are so fabulous and if any if one ever turns up anywhere It's this major event in the costume field, but she wasn't an influential Couturier certainly Maybe through V&A didn't V&A pick up some of those Cubist inspired designs. Yes, and they filtered through Right, so it's sort of more of the broader Artistic million rather than specifically Delane. I would say anyway I remember when I saw that show thinking I've seen things that Actually feel like they had been influenced from some of her designs hats textiles the knitting So I'd say probably you know France was a big influence and the department stores Knocked it all off or or did their interpretations. I should say there's constant reporting about what was happening in Paris And something that was a surprise to me was to learn that there were as yet No real leading American designers in the 20s That's something it's hard for us to believe because you know, there's so many designers today And it was quite different that right. Yeah completely, right? It wasn't until the 1930s when some women designers began to get some traction on some Publicity and then in the 1940s Certainly when we when the world was at war again the American the first wave generation of American women designers really became Influential that's Claire McCartle Vera Maxwell Who else somebody a couple of other but not body caching but Well Valentina certainly those women got Began making sportswear and becoming very influential. I can tell you though getting back to Sonya. We're studying her book Because those patterns are amazing. So we will be knocking her off So what are you looking for when you look for new like what about those patterns attracted you and I am a big Fan of her and her patterns and I'm a big fan of geometric patterns anyway, because I've they're completely contemporary You know and I love a bold statement like that and speaking of Mark Jacobs We've bought fabric of his because he was reproducing these big geometric You know patterns with colors that are great unlike will shally and really interesting fabrics Yeah, that you know, we haven't really done anything with it yet But you know, we're percolating on it on how to you know make it work. So you're always looking Yeah, we're always looking and that book is you know, it's fantastic and It's so fun and fanciful too that photograph of the car painted the same as her Her fabric and you know, so she's got you know the dress on that's a fabric standing next to the car painted You know, it's hilarious and great You know, do you ever buy or find actual 20s pattern the paper patterns? Oh sure We have a huge collection of that and it's really helpful You know to Everybody in my shop to take a look at how the construction is because things, you know They don't have the machinery then that they have now to construct thing constructs things So it's very good for them to look at old books and how things are put together say oh, that's how they did that You know if that flare or this or that all they cut it that way It's it's definitely helpful people might be interested here. You were telling us about this new machine you bought recently. Oh, yeah We talk about it every day. It's really kind of sick. We love On eBay last year. We found a Machine it's called a faggiting machine and it creates a stitch that you know, they use Used a lot of chiffon blouses cotton blouses. It's basically a stitch that has like perforated holes through it and it's quite airy and nice and it really adds a lot of design element in a finished look to a garment It gives a texture it gives a texture it gives it's beautiful And it also is I was telling you earlier, you know So many of these old clothes that we have are so shattered in the shoulders They've been hanging and poorly on bad hangers for so long and they're just destroyed So that machine enabled us to sort of just cut out the bad pieces Find fabric have you know diet to match and then this faggiting machine We you know make it a decorative element and set in the new piece in the shoulder and instead of it looking strange or just patched It you know looks brand new so it's it's a terrific thing and I will never talk about it again They're not wearing anything I Can guarantee you outside the brothel they were trying to look like that and they were you know when they put clothes on they were You just don't see it on the show You know and we just it's about an atmospheric thing for us to do the brotha with voluptuous women Because we have them spilling out of their garments and you know It's like a candy store. You got to have more candy to you know to to make it enticing so you know it's an atmospheric and a you know a Directorial choice to to have it look a certain way There was variety No, there was I mean if you look at any of the showgirl type of photographs you know There was variety, so I think you know, but you also have to talk about fashion Versus sex trade. I mean right sex trade now is implants You know, so they're still going for the big boobs, you know That's not fashion when my implants aren't on the runway, you know, so it's it's just a different right now aesthetic It's really not any different than today We all look at these impossibly tall thin models who look fabulous in any kind of a style and think well That's not me and it's not 95% of us or whatever. It's the same. It's the same And we all try to do different things to conform to that. Yeah Yeah, you had the beginnings of ads for these Rubber eyes things you were supposed to wear and sweat in you know, I mean it was just There were all sorts of new inventions for compacting people and Once that's come on the scene that's tall skinny so what is never gone away and ain't never gonna go away You know, but don't you think that the the 40s that sort of 30s They were still slim. Yeah, but they were busty Everything was up. Yeah, I had underwire. So it was everything was all engineering. Yeah, everything was hinged I think the body types go in and out all the time. Maybe look at when they were wearing bikinis. You had to have a Shape for that and 60s again What about the bullet bra, I mean shapes going and out and even on a more subtle level What models look like there was a few years back when Cindy Crawford was the ideal and she had a figure Slim but but not straight up and down curves It's a subtle difference Yeah, I mean makeup, you know women weren't really wearing much makeup at all until the 20th century because it was considered garish and Lude, you know, lude and Not in the victory right in the 18th century. They were wearing lots of makeup, right? That's right, and then when Victorian Yeah I said it came in right you do have in the 20s the first real I call it over-the-counter the first mass-marketed Makeup for the everyday woman who is not an actress It's non theatrical makeup in the show in our little popular cultural chronology. There's a tiny little Deco I makeup Container and this was huge in terms of just the availability and the respectability of makeup People like Max Factor who started marketing you have a painting that you know of that idealized woman in your show Isn't that was like the Max Factor? Yes face. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you were gonna The face the focus was on the eyes The eyes were big thin penciled eyebrow tweeze them all out draw a line and a tiny little Cupid bow lip in red if you had the big lips of today you did anything to minimize them to a little heart shape and a little color on the cheeks pale if you were pale suntan if you were sporty girl and That's right women were getting tanned. Yeah, but Hollywood was the source because of course You know movies become what they are today in terms of the generation of The icon that you want to look like so that's when it first happened well, we think of the Stars like Louise Brooks and and Colleen Moore having that cute very dark bobbed hair and And that becomes kind of the icon for that 20s flapper and and Yet Garbo was You know one of the big stars at the time, but when she came over from Sweden, they all thought she was too fat She had to lose weight to be an American star So there wasn't you know, there was a whole aesthetic look from the short hair to the You know body that was slim and the makeup anyone else Yes, the question was footwear. How much does it vary? What was typical? I think the heel got higher Got a little higher, but basically it was that t-draps t-strap rounded toe style with the sort of a little thick Thickish heel that was basically it interestingly they The heat the open toe and the open heel did not Gain any kind of credence until the 30s. They're every once in a while there might be a 20 a late 20s shoe with it with a What are you calling a strap in the back with it the heel revealed but They were mostly closed shoes like you think of a dance shoe now with it with the strap across it I was pretty much it with the French. Yeah, right or sometimes a two-tone shoe Yeah, and no beautiful kid leather and silver and gold gold lemon a shoes There was this one catalog that I found I've never ever ever seen an actual pair of shoes this style But they were doing these double ankle strap things really early to and like triple ankle straps It's really tardy, you know what I mean, and I don't think it probably went over too well And that's why I've never seen it, but I was like wow look at that, you know really interesting Very sexy shoes. Do you think that was sort of historically inspired as well? It was like a 1920 catalog and they had these crazy amount of ankle straps coming off the heels And I you know, it's get it's garish. Yeah, because it's garish now. You know what I mean Yeah, it's interesting. So well, of course those strap shoes We're as hard to wear for the larger woman as the dresses were In terms of ankle straps and the t-straps, but didn't the pump come in by the end of the decade No, the pump was there. Yeah. Yeah, high-vamp. Yeah Which I love that Yes, Lisa you like the mail Yes, I do Thanks for saying so you were talking about how fun it was to work on the men's costumes As much as the women, you know, it's funny We're you know, we're doing research for this new season that we're just starting and like the women's Stuff with all the bells and whistles. They're also trying tons of different jacket backs and pocket applications and you know again, it's the same kind of concept like hey Let's vent it three times and let's try a you know a zigzag formation and some of it You're like, well, what's that? But it's really fun, you know, and we want to recreate it. I don't know You know, it's so it's based on things you've found. Oh sure in either. It's you know Salesman's catalogs, you know of the era that they offered this special back that they might have designed themselves Doesn't mean it's attractive, but it's really good for us for character stuff I mean, it's a man's suit. So how much can you do to it? You know, it's a tie What can you do to it? You know It's limiting men's clothing once it hit the suit. It's a suit, you know So it's still the small shoulder and nipped in pretty slim silhouette But they were trying all different adaptations like single button Triple button, you know double-breasted small placement double-breasted, you know Was that different the working man was you know, the working man had one suit and wore it every single day And it was made of some wool that was made of iron and You know it was never cleaned and you know got strong up on its own in the corner Maybe one more question. I think we can Anyone who hasn't answered ask yes, okay, can you take it? I think it was chat. Well, I Think it was changing in the 1930s at once last Last text was invented then you could you could weave a whole garment with With elastic and so and then synthetics also became You know very Very much in use. So I think that's that's really what so I think the wool There was still wool bathing suits in the 30s I think it began to change and by the 40s it definitely had had changed but just think about how how Really unsafe it what well unsafe it was for women to swim when they were swimming in age or nine yards of fabric And it was they couldn't enjoy swimming at all And so the wool bathing suit the knit bathing suits were a great boon when they Came in because they were just one piece and very streamlined, but then then we think oh my gosh, how can you Swim and wool, you know and it's interesting that those suits emerged in California where you had Catalina and Jansen and it was a huge breakthrough I think it was 20 or 21 where they were discovering this way to do two directional knits and and they were They were advertising these as suits meant for swimming because that was actually new and You'd had all these professional swimmers doing the ads and little by little it became acceptable But they were called California suits for at least three years before they were widely used throughout They had to emphasize the swimming functionality of it to make them acceptable because they were so revealing There was so much skin showing and so it was this fine line They were walking The men's suits and the women's suits were actually quite similar sometimes the men's were had detachable tops, but they were supposed to wear your top and There's a wonderful painting in the exhibit by Yippie and de Bois of seen at the beach With the men's and the women's suits that look very similar Yeah So one more Allison am I allowed to there's some one more question pretty much Yeah, and Jansen of what were they really the innovators And they were of course working in one that the whole idea of that that knit bathing suit Got started when Jansen was asked to create a rowing a wool rowing suit for men in 1916 and you know, they they need that for warmth and from there that became they they got Demands for orders came with that and then they got the idea that that was too heavy and they developed this this knit this wool knit that is You said Terry said the that you know stretch both ways, but it was Jansen that really developed that And wool was the thing that would stretch like that So I want to thank Kyle and Jan and Lisa. This has been so much fun for me. I hope everyone's enjoyed it Thanks for coming out on a rainy night and We will all continue to watch boardwalk, correct