Flapper
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.
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The typical "flapper" look of the 1920's. |
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
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 word which referred 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.
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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. Among those who rolled their eyes over the flapper craze was writer-critic
Dorothy Parker. She penned "Flappers: A Hate Song" to poke fun at the fad.
Flappers went to
jazz clubs at night where they
danced provocatively, smoked
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 referred to as
petting. Some even threw "
petting parties" where petting was the main attraction. Flappers also wore "kissproof" lipstick and a lot of heavy make up with beaded necklaces and bracelets. They liked to cut their hair into "boyish" bobs, often dyeing it jet black.
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," or a more popular one, "the cat's pajamas."
Many terms still in use in modern American English slang originated as Flapper Slang such as "big cheese" meaning important person, "to bump off" meaning to murder, and "baloney" meaning nonsense. Other terms have become definitive of the prohibition era such as "
speakeasy" meaning an illegal place to get liquor and "hooch" describing illegal liquor.
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
garçonne in
French ("boy" with a feminine suffix), flapper style made them look young and boyish. The short "
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
corsets and
pantaloons in favor of "step-in"
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 attached to
garter belts.
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
actresses and
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, the
Shimmy, the
Bunny Hug and the
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
Dorothy Mackaill,
Alice White,
Bebe Daniels,
Billie Dove,
Helen Kane,
Joan Crawford,
Leatrice Joy,
Norma Shearer,
Laura La Plante,
Norma Talmadge,
Clara Bow,
Louise Brooks, and
Colleen Moore.
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 which brought out a conservative reaction and a religious revival that set out to eradicate the liberalism of the 1920s. 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.
*
New WomanLa Garçonne â€" a novel
This Side of Paradise - a novel by
F. Scott FitzgeraldFlappers and Philosophers - a set of short stories by
F. Scott Fitzgerald*
Flappers on SilentLadies.com*
The Jazz Age - Flapper Culture (discusses mainly Louise Brooks)*
Slang of the 1920s*
Flappers and Fashion* http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/flappers.htm
From the
Gulliver novels comes the (somewhat obscure) usage of a 'flapper' to denote a person who stands between a popular or powerful person with many demands on his time and many of those people who want to talk with such a person, filtering what messages are allowed to pass.
