Fashion Blogs

In the 1920's, also known as the roarin' twenties, a lot was going on. Most of it stemmed from prohibition. So major were the effects of prohibition, and the decision to implement it, that the word prohibition itself is widely known to connotatively refer to the constitutional amendment that borrows its name. It refers to the U.S. decision to prohibit the consumption of alcohol in the 20s as much as it refers to the prohibition of anything else.

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This was a huge move in the 20's, and there was such an adverse reaction to the amendment that basically, society chose not to respect this amendment by and large, and another amendment was later added to revoke the prohibition amendment.

So what does this have to do with fashion? Well, in every era there is fashion. The normal course of history creates different fashions at all times. But, when an event in history has such a large impact, it can skew the regular course of fashion and create anomalies. This is what happened in the 20s, and as a result, there are two different styles of vintage clothing that this era has given to us.

On the one hand, the 20's had its regular course of fashion. For women, this was somewhat conservative, comfortable clothing. Women were slightly more empowered in a sense, as their clothing style was indicative of their needs and wants more so than in the past.

On the other hand, there was the fashion that stemmed from prohibition and the opposition to it. Opposition to prohibition included secret, illegal parties called 'speakeasies'. These were parties where alcohol was consumed and jazz, the new rebellious music of the time, was played all night long. A natural consequence of rebelling against one norm is to rebel against another. So, the women's fashion that represents the reaction to prohibition, the speakeasies, late night jazz, and partying was rebellious as well. Whereas the regular course of fashion was geared towards comfort, the speakeasy fashion was more risque and geared towards sensual appeal. The style was referred to as 'flapper'.

For men, there was not a huge diversion between the regular and prohibition influences on fashion. Nevertheless, the 20's offered an interesting style of fashion for men. They wore slacks, suspenders, red button down shirts, and fedoras. Fedoras are those hats with the brim that goes around the entire hat, about an inch in length, and have a crease at the top the runs straight across the head front to back. They are often shown in images of gangsters.

Thanks to the roarin' 20's alone, we now have several styles of vintage fashion at our disposal for both men and women, and lets face it, people looked good back then! See more at: Cocktail prom dresses uk