Over seven billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed. Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast where we explore the who, what, when, of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your hosts April Callaghan and Cassidy Zachary. Well, Halloween was just yesterday, and on the heels of our fashion that kills episode, April and I wanted to cover another decidedly morbid topic. In fact, we thought it would be fun to dissect the flapper. Well, I mean not literally, of course, but it is going to be fun to take apart this iconic nineteen twenties lady, part piece by piece, from the top of her bobbed head of hair all the way down to her dancing feet. But first, what exactly is a flapper and where did she come from? You might think you know the answer to this, but what we have to share with you today may just surprise you. Right, because the so called flapper is most often characterized as the nineteen twenties phenomenon, representative of a new type of fashion forward, free spirited modern young woman that emerged in the post World War One era, and to this day, she really embodies the zeitgeist and excitement of the rowing twenties, an era that's defined by this unbridled pursuit of an indulgence in entertainment and extravagance. However, despite popular opinion cast the term did not originate in the nineteen twenties, although some narratives will tell you that it came from the nineteen twenties um as a fashion trend for unfastened rubber boots that quote unquote flapped when the wearer walked. This is actually not the case, and we're going to quote one of our favorite fashion historians, Claire Sorrow. She once wrote about the flapper, saying quote, despite this potent imagery, the word has its origins in sixteenth century British slang, Deriving from the colloquial slap. The word indicated a young female prostitute and likely referred to the awkward flapping of a young bird's wings when learning to fly. Claire goes on to assure us that quote, by the nineteenth century, the term had lost most of its lewed connotations. So to find out exactly when the term gained its contemporary associations with the jazz age poster girl we naturally started sleuthing in the online archives. It's what we do best undressed, and I found one answer in the form of a Harper's Bizarre article entitled Dressing the Flapper, which reads, quote, the awkward age has long been the despair of mothers who wished to dress their girls. Becomingly today the designers are paying special attention to the upper Wait, what that's not exactly describing our you know, fun loving girl of the nineteen twenties, now, is it awkward? No? And actually that article dates to nineteen fifteen, and at this point the term flapper while it refers more to a teenager or even a preteen you know, the girl that embodies that Britney spears song I'm not a girl. Oh no, ye, no, Brittney on dress me. I could go on. Well, um, you know you said that article is from nineteen fifteen. And if we're going to judge by the huge spike and advertisements and articles from around um World War One nineteen fifteen to nineteen nineteen that are suddenly addressing the clothing needs of these young flappers, um, you know, clothing manufacturers and designers had discovered that there was a lot of money to be made in what was then in entirely untapped market growth. In New York Times in seventeen, it is a long time since the spirit of youth has been any better depicted than in the garments for mrs and juniors that are now being shown in the market garments for the quote unquote flapper, which is the title given to young girls of the awkward age. There it is again that word awkward. Awkward and flapper are just not two words I would normally equate with one another. No, you usually think of extreme elegance. So when did quote unquote flappers make the transition from awkward preteen girls to free spirited fashion icons and why? Well, what answer might lie in a nineteen nineteen Women's were Daily article. This article expressly defines the flapper as a girl aged twelve to sixteen years of age and even illustrates her for you. We see in this article for stylish young flappers being depicted. They're smiling, They're carrying on with their fashione dressed mothers in tow but cass these youngs lappers all wear dresses that barely skim their knees, and two of them, well, they have even short bobbed hair, a hat that is too characteristic nineteen twenties flapper traits, and in nineteen nineteen no less. In fact, just one month prior, the same magazine had declared quote flappers receiving more attention than ever before. Indeed, these junior flappers were becoming a pervasive reality of the clothing industry, and it was really only a matter of time before someone would describe this term also to the young modern woman who emerged in the post World War One era. I mean, she was wearing the same short skirts and bobbed hair, after all. But this is really where the similarities between the two end, because this new woman was no longer a girl dependent on her mother to pick her clothing, and far from awkward, she was fun loving, she was independent, and she was ready to throw tradition and moral turpitude to the wind in a flare of fringe feathers and shocking dance moves. Oh yes, and quote unspeakable jazz must go. Read the headline of one particular nineteen article in Ladies Home Journal, which goes on to say it is worse than saloon and scarlet vice. Testify professional dance experts. Only a few cities are curbing evil, jazz being the evil here, of course. But like the flapper, American jazz burst onto the post World War One era like a torpedo, and it was really a death knell for any of these stayed old practices of a bygone era. It was fast paced, it was exciting into many people. It was downright terrifying because it inspired racy dance, moved that shocked polite taste. Quote the high society flapper is still going the limit, continues the article. She drinks, she swears, she smokes, toddles, and chatter stories that once belonged to the men's smoke room. You can't reform a society flapper and Cass, I mean, who would want to? She sounds like super fun. I want to hang out with her, I know, absolutely. And you know, a lot happened in the nineteen tends to facilitate the emergence of this new type of woman. Nothing happens in a vacuum. World War One lasted from nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen, and with so many young men around the world called to service, women entered the workforce on mass, not to mention that in America women were also marching for the right to vote, which they earned with the ratification of the nineteenth Amendment in nineteen twenty. And if you think about how the miniskirt of the nineteen sixties emerging tandem with the birth control pill, while women were just suddenly experiencing this newfound freedom and power that they just had not had before. It's also worth noting that clothing was modernized pre World War One, as we have discussed, and birth is a modern episode, so some women were getting rid of their coursets um skirts were already beginning to become shorter in nineteen fourteen. I mean the professional dancer Irene Castle, she bobbed her hair in nineteen fifteen. So time was ripe for change, and in the devastating aftermath of the war, the world had changed, and so too had women. By nineteen two, this new breed of young, free spirited women had co opted the flapper term away from their junior counterparts. As made clear in this nineteen two New York Times article, the differences between the two were actually night and day. The junior flapper quote had none of the assurance, none of the independence, none of the defiance of social laws, none of the freedom with those of the opposite sex. None of the scoring for brindle advice, none of the derision for respectability, none of the daring and dress, none of the imperviousness to criticism which has made the American flapper a bye word m hm and so pervasive and archetype. Had the flapper become both as a point of intrigue and also controversy that the Arizona Prescott Journal felt the need to break down the flapper for its readership or flapper style, I should really say on the very front page. In fact, this particular article, which is from August, this is the one that inspired this episode today. So there is a photograph of a quote unquote flapper, and each piece of her outfit is literally numbered and described. So shall we cast we shall under the title typical flappers reads. You've often heard them called that, but did you ever really understand what it meant? This will straighten you out. It's a picture of a flapper from head to foot April, according to this newspaper, which I am just going to say that it might not be the most reliable source of up to date fashion. Um. The Arizona Prescott Journal was not the end of the uh. The flapper has thirteen qualifications, so the first of which is her hat of soft silk or felt. And while this hat featured here is small, it is not the ubiquitous close hat we associate with nineteen twenties fashion. However, two was the year that the closes emerged as the fashion staple of a woman's wardrobe, but not one yet adopted by this particular flapper. And number two would of course be the bobbed hair and definitely one of the most abrupt breaks from the past which the new modern women had adopted. You know, as we previously mentioned, celebrities such as Ivne Castle had bobbed their hair and years prior, but for centuries before that, a woman's long locks were synonymous with her respectability, and only young girls and teenagers could really get away with wearing their hair down. Older women were expected to wear their hair up, and for many this was a burden, something that had to be given time and much care um every single day. And this new modern woman, well, she didn't have time for such frivolities. No, she did not. She had a lot of dancing to do, that's right. The article follows Bobb's hair with a series of seemingly ordinary clothing items other than the fact that quote unquote flapper has been inserted in front of them. So number three is the flapper curl, which is on the forehead. It's a small curl peeking out from beneath the hat, the hat's brain on the woman's forehead. Number four is the flapper collar, which is to me just a normal flat collar. And number five flapper ear rings. These are dangly earrings, quite large and long, and they really are made all the more noticeable by her short hair. And I'm gonna have to agree with that you said earlier casts and reiterate this is clearly an outsider's view of a flapper. Um. The author of this article is almost treating this archetypal woman as like a foreign or scientific hodity to be studied or in our case, dissected. Um. But moving on to number six, a slip over sweater so um nitwear was certainly a staple of the modern woman's wardrobe at this time, you know, something pioneered by fashion designers such as Coco Chanelle and Jean Patu Um, you know. And it was it was very relaxed, more comfortable, and women were wearing it more and more unadorned and unfussy. This particular sweater was the perfect blank canvas for number seven flapper beads, in other words, along necklace that extends to the waist where it meets number eight a metallic belt, and this is situated not at the wears natural waist, of course, but at a lowered waistline that would only continue to lower and drop throughout the decade um, sometimes disappearing altogether in the boxy shift dress that is synonymous with this era. Number nine a bracelet, a strong jet. Number ten a knee length fringe skirt and ah yes, one of the most controversial elements of the flapper wardrobe was the short skirt um you know today knee length hardly seems revealing to us, but in it was the shortest skirts had ever been in history. And if that wasn't shocking enough, cast number eleven were the exposed bare knees I mean, talk about thwarting convention, and for extra emphasis, flappers were even rumored to rouge their knees. But not to worry this, flappers legs weren't entirely exposed because number twelve is rolled hose with a fancy garter, although to show your garter must have been incredibly shocking. This is underwear being worn as outerwear. But the most daring of floppers, well, they would have done away with stockings entirely. And one of the reasons, just so you know, for the rolled stockings was because when they were dancing, they would fall down, so they would just go ahead and roll them down and attach their garter with them like that before hand, So it became part of their style. Um, And that really kind of takes us to the end of our dissection. Cast. We're going to end with number thirteen, the flat heeled little girl sandals and not something we might typically associate with the flapper stereotype today, but something that certainly emphasized the perceived youthfulness of the flapper appearance. I have to say, Cast, that was super fun um. Even if that article might not have given us the entire picture a flapper was defined as much by her attitude and her lifestyle as by her dress, but it still goes as a pretty good idea of of the intrigue surrounding this type of young woman that broke the mold. Yeah, and it's an intrigue that obviously continues to fascinate us to this day. That the Flapper remains synonymous with the nineteen twenties speaks to our ongoing fascination with an exciting era book ended by a devastating war and the Great Depression. And the Flapper, well, she was very much a woman of her time, and yet she still resonates with us almost one hundred years later, a fact that speaks not only to her aesthetic appeal, but to the continued admiration for women who threw their cares to the wind and embraced what it meant to be unapologetically confident, fun loving and independent, which is a lesson I think we can all appreciate today. Yes, I certainly do, and that does it for us today. Dress listeners, until next time, may you embrace your inner flapper next time you get dressed and or images accompanying each week's episode, please follow us on Instagram at Dressed Underscore podcast. This is also our Twitter handle. You can follow us on Facebook at Dress Podcast without the underscore and we really do love hearing from you, so if you would like to email us, please do so at Dressed at how stuff works dot com for additional readings for each week's episode. Please also check out our recommended readings on our website at dress podcast dot com, and don't forget about our merch store as always, that can be found at T public dot com, Forward slash Dressed. That's t e E public dot com Forward slash Dressed, And as always special thanks to our producers KC Pegram, Holly Fry, and everyone else at how Stuff Works that makes the show possible each and every week. Catch us soon by

Over seven billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed. Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast where we explore the who, what, when, of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your hosts April Callaghan and Cassidy Zachary. Well, Halloween was just yesterday, and on the heels of our fashion that kills episode, April and I wanted to cover another decidedly morbid topic. In fact, we thought it would be fun to dissect the flapper. Well, I mean not literally, of course, but it is going to be fun to take apart this iconic nineteen twenties lady, part piece by piece, from the top of her bobbed head of hair all the way down to her dancing feet. But first, what exactly is a flapper and where did she come from? You might think you know the answer to this, but what we have to share with you today may just surprise you. Right, because the so called flapper is most often characterized as the nineteen twenties phenomenon, representative of a new type of fashion forward, free spirited modern young woman that emerged in the post World War One era, and to this day, she really embodies the zeitgeist and excitement of the rowing twenties, an era that's defined by this unbridled pursuit of an indulgence in entertainment and extravagance. However, despite popular opinion cast the term did not originate in the nineteen twenties, although some narratives will tell you that it came from the nineteen twenties um as a fashion trend for unfastened rubber boots that quote unquote flapped when the wearer walked. This is actually not the case, and we're going to quote one of our favorite fashion historians, Claire Sorrow. She once wrote about the flapper, saying quote, despite this potent imagery, the word has its origins in sixteenth century British slang, Deriving from the colloquial slap. The word indicated a young female prostitute and likely referred to the awkward flapping of a young bird's wings when learning to fly. Claire goes on to assure us that quote, by the nineteenth century, the term had lost most of its lewed connotations. So to find out exactly when the term gained its contemporary associations with the jazz age poster girl we naturally started sleuthing in the online archives. It's what we do best undressed, and I found one answer in the form of a Harper's Bizarre article entitled Dressing the Flapper, which reads, quote, the awkward age has long been the despair of mothers who wished to dress their girls. Becomingly today the designers are paying special attention to the upper Wait, what that's not exactly describing our you know, fun loving girl of the nineteen twenties, now, is it awkward? No? And actually that article dates to nineteen fifteen, and at this point the term flapper while it refers more to a teenager or even a preteen you know, the girl that embodies that Britney spears song I'm not a girl. Oh no, ye, no, Brittney on dress me. I could go on. Well, um, you know you said that article is from nineteen fifteen. And if we're going to judge by the huge spike and advertisements and articles from around um World War One nineteen fifteen to nineteen nineteen that are suddenly addressing the clothing needs of these young flappers, um, you know, clothing manufacturers and designers had discovered that there was a lot of money to be made in what was then in entirely untapped market growth. In New York Times in seventeen, it is a long time since the spirit of youth has been any better depicted than in the garments for mrs and juniors that are now being shown in the market garments for the quote unquote flapper, which is the title given to young girls of the awkward age. There it is again that word awkward. Awkward and flapper are just not two words I would normally equate with one another. No, you usually think of extreme elegance. So when did quote unquote flappers make the transition from awkward preteen girls to free spirited fashion icons and why? Well, what answer might lie in a nineteen nineteen Women's were Daily article. This article expressly defines the flapper as a girl aged twelve to sixteen years of age and even illustrates her for you. We see in this article for stylish young flappers being depicted. They're smiling, They're carrying on with their fashione dressed mothers in tow but cass these youngs lappers all wear dresses that barely skim their knees, and two of them, well, they have even short bobbed hair, a hat that is too characteristic nineteen twenties flapper traits, and in nineteen nineteen no less. In fact, just one month prior, the same magazine had declared quote flappers receiving more attention than ever before. Indeed, these junior flappers were becoming a pervasive reality of the clothing industry, and it was really only a matter of time before someone would describe this term also to the young modern woman who emerged in the post World War One era. I mean, she was wearing the same short skirts and bobbed hair, after all. But this is really where the similarities between the two end, because this new woman was no longer a girl dependent on her mother to pick her clothing, and far from awkward, she was fun loving, she was independent, and she was ready to throw tradition and moral turpitude to the wind in a flare of fringe feathers and shocking dance moves. Oh yes, and quote unspeakable jazz must go. Read the headline of one particular nineteen article in Ladies Home Journal, which goes on to say it is worse than saloon and scarlet vice. Testify professional dance experts. Only a few cities are curbing evil, jazz being the evil here, of course. But like the flapper, American jazz burst onto the post World War One era like a torpedo, and it was really a death knell for any of these stayed old practices of a bygone era. It was fast paced, it was exciting into many people. It was downright terrifying because it inspired racy dance, moved that shocked polite taste. Quote the high society flapper is still going the limit, continues the article. She drinks, she swears, she smokes, toddles, and chatter stories that once belonged to the men's smoke room. You can't reform a society flapper and Cass, I mean, who would want to? She sounds like super fun. I want to hang out with her, I know, absolutely. And you know, a lot happened in the nineteen tends to facilitate the emergence of this new type of woman. Nothing happens in a vacuum. World War One lasted from nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen, and with so many young men around the world called to service, women entered the workforce on mass, not to mention that in America women were also marching for the right to vote, which they earned with the ratification of the nineteenth Amendment in nineteen twenty. And if you think about how the miniskirt of the nineteen sixties emerging tandem with the birth control pill, while women were just suddenly experiencing this newfound freedom and power that they just had not had before. It's also worth noting that clothing was modernized pre World War One, as we have discussed, and birth is a modern episode, so some women were getting rid of their coursets um skirts were already beginning to become shorter in nineteen fourteen. I mean the professional dancer Irene Castle, she bobbed her hair in nineteen fifteen. So time was ripe for change, and in the devastating aftermath of the war, the world had changed, and so too had women. By nineteen two, this new breed of young, free spirited women had co opted the flapper term away from their junior counterparts. As made clear in this nineteen two New York Times article, the differences between the two were actually night and day. The junior flapper quote had none of the assurance, none of the independence, none of the defiance of social laws, none of the freedom with those of the opposite sex. None of the scoring for brindle advice, none of the derision for respectability, none of the daring and dress, none of the imperviousness to criticism which has made the American flapper a bye word m hm and so pervasive and archetype. Had the flapper become both as a point of intrigue and also controversy that the Arizona Prescott Journal felt the need to break down the flapper for its readership or flapper style, I should really say on the very front page. In fact, this particular article, which is from August, this is the one that inspired this episode today. So there is a photograph of a quote unquote flapper, and each piece of her outfit is literally numbered and described. So shall we cast we shall under the title typical flappers reads. You've often heard them called that, but did you ever really understand what it meant? This will straighten you out. It's a picture of a flapper from head to foot April, according to this newspaper, which I am just going to say that it might not be the most reliable source of up to date fashion. Um. The Arizona Prescott Journal was not the end of the uh. The flapper has thirteen qualifications, so the first of which is her hat of soft silk or felt. And while this hat featured here is small, it is not the ubiquitous close hat we associate with nineteen twenties fashion. However, two was the year that the closes emerged as the fashion staple of a woman's wardrobe, but not one yet adopted by this particular flapper. And number two would of course be the bobbed hair and definitely one of the most abrupt breaks from the past which the new modern women had adopted. You know, as we previously mentioned, celebrities such as Ivne Castle had bobbed their hair and years prior, but for centuries before that, a woman's long locks were synonymous with her respectability, and only young girls and teenagers could really get away with wearing their hair down. Older women were expected to wear their hair up, and for many this was a burden, something that had to be given time and much care um every single day. And this new modern woman, well, she didn't have time for such frivolities. No, she did not. She had a lot of dancing to do, that's right. The article follows Bobb's hair with a series of seemingly ordinary clothing items other than the fact that quote unquote flapper has been inserted in front of them. So number three is the flapper curl, which is on the forehead. It's a small curl peeking out from beneath the hat, the hat's brain on the woman's forehead. Number four is the flapper collar, which is to me just a normal flat collar. And number five flapper ear rings. These are dangly earrings, quite large and long, and they really are made all the more noticeable by her short hair. And I'm gonna have to agree with that you said earlier casts and reiterate this is clearly an outsider's view of a flapper. Um. The author of this article is almost treating this archetypal woman as like a foreign or scientific hodity to be studied or in our case, dissected. Um. But moving on to number six, a slip over sweater so um nitwear was certainly a staple of the modern woman's wardrobe at this time, you know, something pioneered by fashion designers such as Coco Chanelle and Jean Patu Um, you know. And it was it was very relaxed, more comfortable, and women were wearing it more and more unadorned and unfussy. This particular sweater was the perfect blank canvas for number seven flapper beads, in other words, along necklace that extends to the waist where it meets number eight a metallic belt, and this is situated not at the wears natural waist, of course, but at a lowered waistline that would only continue to lower and drop throughout the decade um, sometimes disappearing altogether in the boxy shift dress that is synonymous with this era. Number nine a bracelet, a strong jet. Number ten a knee length fringe skirt and ah yes, one of the most controversial elements of the flapper wardrobe was the short skirt um you know today knee length hardly seems revealing to us, but in it was the shortest skirts had ever been in history. And if that wasn't shocking enough, cast number eleven were the exposed bare knees I mean, talk about thwarting convention, and for extra emphasis, flappers were even rumored to rouge their knees. But not to worry this, flappers legs weren't entirely exposed because number twelve is rolled hose with a fancy garter, although to show your garter must have been incredibly shocking. This is underwear being worn as outerwear. But the most daring of floppers, well, they would have done away with stockings entirely. And one of the reasons, just so you know, for the rolled stockings was because when they were dancing, they would fall down, so they would just go ahead and roll them down and attach their garter with them like that before hand, So it became part of their style. Um, And that really kind of takes us to the end of our dissection. Cast. We're going to end with number thirteen, the flat heeled little girl sandals and not something we might typically associate with the flapper stereotype today, but something that certainly emphasized the perceived youthfulness of the flapper appearance. I have to say, Cast, that was super fun um. Even if that article might not have given us the entire picture a flapper was defined as much by her attitude and her lifestyle as by her dress, but it still goes as a pretty good idea of of the intrigue surrounding this type of young woman that broke the mold. Yeah, and it's an intrigue that obviously continues to fascinate us to this day. That the Flapper remains synonymous with the nineteen twenties speaks to our ongoing fascination with an exciting era book ended by a devastating war and the Great Depression. And the Flapper, well, she was very much a woman of her time, and yet she still resonates with us almost one hundred years later, a fact that speaks not only to her aesthetic appeal, but to the continued admiration for women who threw their cares to the wind and embraced what it meant to be unapologetically confident, fun loving and independent, which is a lesson I think we can all appreciate today. Yes, I certainly do, and that does it for us today. Dress listeners, until next time, may you embrace your inner flapper next time you get dressed and or images accompanying each week's episode, please follow us on Instagram at Dressed Underscore podcast. This is also our Twitter handle. You can follow us on Facebook at Dress Podcast without the underscore and we really do love hearing from you, so if you would like to email us, please do so at Dressed at how stuff works dot com for additional readings for each week's episode. Please also check out our recommended readings on our website at dress podcast dot com, and don't forget about our merch store as always, that can be found at T public dot com, Forward slash Dressed. That's t e E public dot com Forward slash Dressed, And as always special thanks to our producers KC Pegram, Holly Fry, and everyone else at how Stuff Works that makes the show possible each and every week. Catch us soon by