Is Paris Hilton the modern day flapper?

[Marc Chevalier]

I agree with you. As for me, i am only in it for the style, music, and clothes. My standards, morals, and ideas about how the world should be are often more modern than vintage, except when it comes to clothes, music, and style.

I'm with you 100%. Maybe you, Laura and I (and anyone else who feels the same) should form a club or something: a corner booth within the Lounge. Perhaps a thread on this is in order ...

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[reetpleat]

fftopic: Has anyone ever noticed that she has the ugliest hands and feet?

I would have to agree, at least from taht pic. But it occurs to me, after looking at this pic, taht she rather fancies herself or styles herself after the flapper. When I first read the post, it must have not opened properly so this is the first I am seeing of this pic.

Interesting.

 

[just_me]

I agree with you. As for me, i am only in it for the style, music, and clothes. My standards, morals, and ideas about how the world should be are often more modern than vintage, except when it comes to clothes, music, and style.

I'm with you 100%. Maybe you, Laura and I (and anyone else who feels the same) should form a club or something: a corner booth within the Lounge. Perhaps a thread on this is in order ...

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I'm with you. I'm glad I spent my life in the years I have. I have always loved the styles, music, and movies of the 20s/30s/40s, but I never wanted to live then. If there was a time machine, I'd go back to visit Hollywood in the Golden Era, but I wouldn't stay.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I'm with you. I'm glad I spent my life in the years I have. I have always loved the styles, music, and movies of the 20s/30s/40s, but I never wanted to live then. If there was a time machine, I'd go back to visit Hollywood in the Golden Era, but I wouldn't stay.

Then come have a drink here: http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=39077

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[Lotta Little]

A flapper? No. A slapper? Certainly.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

A flapper?.....No, more like an opportunist with a publicist.

 

[Mojito]

A flapper? No. A slapper? Certainly.

lol Had the term "slapper" been in vogue in the 1920s, it would have applied to the same set of females by some critics! They, too, were often regarded as of loose morals, wearing far too much makeup and far too scantily clad. You can imagine what the wider community thought of them - as this verse from a popular song of the time outlined:

She isn't like her mother
And yet she might have been -
If it hadn't been for petting parties
Cigarettes and gin!

Just to add to all my remarks in this thread - I'm completely indifferent to Paris Hilton. I'm only interested in celebrity gossip that's oh...around 80 years old (ahem - it then becomes dignified as social history in some circles. Still just gossip). I don't know what she's like. I wouldn't have a clue if she's a brilliant marketer or as thick as a post. I'm most familiar with the characterisation of her in a certain memorable South Park episode, but as I don't really know anything at all about the girl I'll reserve judgement beyond the comment that what is criticised (and sometimes praised) in her media persona has strong parallels with the young women who dressed and behaved a certain way in the 1920s and were called "flappers"

 

[Laura Chase]

Mojito, it's so funny, the adjectives we use to describe Paris Hilton really do resemble the words the "older generation" used about the flapper girls. I just ordered Zeitz book and am looking forward to reading it!

As said, this thread wasn't intended to be about Paris Hilton specifically, that wouldn't be very interesting for The Fedora Lounge. I just used her as an example, hoping it would turn things a little upside down. And also because I knew it would make a lot of people click on the thread lol, because many people really have strong negative sentiments towards her.

 

[tuppence]

What did he say?

A potential pitfall of rejecting traditional thinking (as opposed to whatever happens to be popular) is shallowness. To use one example, many people loudly reject Christianity, yet they're quick to say "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Ask them what Jesus said to the woman after the men left, though, and you get a blank stare. Their criticisms show that they lack a basic knowledge of what they're criticising. This is obviously much different from criticising something based on a great deal of knowledge of it. That, I can respect.

Likewise, there's a difference between serious artists (many of whom get a job to support their art) and "artists" who really just don't want to get up and go to work every morning.

O.k Paisley, I give in.... What did he say?

 

[Paisley]

Jesus and the Flapper

"Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more."

The rest of the story: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=50&chapter=8&version=9

And now, back to 20s flappers and Paris Hilton. As Lizzie mentioned earlier, let's not make this a thread about religion. Please PM me with any further comments.

 

[cherry lips]

Tonight Mary and I saw Die Freudlose Gasse from 1925 with Asta Nielsen and Greta Garbo among others. Many of the pretty young things had body shapes pretty far from the garconne look (even though their dresses were cut in the modern fashion). Large braless breasts, big behinds, fleshy arms, a hint of double chin, etc. Garbo's upper body was quite thin, and the girl who's murdered was thin, but Asta Nielsen and the rich girl (I don't remember her name) and the girls cast as models (!) were quite rotund. I just thought you should know.

Asta Nielsen

P.S. As for facial features, several of the stars reminded me of Laura Chase. Laura, you're so 20s (and you would have loved the shoes)!

 

[Mojito]

There was a bit of latitude, Cherry Lips - particularly outside of Hollywood, and earlier in the decade. But if you look at a "typical" generic movie of the period, particularly Hollywood second half of the decade - something like Our Dancing Daughters, you see a very slim type enforced. As I mentioned earlier, while we think of Colleen Moore as being the typical garconne type figure of the period, it was written into her contract that she could not violate certain weight perameters.

Leads of Our Dancing Daughters

Fortunately there were always those who bucked the trend on screen - Clara Bow was one of them, although she suffered for not being naturally very slim. In movies such as The Plastic Age you can see her rather full breasts sitting quite low on her chest (indeed, this seems to be a curious characteristic in early 20s fashion plate images - presumably unsupported, in some images the bust sits consistently lower than what we are accustomed to). She spoke of how much rejection she faced earlier in her career for being too "big" (but nothing could quench that star quality!) Even women we think of today as being absolutely stunning had what were then considered flaws - men remembered Louise Brooks' legs for years after they saw them on screen, but at the time they weren't necessarily the ideal and were criticised. And she, too, struggled with weight issues during her time with Denishawn, although by no means would we even today have ever thought of her as "heavy".

The waist was pretty up and down and undefined, even in corsetry and underwear ads, but hips were (ideally) narrow (the very antithesis of the childbearing ideal cherished through much of history). As thighs were still largely covered I suspect that one could get away with them being more full, which I think is a point you were making?

Outside of that "ideal", though, there were plenty of women of various sizes. Have a look Hazel Green:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHYHAh88MbY&feature=related

Not to mention artists like Bessie Smith. There was a point made in a 1920s Vogue cartoon about Mae West - I could probably scan it, but the gist of it was that Mae West's voluptuous figure made one wonder if women should have figures like boys after all.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"Never mention Sex, Politics or , Religion, yes Mrs Paisley I'm looking at you!, now pass the cucumber sandwiches and we will forget the entire matter, oh by the way !did I mention how charming your Hat is?", one lump or two?

 

[cherry lips]

Thank you for your reply, Mojito. Ah yes, Mae West, how could I forget?

It couldn't have been easy having a 50s figure during the 20s. Then again, being an exotic bird does have it's advantages...

A question to those of you who've seen Die Freudlose Gasse: Were my eyes playing tricks on me, or did the models have unshaven arm pits?

 

[Paisley]

"Never mention Sex, Politics or , Religion, yes Mrs Paisley I'm looking at you!, now pass the cucumber sandwiches and we will forget the entire matter, oh by the way !did I mention how charming your Hat is?", one lump or two?

lol

 

[Mary]

I'm still puzzled, Mojito. I too saw the film last night with Cherry Lips.
This is only one film but I have seen the girls that are the Asta Nilsentype in other films and in ads. Maybe it's a type that is more an early 20's body ideal. I don't know what you think is typically 20's (the late 1920's you imply)?Please tell me why?

What strikes me with the film was the different fashions that must have existed side by side.If you look at the hair in this 1925's movie, you could see both curled like Garbo, fingerwaved, frizzy bobs, and bobs with long hair and all on young girls who were fashionable in dress and manners. Or should it only the last cry from Paris that was considered to be ideal and fashionable?

What do you think, did parallell fashion and ideals exist? How could Asta Nielsen be a star if not? Could the ideals in Europe be much different from the US?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Are those floral appliques, or does the old girl just need a bikini waxing?



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[BinkieBaumont]

Suzy Solidor, une femme "sans tabou"

Modelling for Chanel

Suzy Solidor (1900-1983) was a French singer and actress, appearing in films such as La Garçonne.
Suzy Solidor was born on 18 December 1900 in the Pie district of Saint-Servan-sur-Mer in Brittany, France, under the name of Suzanne Louise Marie Marion. She was the daughter of Louise Marie Adeline Marion, a 28-year-old single mother. She died on 30 March 1983 in Cagnes-sur-Mer and is buried in the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, where she had lived. In 1907 she became Suzy Rocher when her mother married Eugène Prudent Rocher. She later changed her name to Suzy Solidor when she moved to Paris in the late 1920’s, taking the name from a district of Saint-Servan in which she had lived.

Early in 1930 she became a popular singer and opened a chic nightclub called La Vie parisienne. She was openly lesbian.

One of the singer’s most famous publicity stunts was to become known as the “most painted woman in the world”. She posed for some of the greatest known artists of the day including, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, Marie Laurencin, Francis Picabia and Kees van Dongen. Her stipulation for sitting was that she would be given the paintings to hang in her club and by this time she had accumulated thirty-three portraits of herself. La Vie parisienne became one of the trendiest night spots in Paris.

Solidor’s most famous portrait was done by Tamara de Lempicka.
Solidor met Tamara de Lempicka sometime in the early 1930s and Suzy asked the artist to paint her. Tamara agreed, but only if she could paint Solidor in the nude. Solidor agreed and the painting was finished in 1933.

During the occupation her nightclub was popular with German officers, and after the war she was convicted by the Épuration légale as a collaborator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay0xCvRzrTQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEnQFJQM3D4

 

[Laura Chase]

Different tastes did exist in the 20's, just like today: you have the ideal of someone like Selma Hayek, who is a sexy "hot" type, and then someone like Lily Cole who is a different type.

I would argue that today, the dominant beauty ideal is a very thin, tall woman, regardless of (probably most) men thinking that someone like Selma Hayek is more "hot".

And I think you can say the same thing about the 20's. The fashion world's ideal and the dominant ideal was the garçonne type, but naturally tastes are always varied so there was definitely room for the more voluptuous types too. This is what I would say with my limited knowledge, but I'm sure Mojito can explain it better, and with better examples.

From where I'm standing, Asta Nielsen was exactly the "hot" sexy seductress (like Theda Bara, or someone like Selma Hayek, translated to today's values):

 

[Mojito]

Thanks for posting those images of Suzy, Binkie - there are some fabulous photos of her taken by the Seeberger brothers.

Mary, it is difficult to be hard and fast about fashionable ideals in the 20s - like every decade, including our own, there is quite a wide latitude in styles. We might say that Paris Hilton with her extreme leanness and skimpy tendencies in clothing personifies one fashionable style today, but then there are fabulous actresses like Kate Winslet that represent quite a different look.
There may also be variations from region to region - I'm most familiar with what was happening in the US, UK, Australia, France and Germany with a smatter of what was happening in China (primarily Shanghai, which would have been different to most of China) and Singapore, and that's reflected in the thrust of my comments. I don't think one could succinctly encompass the entire world (much of which would have been perfectly oblivious to Euro-American trends). I'd be delighted to see other perspectives explored from specific georegions.

There is a bit of difference between the two halves of the decade (again - this is being broad). First half tended to be softer - dresses had longer lines, for example. Second half was more "geometric" (there's a wonderful image I need to scan which shoes the ideal shape of a woman's body as a long rectangle). But even these are generalisations - during the first half of the decade, some of the chemise dresses could be very angular as well (straight up and down in a tubular shape), and some of the flowing chiffons and wide capelines of the second could be soft too.

So, too, with body types. As skirts became shorter, with more leg on show, physiques became leaner. Arguably the first on-screen flapper was Olive Thomas, who played the title role in 1920's The Flapper. She was a reasonably curvey young woman with long hair:

(Still from the movie - there are better images of Olive available, but I wanted one specific to The Flapper).

However, the more typical screen flapper would be Colleen Moore. Already a Hollywood actress but not a star, in 1923 Moore bobbed her hair to star in Flaming Youth:

One particular strong contender for the theory of why the term "flapper" came to be used goes back to advertisements in the earlier years of the century. In the UK, dresses were advertised for that awkward stage of growth where young women seem to be all limbs. These dresses were long and loose, and advertised as "flapper" dresses to cover those flapping limbs (as you're probably aware, there are rival theories to this one!).

You will have noticed that I've used the term "Garçonne" several times to describe the favoured 1920s fashionable flapper figure. This is quite deliberate. In 1923 Victor Margueritte published his novel La Garçonne, and the term became adopted by the French as the equivalent of the "Bright Young Things" in the UK or the "Flappers" in the US and elsewhere, and Garçonne style the term used describe the androgynous fashions they adopted, in which feminine curves were downplayed.

When you look through magazines like Vogue in the twenties at society images, you find that the women photographed have the same fashionable, boyish physique. Mrs Gerard d'Erlanger, Mrs Armstrong-Jones, Lady Sylvia Ashley, Lady Diana Cooper, Baba d'Erlanger, Miss Gladys Cooper, the Marquise de Casa Maury...the list goes on.

I hasten to add, though, that not all these women I've named - in fact, very few of them - were flappers. Not every woman of the 20s, or every fashionable woman, was a flapper. It was a youthful style and attitude (which is one reason why I've been known to say I'm getting too long in the tooth to be a flapper, just as a woman in her 30s in the eighties would not have imagined she was a Valley Girl...one hopes!). There was more to it than clothes - it was makeup, attitude, slang and conduct. I'm not entirely sure about Asta Nielsen, for example - I never really thought of her as a flapper, although she did play some comedic roles in her wide range (is she regarded as such in Denmark, or in Germany where she played so many of her roles?). She was born in 1881, so by the 1920s was really past the flapper age.

Another tragic flapper - Marie Prevost seems very pretty and slim in early films, but she put on weight and began a tragic cycle of dieting which contributed to her early death.

The "boyish" figure was criticised at the time. Here is that 1929 Vogue cartoon of Mae West by Cecil Beaton that I referred to above. It was captioned "Mae West makes one wonder if ladies' figures should be like schoolboys' after all."

Paul Poiret in the early 1920s was already strongly criticising the La Garçonne style - in 1922 he wrote of "cardboard women, with hollow silhouettes, angular shoulders and flat breasts. Cages laking birds. Hives lacking bees."

His rival Chanel, however, embraced the style, helping to popularise it (as she herself personified it). Fashion plates throughout the decade illustrate the height of style as being long and lean.