Posts Tagged ‘twenties’

Beautiful 1920s styling for this shoot by Wendy Bevan for the Financial Times, September 2009.

Rosy cheeked flappers, ivory skin barely less pale than the strings of pearls around their necks. The opulence! Love the headdress on the girl in the background, and oh the pink ostrich feathers – I’m dying to buy a set of pink ostrich feather fans, so that I can perform a feather fan dance to La Vie En Rose, sung live by my friends (and fellow Killer Dillers) Nathan Bugh and Evita Arce. Their harmonies are beautiful, and I’d love to dance en pointe with their voices and a set of rose-coloured feather fans. But I guess the rose colour is just for the wordplay, and I could just as well do it with my white fans… so it’s hard to justify right now! *sigh*

Love the dress, the petals of the skirt are wonderful. But why do the fashion houses feel that they need to mitigate their aesthetics for the runway? An undeniably 1920s-inspired gown, so why the punky hair and drag queen makeup? Why not fingerwaves or a Louise Brooks bob? Rosy cheeks and a red rosebud mouth? The dress is going to appeal to women with a vintage aesthetic in mind, why not create a whole catwalk look that would appeal to them also. Do you think if a celebrity starlet wears this gown on the red carpet, she’ll match the hair and makeup? Hell no, she’ll have soft curls and red lipstick, I guarantee it.

For anyone like me who has studied the Harlem Renaissance at school or university, from whatever angle (art, literature, music), then you have probably read Nancy Cunard’s “Negro: An Anthology”. It might even have been your textbook. But what you might not know is that Nancy Cunard herself was sheer glamour. She was the British heiress to the Cunard shipping line fortune, and abandoned her societal responsibilities to skip off to Paris in the 1920s to live the jazz life.

This collection was an interesting re-imagining of the fashion house’s origins, and a glamorous mish-mash of styles from the 1920s to the 1950s.  The 1946 Dior’s New Look peplum was exaggerated into balloons of fabric beneath belt-cinched waists. Circle skirts, blouson sleeves, oversized coats, wasp waists and tea dresses were all in the mix. Cloche style hats and pencil-thin arched brows gave a nod to the 1920s. Corsets were occasionally sighted beneath sheer gowns, and a 1950s hourglass silhouette was fairly ubiquitous, save for a few slimmer 1930s styles. Patent leather, sheer fabrics and dark lipstick gave the whole show a more modern – and risque – feeling.