I should begin by saying I'm not a great fan of the '20s - at least not the '20s that is most often depicted and celebrated in modern times; the excessive '20s of The Great Gatsby. I've read the book twice and hated it both times; I vastly prefer Fitzgerald's Pat Hobby stories, where the protangonist is openly bitter and jaded. Don't even get me started on Tender Is The Night (oh, go on then; did you know he edited several stories out of Zelda's autobiography, which she wrote first, because he wanted to use them in it?! Yet all we hear about is how he her adored so much... I think I could do without that kind of admiration). I guess I'm not a great fan of F Scott Fitzgerald, either.
Anyway, I know the widespread fascination with '20s fashion predates Baz Luhrmann's film, but the film's influence has certainly made flapper outfits less costume-party and more red carpet, and that's been interesting. Cultural appropriation is something that really concerns me - I'll be posting about in depth next week, and one of the problems with it applies here, though in way that isn't nearly as damaging, and that's removing meaning from something so that it becomes what Jean Baudrillard called a simulacrum; a copy of a copy.
See, the original flappers were pretty awesome. What they wore was symbolic of who they were and what they wanted. American women achieved suffrage in 1920, and during that decade of relative peace and affluence came an opportunity to assert themselves, and set their sail for the times ahead. This article from Collector's Weekly (and its links) talk about who these women were, and what they did. Like many appropriated movements, the original flappers came from working class neighbourhoods and radical circles, and as a consequence were both white women AND black women (although popular history barely remembers the black flappers). They rejected restricting corsets and adopted what was considered an extremely androgynous look, with straight up and down silhouettes, and "boyish" bobs. They shocked their parents by baring their arms, and, unholiest of unholies, wearing make-up. The slatterns! They danced, they drank, they smoked, and they openly embraced sexual freedom. The flapper movement was, in all its fun, essentially a feminist movement.
That is, it began as one. By the mid '20s, corporations had latched on to the popularity of the fashion of the movement as a way to make money, and all of a sudden women of all spheres, values, and agendas were dressing like flappers; the first wave of simulacra. Among these were the women Fitzgerald scathingly describes in Gatsby; vapid creatures who care nothing about anyone or anything. Granted, these women embraced the freedom of the flappers, but they diluted the significance of those freedoms, and used class to separate their freedom from that of women of lower classes, including the women who began the movement. The initial unity of the movement was gone.
That first wave of simulacra makes me feel really sad, especially because it's not an uncommon story. However, today we're focussing on the present: the modern flapper - the newest simulacrum. This group doesn't just dilute the significance of flapper fashion; as far as they are concerned, it has none. Taylor Swift, for example, has had me wringing my hands over many a comment to do with traditional gender roles (see her quotes about not wanting to "wear the pants" and how much she likes "handing over the reins") and her rejection of essential feminism, yet she's worn several flapper outfits. What interests me is: in spite of being copies of copies of copies, and being based in a capitalist desire to exploit a movement for profit, does modern flapper attire retain any of its original meaning? Has it been completely subverted? Or, in spite of most people's ignorance of its origins, does modern flapper fashion subvert the inconsistent values of the person who wears it and doesn't care about the feminist ideals? Does it depend on who most people identify as flappers - the original flappers, or Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker? Or, as with cultural artefacts, does it not matter who knows it? Should we try harder to protect (positive - the more people subverting national front gear, the better) political fashion, like flapper dresses and linen hippy shirts, from commercial exploitation?
I should point out that there are things that the flappers began/perpetuated that aren't so great or feminist (feminism = great, great = not always necessarily feminist eg photos of dogs wearing clothes), like fighting our natural body shapes for fashion. Also, this wasn't supposed to be so confusing, or raise millions of questions I'm probably not going to answer this week because I'm too busy creating an empire (aka hiding from the cold)!!! All of this came from this photo I saw on The Sartorialist, of a modern flapper whom I think looks really cool, may or may not know/care about the original flappers; may have fallen into a fountain and had to borrow this outfit from a friend who is a direct descendant of two flappers and Simone de Beauvoir.
Now I'm just rambling. Till tomorrow, friends.
