“Clothes aren’t going to change the world, the women who wear them will.”
— Anne Klein

For the shooting we used a real vintage large format camera, which I am holding in one of the pictures. Basically for each pose I only had one try. It is just possible to take one shot with every photographic film. So you really have to concentrate not to close my eyes in that second for example or to move too much. It was an amazing experience to try this old-fashioned technique.

The look was inspired by the style of the twenties and the Great Gatsby movie.

Why the style changed tremendously in the 20s:

After the first world war people wanted to live and enjoy their lives very intensely. During the war women had to earn the money by themselves for the first time why the definition of beauty changed tremendously. The “flapper” and “garconne” look was born. Both looks were the embodiment of femininity and were basically the same type. They only differed in the origins. The flapper look was the Anglo-American one and the garconne look was the European one. Idols of this new movemnet were Hollywood stars such as Louise Brooks, Gloria Swanson und Clara Bow, the artists Kiki de Montparnasse and Nancy Cunard, the dancers Josephine Baker, the first supermodel Marion Morehouse and of course Coco Chanel, who created a new way of fashion like no other woman.

Hair style in the 20s:

In th 20th freedom meant to look alike men. The magazine “La Coiffure de Paris“ wrote the following title in 1924: “The dice is cast. Coiffeur, you need to cut your hair now!“ So women started to wear the new hairstyle, the “bob” and in the beginning they mostly went to men’s coiffeurs because the coiffeurs for women weren’t good in cutting these masculine haircuts. For a more feminine touch some women had their hair waved. In the 20s the new technique of shampoo and set or finger waves was developed.

Fashion style in the 20s:

In this jazz age the new dances were very powerful and crazy why the 20th fashion had to be very suitable for moving the body. The main focus was movement. Tight corsetts were changed into light underwear that didn’t cover too much. The lingerie was born. Slips and two-pieces out of silk or fancy cotton decorated with lace were very popular. Pastels and soft colors like blue, light pink were very common. The lengths of the skirts became shorter and shorter and in the mid 2oth for  the knee was not covered anymore the first time. Trough this decade the waist dropped very low almost lower than the hips. The feminine silhouette disappeared in the loose hanging shape of the garments. The cut and the pattern of the dresses were very uniform. They only differed in fabrics and materials, in the proccessing, and in decorations such as fringes or sequins which were almost only used for the evening wear. The exotic influence through archaeological finds and the colonization caused an enduring trens in the 1910s, that continued into 20s. Especially Egypt and the Orient  influenced the fashion. Turbans were very popular and trendy during that time. Fashion designer, painter and other artists were inspired by each other and textiles became the canvas for artistic prints of trend in arts such as the cubism, the surrealism and the Art Deco style. In the evening wear in 1927 the skirt length was partly lengthened and sashes appeared. In 1928 the Vokuhila gown became very trendy. The skirt was about knee-length in the front and was floor-length in the back. Already during the end of the 20s figure-hugging dresses came into fashion. The waist moved back to its natural spot and femininity was rediscovered. Satrting from 1929 the length of all skirts was redefined and the knee had to be covered. So the dresses had a below-the-knee-length and the gowns had floor-length.

The blog post “Carneval – the Great Gatsby Revival”  is another related article which you might be interested in. It is about the make-up of the 20s.

Styling, Make-Up & Model: Alina Spiegel

Photography: Milos Nenkovic

milosnenkovic.com