It's Called a Flapper, Alice

     Last Christmas, I was obsessed with Downton Abbey. For those who don't know, it's a British T.V. show set in the English countryside during and the years following the First World War. It follows the life of the wealthy Crawley family, whose members all live an extravagant lifestyle filled with servants, parties, and more.
      At the time, my absolute favorite part was the way the female characters dressed, especially during the later seasons of the show. Their dresses, which began as long and simplistic, gradually evolved into "flapper dresses", which had ornate beads and designs sewn upon them and were often trimmed with fringe. In later seasons, girls' hair was either cut short or curled and then piled atop the head.

The longer, more simplistic dresses of the 1910's.....

...versus the flapper dresses of the Roaring Twenties

     I was surprised to learn last night (while I was researching the background of The Great Gatsby) that these flapper dresses were a product of women's rebellion against social norms during the 1920's, also known as the Roaring Twenties. Traditionally, dresses always fell below the ankle, and long hair was a symbol of beauty. However, flapper dresses defied these standards; They were shorter than the dresses of the previous decades and girls often cut their hair to a daringly short length.
     I'm sure that was enough to give the older generation a heart attack, but young ladies in the 1920's also began to pick up 'improper' slang such as "the bee's knees" and "that's so Jake". Well, I've never seen the any of the Crawley daughters say any such thing, but that's probably because they were too posh.
     The funniest thing I found through my research, though, is the fact that F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby, wrote a collection of short stories called “A Story of Flappers for Philosophers.” I can't help but wonder what the Crawleys would have thought of such a collection... -MC

Source: https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/flapper.html