Fashion in the golden twenties

The 1920s has always been tagged with the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties. The brutality of the World War I (1914-1918) and the deadly worldwide influenza epidemic (1918) resulted in the popular slogan “live for today” among people as they realized that everything could disappear overnight. Young people rejected the etiquette of the past while women seek to better themselves through higher education, participated in the political process and dared to create a new style of living.

Written by the celebrated author F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Great Gatsby was first published in 1925. Embodying the lifestyle of the Roaring Twenties-a sophisticated life that included hard liquor, cigarettes, expensive cars, love affairs, new dances, new jazz music, and new fashions, the Great Gatsby appealed to many young people who were desperate for an exciting life and became one of the most popular novels in America.

Clothing fashion for men and women adjusted quickly to the new lifestyle of the 1920s. Men’s wear was featured in comfortable tailoring. While for women, the reform of corsets and the shortening of skirts were the most striking features. Fashion of women in the 1920s was dominated by the garçonne look, a short hairstyle with a close-fitting cloche hat and a loose-fitting drop-waist dress with a knee-length skirt. More than 100 pieces of clothing and accessories displayed in this exhibition restore the scenes of leisure life, ball and sports in the 1920s. Along with the shimmering fabrics, swaying fringe hemlines, languid music, let’s move over time and return to the splendid life the Jazz Age!