The 1920s (pronounced "nineteen-twenties" often shortened to the "'20s" or the "Twenties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1920, and ended on December 31, 1929. In America, it is frequently referred to as the "Roaring Twenties" or the "Jazz Age", while in Europe the period is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Twenties" because of the economic boom following World War I (1914–1918). French speakers refer to the period as the "Années folles" ("crazy years"), emphasizing the era's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.
During the 1920s, the world population increased from 1.87 to 2.05 billion, with approximately 700 million births and 525 million deaths in total. (Full article...)
Flappers were a subculture of young Western women prominent after the First World War and through the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for prevailing codes of decent behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes in public, driving automobiles, treating sex in a casual manner, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms. As automobiles became more available, flappers gained freedom of movement and privacy.
Flappers are icons of the Roaring Twenties, a period of postwar social and political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange, as well as of the export of American jazz culture to Europe. More conservative people, who belonged mostly to older generations, reacted with claims that the flappers' dresses were "near nakedness" and that flappers were "flippant", "reckless", and unintelligent. (Full article...)
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (/ʃəˈnɛl/shə-NEL, French:[ɡabʁijɛlbɔnœʁkɔkoʃanɛl]ⓘ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post–World War I era with popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. This replaced the "corseted silhouette" that had earlier been dominant with a style that was simpler, far less time-consuming to put on and remove, more comfortable, and less expensive, all without sacrificing elegance. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her aesthetic design in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product, and Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.
Her couture house closed in 1939, with the outbreak of World War II. Chanel stayed in France and was criticized during the war for collaborating with the Nazi-German occupiers and the Vichy puppet regime to free her nephew from a prisoner of war camp. To secure his release Chanel began a liaison with a German diplomat/spy she had known before the war, Baron (Freiherr) Hans Günther von Dincklage. And following her nephew's release, she collaborated in minor ways. After the war, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator due to intervention by her friend—British prime minister Winston Churchill. When the war ended, Chanel moved to Switzerland, returning to Paris in 1954 to revive her fashion house. In 2011, Hal Vaughan published a biography about Chanel based on newly declassified documents, revealing that she had collaborated directly with the Nazi intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst. One plan in late 1943 was for her to carry an SS peace overture to Churchill to end the war. (Full article...)
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... that in the 1920s, Austrian painter Richard Geiger produced numerous portraits of the character Pierrette?
... that the serial arsonist who started the fatal Nihon Shōgakkō fire confessed to starting at least 25 other California fires in the early 1920s?
... that 1920s and 1930s radio show actress Artie Belle McGinty played the original radio advertisement voice for Aunt Jemima?
... that Cleo Damianakes's 1920s book dust jacket designs "made sex respectable", but Hemingway did not like the "large misplaced breasts" on A Farewell to Arms?
... that in the 1920s, Australian journalist E. George Marks predicted military conflict in the Pacific between Japan and the United States?
... that Ruth M. Anderson recorded a "timeless" Spain in her photographs of the 1920s?