The Flapper Era Flattens the Bustline

During the Edwardian era, between about 1901 to 1919, the ideal women's silhouette resembled the letter "S." Bodies were boned and corseted into an hourglass shape, with waists forced into tiny circlets measuring less than 20 inches. The 1910's were a transitional time. The S-shape started softening a bit and by the 1920s it took a dramatic turn.

During the flat-chested Flapper era in the 1920’s, a Russian immigrant named Ida Rosenthal noticed that a bra that fit one woman did not fit another woman of the same bra size. With the help of her husband William, they founded Maidenform. Ida was responsible for grouping women into bust size categories (cup sizes) and developed bras for every stage of life (puberty to maturity).

The salient features of women's clothing in the 20's were short skirts and dropped waistlines. The silhouettes of the earlier part of the decade were long and cylindrical, with the skirt falling 7" to 10" below the knee. The Flapper might have worn baggy dresses which often exposed her arms as well as her legs from the knees down, a huge shift from previous fashions. With the discarding of corsets and constricting waistlines and skirts, the newer, simpler silhouette afforded women a great deal of physical freedom. A greater amount of personal freedom also ensued.

Dating, as we know it today, was invented in the 1920s. Previously, boys and girls had to be courting before they could see each other outside their parent's homes, or other public occasions. The unchaperoned date was something new. Dating permitted people to see each other, and learn more about each other without having proclaimed an intent to marry.

The Roaring Twenties were a period of unabashed exhuberance for many people in the United States and in Europe. Clothing fashions freed people from many of the constraints that had inhibited them physically and pyschologically. One example was the rising star of Josephine Baker, a comic dancer who first rose to fame in "Shuffle Along," Broadway's first black musical, in 1921. In 1925, she moved her act to Revue Negre on the stage of the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris. During 1926-27, she began performing what became her signature Banana Dance, wearing nothing but a girdle of bananas. She later starred at the Folies Bergere and the Casino de Paris. During World War II she was a spy, flew Red Cross supplies to Belgium, entertrained troops in North Africa, and was later decorated with the Legion d'Honneur. She was a black woman who defined herself and won widespread acclaim.

"Back in the early years of this century, men somehow managed to control themselves and eventually got used to seeing women's bare ankles. In the latter part of this century they'll somehow manage to get used to seeing women's bare breasts too."
- Dwayne Bell

The bras of the early '20s include home-made ones in white cotton and which were little more than bust bodices with extra separation. For young ladies with youthful figures a satisfactory bra was the four-sectioned lace bandeau bra, lined in net. Some purchased bras were like camisoles and they offered no support. The prepubescent girl look became popular, including flattened breasts and hips, and bobbed hair. None of the bras gave much shape, but few ladies were seeking anything more than stopping the bust from wobbling. As long as they looked boyish, they looked fashionable.

Big busted girls turned to bandaging their breasts flat, but many adopted the Symington Side Lacer, a bra that could be laced at both sides and pulled and pulled in to flatten the chest. Just as during Medieval times, the flat chest for women was in. Women often wore a chemise or camisole in place of the corset.

By the 1930s Triumph, Maidenform, Gossard, Warner Brothers, Spirella, Twilfit and Symingtons were all making bras that did the job of separating the breasts. At the same time it was finally acknowledged that women had differing cup sizes and bra sales doubled with the new designs. In 1935 Warners introduced the concept of bras with cups tailored for the size of each woman's breast: cup sizes A, B, C and D. Britain did not follow this standard until the 1950s.

Underwear was fashionable in both light colors and black, and was decorated with flowers and butterflies. With the cult of youth and the new spirit of equality came camisole knickers; also fashionable was no underwear at all. Along with the rage for drastic slimming, women tried to flatten their breasts and de-emphasize their hips.

Artificial silk stockings, later called rayon, became stronger and less expensive than real silk ones, although they were shiny. The new seamless stocking, despite its wrinkling, also made the leg look naked.

During the 1940s, the role of Breasts and Womanhood changed foreever.