How Flappers got their Figure: the 1920s Silhouette
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Ever wonder how flappers got that ideal 1920s silhouette? It may seem like it's an era that only works for those with the fashionable body shape and size already, but that's hardly the case! Sitting at a cross-road between old fashioned corsets and new inventions like tricot, the 1920s was FULL of options for every body and every style. The range of lingerie and support garments can be overwhelming! So, let's take a look at the list of options available to the average American to achieve the illusive "boyish mode".
Though we may not think of corsets and the 1920s together, this era depended on them just as much as the decades before! They just updated and changed to be more flexible and active. Brassieres also came in a variety of styles depending on the shape and support needed. But, in order to understand the difference I'm really going to need to make a few options! For this video I've made a simple triangle style, a bandeau, and a corset-brassiere to compare the final figure. Spoiler: it shocked me how much of a difference that could make!
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00:00 Developing the Figure
05:17 Lingerie
08:03 Structural Garments
12:30 Upper Control
17:50 Triangle Brassiere
21:27 Bandeau
23:16 Corset-Brassiere
27:44 Final Figures - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Thanks, Nicole for this. I had to laugh a bit - I remember my mother in the '60s worrying about her mini-dresses & my Nana's reaction (b. 1900 & petite). All day, not a word then mother bursts out over dinner "Just say it! Get it over with!" & gestured down her dress. Nana looked at her quizzically "It's a very nice dress, I like the red stripes." "You don't think it' shows too much?" Nana laughing along with grandfather. "In my day we wore them up to here, down to *there* and further in back with barely a stitch underneath! You girls today with your tights & all are covered from bottom to top - you do know, you did not invent sex!" My grandfather nodding & grinning ... lol! Ofc now I realize she was talking about evening wear but from old photos, they were quite the fashionable couple, with his touring car & their clothes.
LOL! I remember trying on my grandmother’s evening gowns that she’d worn at Abilene Christian College (now University) back in the twenties when she met my grandfather whilst I was the same height she was. OMG! It came up quite high in the front but the back! The back was not there. It was… daring. And I’m not surprised that my grandmother won the heart of the quarterback. 😘
This kind of reminds me of the time my college-aged niece dyed her hair purple and then called her sister a few days later to ask "Is mom mad yet?" She was a bit disappointed to find out she wasn't. Girls in the 60's didn't invent sex, and girls in the 2010's didn't invent hair dye. 😄
@@m0L3ify Indeed! During the '50s & '60s Roux had tints & dyes in amazing colours that would be used by fashionable ladies for touches & sprays often to match an ensemble - purples, lilacs, pinks, etc. Abby Cox has a vid on the long history of aristocratic use of pastel tints in hair that dates back centuries - amazing stuff.
@@AthenaeusGreenwood Pastel hair sounds awesome!
Exactly I wore 60’s dresses I sewed which were stunning with tights and low heeled shoes with substance so all balanced. I worked wearing frocks not much below my knickers and often sewed neat matched knickers so unobtrusive. We were covered fully, I wore long sleeves, 5’6” weight 49 kilos 7 stones 10 and muscular as I was a tennis champ. I could get a long sleeved round neck straight frock out of a yard of superb heavy silk crepe and just to my knees in later 60s. The clothes were beautiful in the 1960s. The pattern house went to the fashion shows in Paris bought garments and right to make patterns and they were back in New York the next day doing it. The fabrics were excellent too, lovely wools, linens and silk crepes in deep rich colours with lovely hand.
It never ceases to amaze me that somehow somewhere, at one point we stopped using garments to shape the bodies according to the fashionable dress figure but instead started trying to shape the bodies directly to match. And somewhere along that line some people even started to shame women for using padding (as in Push up bras). I´d like to talk to the person who thought this was a good idea.
Exactly! We don't want to be constricted by lots of undergarments anymore, but the "ideal" shape still exists. At least we have lots of current fashions to choose from to flatter our natural shape (instead of one trendy silhouette).
@@aksez2u Uhm, not what I meant. Not at all what I meant but you do you.
I remember as a pre-teen reading an article in one of my older sisters magazines, that was all about how the dieting industry got really big as women stepped out of their old roles and into the world. It theorized that it was a deliberate attempt to distract and control women by making them focus on having an unrealistic body ideal that would keep them weak and unhealthy.
This probably came about around the same time as the number of layers included in women's clothing (and clothing in general) started to decrease, or at least when the items began to shrink in size. Fewer layers meant less room for "enhancements" to be hidden and therefore there was more pressure to make the body itself fit the fashionable silhouette instead of using either padding, shapewear, or both.
@@aureyd2515 This is an interesting theory but the focus on womens beauty standards exists way longer than that. It already was a thing in the 1800 (for richer families that is) and it is quite enlighting to read what most asian countries thought a womens role in life was (Spoiler: Mainly being beautiful, dutyful and dumb). it is easy to distract women from wanting power if you tell them their only role in life is to be beautiful and to attract a male. It is even a thing today if you pay attention.
I love the fact that you're CRUSHING the myth that structural garments were thrown aside in the 1920s and all women were naturally "boyish" shaped. Question: where did you get the pattern for your teens/20s corset? It looks great on you!
I made it up based on images, but I did notice a few similar patterns being sold on Etsy and other repro pattern sellers sites!
@@NicoleRudolph Thanks! Good to know :)
@@NicoleRudolph If you made a pattern for this I would buy it.
Yeah could you sell a pattern for it?
I think this needs to be put into perspective. We're talking about the end of the Women's Sufferage period, so it became. important to take charge of a more "free to choose our own" look. Traditional long hair was also losing out to short-cut hairdos for the 1st time, like, ever. Now, zooming into modern times... Look at styles that, even among men, started to look like "my hair, who cares!" looks (remember the bed-head look that started it all?), yet, took a long time to achieve, lol.
I think the looks above were similar in concept: "Let's look looser, freer and in charge of our own bodies... and loosen up on the overly feminine look we had to have before". On the outside, they appeared to achieve that. But like the messy hairdos of today, probably took a lot of time and additional/or at least equal products (undergarments) to achieve it. Ironic... yes.
It’s amazing how much the undergarments do to produce the figure you want for a particular look. And I appreciate that the doctors of the 1920s were already urging people to exercise for health, not figure, which should instead be modified by clothes.
They also told people cigarettes would stunt your growth, and bootleg hooch could make you go blind, but only the cautious listened. I like the list mentioned in Button Up Your Overcoat, published in 1928. In 1922 Charles Atlas started his bodybuilding course, so the men could get in on the health kick.
People also walked a lot; and up/own stairs.many people had no cars. Walking to public transportation and back ; all the places they went to was alot of exercise. And standing all day at the job. Whew!🙁 been there done that in my youth.
Interesting. My grandmother, who came up in the late 19-teens, early 1920s (she had my mother in her 40s!) wore a brassiere and long line girdle through most of her adult life. I honestly always took the difference of a girdle and a corset to be the addition of elastic/elasticated fabric (but maybe that has juat been because of my personal experience). I even found an old kit for a girdle (including tricot) that I assume meant my grandmother sewed her last few girdles herself (she was an amazing seamstress, I love to sew in part because of her, but don't think myself as nearly up to a garment like that!)
She would dress in this order: brassiere and girdle against the skin, no underpants/drawers/tap psnts (unless she was dancing - she was an amazing dancer according to my mother's stories), stockings (clipped ti the clips on the girdle) slip over the top of it all, and her dress (by the time I came around, it was pretty much house dresses :). BTW - important to note, her dressing habits were probably a conglomeration of the decades she lived though.
My gran on my dad's side wore girdles, elastic corsets and brasseries all her life too. She always had good posture
My other gran hated bras and would only were a vest/tank top (or a semmet if we're being Scottish here) and generally resembled a garden gnome or goblin posture wise 😂😂😂😂
I don't want to look nitpicky, but it's too funny to let it slip.
"Brasserie
Not to be confused with _Brassiere_
In France, Flanders, and the Francophone world, a brasserie (pronounced [bʁas.ʁi]) is a type of French restaurant with a relaxed setting, which serves single dishes and other meals." - Wikipedia
Oh my goodness, my grandma had the same undergarments! I remember her calling it a brassiere. Does anyone call it that anymore? I remember hooking it for her. It just went on and on....
@@Hair8Metal8Karen So dose corsets help with posture
@@bunnyboo6295 It's anecdotal evidence and I'm sure there were other factors at play considering the two women involved. 😆
One thing people get really wrong is the position of the bust. Today we go for quite a high position but it's actually a lot lower if you look at the 1920s. Downtown Abbey is really bad for what was otherwise sterling costume design
My maternal Grandmother and her sisters were in their late teens and early twenties in the 1920’s. When they went out they would wrap bed sheets around their torso in order to achieve the strait boyish shape. I love your videos on fashion history, I’ve learned so much.
I recall as a child, speaking to a 'family friend' in the 1970's (who I later found out was actually my Grandfather's mistress!) who was a young woman in the 1920's. She told me that, as she had little money, she used a pillow case safetypinned long-ways (she was very short and thin, but large busted) down her torso to acquire the correct sillhouette.
My mother, who was a child in the 1920's, spoke lovingly of cami-knickers. She remembered them as very comfortable and easy to wear.
My grandmother was a flapper in the late 20s and I always wondered how she did it with her prodigious bosoms. Now I know. Thank you!
Well, some women's boobs get bigger after pregnancies or just as age passes
Speaking as a well-endowed person, none of these would go very far to hide or flatten a large bust
My great aunt born in 1903 always referred to panties (no matter the style) as "step-ins" until the day she died in the mid-1980s. Brings back sweet memories to hear you refer to step-ins.
I'm a nurse and I was caring for a gentleman who was 99 years old, still sharp as a tack. He kept referring to step-ins and then proceeded to tell me I was too young to know what they were. lol I'm wondering if men called them that as well? I hadn't heard it before or again until just now in your video!
Looking at the reduction you got from that bandeau is almost making me want to toss my stuffy nylon and spandex binder! (Almost. It seems like it'd feel squished in a whole new way.) It amuses me more than it should to see how some of these layers parallel the clothing tips I've given my transmasculine friends, especially the use of the curtain effect. Eliminating the curve between the bust and underbust means far less compression is needed to create a "boyish" figure, almost like how a hip pad can create an ideal Edwardian look without tightlacing. Even if the number of layers looks like a chore, comfort is still key.
for the most part comfort will always be key because who wants to wear things on the regular that are uncomfortable? We are advertised at that "this" is the look we "need" to strive for when the reality is most people want to look good (for their own personal value of good) and be comfortable.
As another transmasculine person, I'm so tired of synthetic knit binders. They're just so sweaty! I have never been able to wash the smell out, either. I am all down for the historically inspired binder club. And yeah, the "curtain effect" is totally something I take advantage of when I can, I find that the front of a buttoned shirt holds a nice shape that doesn't reveal much about my body underneath. I still find myself in art student funks about how revealing and uncomfortable a black turtleneck can be lmao
It looks like it puts less stress on the shoulders and back, too. Years after I stopped needing a binder, I have an honest-to-god numb spot in the place under my shoulderblade where I'd get stabbing cramps by the end of the workday. Still aches before a storm. Although this garment looks more prone to the, uh, overspill a modern binder is designed to reduce. And I'd be wary of its long-term effect on ribs. Longline sports bras might be safer and more comfortable.
(If you can't reduce the time you bind... yoga helps. Chill out in child's pose before bed, binders can pull you into a swayback posture and it does wonders to decompress your spine.)
@@ajabbreviation3645 Yeah, I know the struggle, I'm currently researching possible designs so I can make a linen sports bra/binder, I hope that'll be great with loose clothes
@@ajabbreviation3645
A tight-fitting turtleneck might not reveal much skin, but it can definitely highlight the figure underneath.
Nicole, I love the fact that you not only tell us the history of these eras, including what they wore underneath, but you also show us WHY they wore what they did through examples like this and how they changed the shape of the body to match the silhouette of the time. I'm forever fascinated with this 'flapper' era, even though my grandma said they were only prostitutes & ladies of the night (a bit conservative there, grandma?), and I adore gaining knowledge of it all that I can.
The two reasons I'm obsessed with 1920s fashion are: 1) How amazing the clothes were at creating this illusion, being comfortable and incredibly luxe and beautiful. 2) how much men of the 1920s (and now I think) despise it. When you piss off that many men, you are bound to be doing something right.
I don’t think they were that upset considering they saw women’s calves and sometimes knees for the first time haha. I’ve see. I saw a 1930 video of them interviewing men and asking what they thought of the fashions getting longer hems again and they didn’t seem pleased with the idea.
@@mastersnet18 do you have a link to that video?
I've never heard that men of the '20s didn't like the fashion. I've heard that older people didn't like it, but that's *always* the story between generations.
@@Udontkno7 yup,
th-cam.com/video/iMDWqJmLwP8/w-d-xo.html
I'm not understanding why you think it's a good thing to piss off 50% of the population. Just because they are men? Have fun with that. Btw high-rise mom jeans don't hide anything. They make stomach pouches stick out worse and make backsides look long, flat, and wide. Also this generation has an obesity problem. I'm gen X. If anyone was overweight it was literally one person in the entire school. And that person did have a medical problem. They had a genetic disorder akin to down syndrome but way lower functioning and they were in special Ed. Their's very few medical disorders that cause obesity. Even pregnancy and middle age shouldn't cause weight gain. I gave birth full-term at 135 pounds. I'm 5ft4. I was 106 at my 6 week check up with both of my kids. Both of whom are also underweight for their ages. I think it's ridiculous you want to piss men off on purpose
someone should do a comparison of 20s brassieres and modern binders, could be interesting
I started middle school in 1980 it began a week long tearful battle when my mom insisted I needed to wear a girdle because of my age (while I was developing I was also thin and petite) no teenagers i knew wore girdles! I was horrified and nearly inconsolable. She said loose women jiggled everywhere. It was the first time I'd ever dug in and defied her like that. Finally she talked to some of her friends and admitted that things had changed since she was my age. No humiliating girdle to reveal in gym class!!! I look back now and laugh because my now 75 year old mom hasn't worn a girdle since then either...I guess my week long fit of resistance was for the both of us❤ by the mid 80s I was dressing and doing my makeup like madona and pat benatar and my mom just went with it🤣
This is great for people like me with chest dysphoria. I find modern binders extremely uncomfortable. But now I feel inspired to try and make a bandeaux. And maybe eventually a corset-brassiere, but my sewing skills are not quite up to par yet. I can hand sew for hours, but if I try and use the machine I make a lot of mistakes and get frustrated at how hard it is to undo them sometimes.
*same*, I haven't tried modern ones but knowing my sensory issues I don't think they'd work super well for me
Oh i know the feeling! The amound of times i have jammed or snapped the thread for no apparent reason! I swear that between all that rethreading and seam pulling i'm faster with just handstitching the whole thing to begin with. The sewing machine is the printer of the past - it smells the fear and rewards inexperience with tears of rage
Go ahead and hand sew it. I’ve been sewing for fifty years and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve just done things by hand rather than fool with the machine.
Practice on your machine making things with long seams (or whatever your particular demon is, mine is buttonholes) on scrap fabric or by making projects that “don’t matter”. IOW it doesn’t matter if you mess the project up because
It’s a prototype
It’s a toy!
It’s actually a supr skrt spy from the cia it’s supposed to be like that!
Remember that when you create things you will always see the flaws. Trust me.
Another trick, when you get frustrated you have to stop and take a breath and then either go read a book, watch a video, cuddle a pet (or COYC) for fifteen minutes at least until your brain resets. If you keep working at the sewing machine it senses your fear and fubars worse. 😉
So many people are normalizing body hatred in the comments of this video. Don't hod your breasts! They're wonderful the way they are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way nature made your body and if you feel ashamed of it then counseling for that would go a lot farther than trying to physically change. Trust me this shot can get WAY out of hand.
@@KFrost-fx7dt ummmmm no, they’re talking about body dysmorphia where your body doesn’t match your brain or issues where your breasts are exceedingly big and painful. How large are your breasts? Mine have been anywhere from DD to JJ (nursing and pregnancy) and I have to say that there are times and places that my breasts need to be put in their place.Thank you.
I absolutely love the corset in this! If you ever decided to make the pattern publicly available, I would absolutely purchase it!
This video also made me realize just how many 1920s undergarments I have 😅 I inherited all of my grandmother's sewing things and those happened to be included with them. I definitely need to get on better preserving them but... broke college student 😅
I was to see a love scene in the 1920s where the man has to fumble his way through removing all of these garments. But if they could make it sexy, bonus points.
The key to making it sexy for film or real life is to accept the fumbling and laugh!
honestly, just like with some depictions for older time periods when people wore stays or corsets that Ive seen, I think most of the time people only just half undressed really. Theres a reason aside from using the toilet that alot of those "step ins" or "knickers" had button or clippable crotches. Otherwise I bet mostly people just undressed and got into it in their thinner, easier night clothes... Just my two cents.Though I bet there were crazy ppl and playboys and girls who knew their way in and out of those undergarments very quickly indeed and could undo them all and lightening fast just do them all up again hahaha. I mean, theres lotsa people in the 80s who learned how to divest themselves of spanx and leggings and calf warmers along with a non elastic hook bra an undies quite quicklly if ya think about it :)
I guess what im sayin is- where theres a will theres a way
but as you say; it would probably look much more ridiculous to us today rather than smexy
trans guy here, currently feeling very connected to the 1920s in terms of what we wanted to achieve with our figure
I was already wondering if a pretty flat corset would be useful for cosplaying male characters.
Definitely will try out this one as it seems to be working:3
This pushes the bust downward, where as modern binders push up and out to the sides, which is healthier for the ribcage/lungs/chest tissue in the long run. This is why it's not advised to bind with things like ace bandage because that will push down. The styles of dresses that have a lower neckline call for the bust to be lower, but most masculine characters have higher necklines so you can get away with pushing the chest up and out to create a more "pectoral-like" shape.
For low cut or open shirt characters, there are styles of tape to achieve that look.
There are many videos and blog posts about this in the trans and cosplay communities 👍
My great grandma just used tapeworms. Lots of tapeworms. I still have some of the bottles with directions. One pill is the tapeworm and the 2nd is to kill the tapeworm when you are at your desired weight. She also went to steam baths to keep toned. This was in the 1920s in Manhattan NY.
My Mom in the early 70’s took a “diet pill” from Mexico ( aka tapeworm pills) . These pills were illegal and had to be illegally obtained but she swore by them . Once I got a bit chubby she slipped me some of the capsules insides over food. I didn’t know .. I did start to loose weight and hair, felt sickly.. visited my doctor and low and behold I had tapeworm.. MOM!!!!!
@@gotohellenwaite6371 You'd know if you had tapeworm... they come out your (butt) daily. fun stuff.
@@SirenaSpades 😉
😮
Oh gross!😮
My great grandmother wore these! I remember the garters and being amazed at all the items she had on under her simple dress.
My jaw dropped when looking at the side by side comparison of everything. Your bust definitely "disappeared" on the elastic undergarment. Ummm, I wish my modern minimizer bra would have the same effect since I have been "blessedly" endowed since I hit puberty and decades later I still want to hide the girls however I can (minimizer bras, loose fitting shirts).
What is a minimizer bra and how do I make a wholesale purchase of that
@@hollyro4665 used to be able to find them pretty handily, but ones I'm thinking of were more in the 'grandma' section of like a sears or jc penny. Might try online through a department store, though if you can try before buying or find a place which allows returns you might have better luck (I don't have any good recommendations unfortunately, otherwise I'd share; I just rely on a semi-snug tank as my next layer to serve as additional smoothing but it's certainly not compressive)
@@hollyro4665 minimizers make the bust look 1-2 cup sizes smaller and have a modern round breast silhuette. Outer edges around the boob are squished down and the middle is shaped into a slightly smaller boob, or the breast is altogether squished close to the body (rather than projected forward like a normal bra).
Some mention "minimizing effect" in the online description rather than being called a minimizer bra. If you shop only in stores you might even have bought them unknowingly.
Brands and stores that carry big bust sizes or plus size clothes will likely have them. Some bra brands with multiple options are Chantelle, Bali, Maidenform, Olga, Wacoal...
Sorry, no special brand recommendations as I myself have an AA/A cup and live in a tiny European country😂😅
@@TT-_- thank you that’s helpful! I’m in the UK. 28 G/H. My body proportions are so off. I’ve managed to go down a cup size with hormone balancing but with scrawny legs and no hips my body is so too heavy. I’d just like to look proportioned. I’ll have a look into what you’ve said. Thanks again
@@hollyro4665 oh that size sounds difficult to find. I'm closest to 65A (30A inches) and I think I own a whopping 1 bra that size... mostly I have managed to buy 70A and 70AA. I have to shorten the bands after a few months of wear by moving the hooks farther in the band: even the tightest hook becomes too loose.
So, remember sister sizes if you can't find your true size in minimizer bras: band size up by one step and cup size down by one. Move the hooks or buy extra hooks to add if the band feels too loose🤗
My grandmother used to speak about binding her bussom , she was a teenager in 1925 and had my mom in 1927. My grandmother was short and curvy
My great grandmother wore a girdle/corset with lacing and hosiery clips that covered the bust and hips until she died in 1980.
So interesting to see how the corset/girdle/bandeau/bra evolved so rapidly in this period, and how it really does lead on very organically to the shapewear of the modern age (oh god, I have trauma from rolling Spanx knickers onto myself for my sisters wedding, and just about dying from heat exhaustion in them)
Y'all need to stop calling every unpleasant experience a trauma. It's so fucking ableist, I cannot believe that in 2022 this shit is acceptable.
Getting older helps. I refuse to do this anymore.
@@discodiscordia you need to chill out and stop being triggered by minor things. How do you people go around being angry at everything all day long??
@@discodiscordia and you can't go around deciding what can and can't be traumatic. For all we know, it might have been "genuinely" traumatic for them.
@@3g0st thank you so much! Sorry about the late reply, my notifications didn't work and I'm seeing this just now!
My grandmother, born in 1902, wore a brassiere- corset combination well into the 1970s, probably starting in the 20s. When I was young, I remember being rather freaked out seeing the contraptions hanging on a clothesline to dry. 😂
Freaked out 😄😄
When I was 12 or 13.... I was obsessed with Art Deco and short bob haircuts, which I had for most of my life.... I really think I had a lifetime then... thank you for this video!
I have a bunch of step-ins that my Grama had made for her, mostly silk & lace. I also have a couple of 'bras' in line style. My treasures 🥰
Interesting! It makes me think of when I lived in Spain and couldn’t find any dresses in my size at the stores and boutiques. I definitely saw women my size and larger and they weren’t walking around naked so I knew they were getting their clothes somewhere! I think the 20’s movies or even later but portraying that era often show only smaller figures, but we all know that there were woman of all sizes back then just like today.
It's so awesome that you shared how the undergarments actually change the way the garment looks on the outside. It really made me see that undergarments can really make an outfit
Wonderful research of the unmentionables! Tbh, was never a huge fan of the boyish figure, although there were really beautiful dresses with fantastic beading. I know brassieres weren't invented as a torture device, but still side eye mine as such. The mushing of the boobs was a resurgence of the Roman style, so what goes around comes around - or those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it. Endlessly. But at least the 20s didn't force body con fashion on women (I'm glaring at you Kim Kardashian!).
The evolution of undergarments will always remain fascinating, thanks for this video.
Those side by side comparisons at the end were magical- it looked like the 1920’s fashion paper dolls that I have! And also, can I just give a shout out to your impeccable sewing? 🤩👌 c’est magnifique!
Absolutely love this video (and all of Nicole's videos/projects), both as a sewist/lover of historical fashion, and as a transmasculine person (who incidentally is watching this while sewing a binder) 😂 Also just gotta say how much I appreciate how bright the chemises are (especially the fuschia one); they look so fun!
My great-grandmother was a royal seamstress, whom went on to immigrate to America and was one of those housewives that made all the family clothes (but probably not the men's suits... I think). She was effectively a modern US size 20 or larger and she wore the 1920s silhouette. I would say there's a certain "broadness" that would not exist in different eras of fashion, but it really just fits in with the boxy, boyish look everyone was going for; it almost makes me think the 1920s had an anti-fashion, or strong counter-narrative (you don't understand, victorian mom!!!) bent to it's style as it explored what it meant to be "modern".
All the sewing book stuff I have from that era keeps re-enforcing this idea that we need to become more "modern" and find how to create clothes that match our new "modern" life styles, which are framed as somehow absolutely different then however people lived right before. Generally I find this era really interesting, because it doesn't seem to emphasize the notion that faster, convenient dressmaking is not attached to a dip in quality on either the material level of construction. I feel like later on in history, the idea of convenience and low quality become interconnected, but in the 1920s there seems to not be this assumption yet.
Even so I'm not a fan of this period, I love to see what a difference the understructure makes. Thanks for all the work.
Same. I think everyone should just dress in the era that matches their body type so they don't have to do any kind of uncomfortable body-shaping
@@ojyochan I don't mind the shaping structure, I'm just not a fan of the 20s style. And I would not say that these undergarments are any more uncomfortable then modern Bras and Shapewear.
@@ojyochan
I agree that nobody should need to wear shaping undergarments that are uncomfortable for them, but that doesn’t mean people can’t wear silhouettes that don’t quite match their natural shape if the foundations are comfortable. In fact, everyone should be able to wear whatever types of clothes _they_ enjoy and find comfortable, both physically and mentally.
Thank you to all the lovely ladies who shared their stories about their families from the daring twenties and I thought my great grandfather was scandalous for buying my grandmother red lipstick and nail polish and mum has the pictures to prove it. But now it seems quite tame. 💖
Those were fantastic comparisons of the different styles and how they affect the final silhouette.
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful video, full of nuance.
It is interesting to note that even in the eras, that being slender may be the body ideal, their idea of slender or the kind of "slender" is different for each of those 3 different eras (I am talking about the 1920s, the 1960s, and the 1990s), and even our definition of slender today
For example, when you look at the celebrities and the beauty queens of the 1920s (who were considered "the ideal" of that era), they are not thin like how Twiggy was thin or how the 90s to the 2000s models were thin.
The Ultimate Fashion History on TH-cam(The video is titled "THE ULTIMATE FASHION HISTORY: The 1920s"), you can see it at the timestamp: 1:21-3:02. Actually talks about it and you can see it, especially in a lot of the pictures from that time. The best way I heard the 1920s body ideal described is that it was not about being "skinny" it is more like having the body shape of either a boy or "An athletic 15-year-old girl".
“The boyish figure sans bust and curves and waistline is the ideal silhouette.” -Evelyn Dodge, Delineator magazine, July 1925.
Then for the 1960s, The Ultimate Fashion History on TH-cam talks about it as well (Which is titled "THE ULTIMATE FASHION HISTORY: The 1960s" ), you can see it at the timestamp: 10:46-12:31. Compare that body ideal ( and the pictures of women from those 2 eras) between the two eras and you can see how there is even a difference even eras where at a quick glance have the same body ideal.
You can even see this when Twiggy told a reporter many of "today's models, actresses, and celebrities are too skinny.
Back in 2006 She also called on fashion magazines to ban unhealthily skinny models and for the modeling industry to be regulated "I was a very, very skinny model in the '60s, but naturally...that's what I looked like." Twiggy explained. "I ate. I always said I ate, and I looked like my dad who was very skinny, so I think that's genetic. I think most models fall into that category: if you are 17 years old and you are 5-foot-11, the chances are you're going to be thin.
." Twiggy, without naming names, says it is easy to spot them. "You get what I call the lollypop look," she said. "If somebody is not naturally slender, if their head is too big for their body, the chances are they are dieting too much."
Twiggy pointing to well-known actresses beyond their 20s who appear to be starving themselves. "A lot of them aren't girls," Twiggy continued.
"They are women. You can't believe somebody in their 30s and 40s would want to do that or go there. "It's incredible really." This is from another article discussing the same topic (Dated to 2006), "When I was modelling through 16 to 20 [Her age when she was modeling in the 60s], when I got blamed for making kids want to be thin, I ate absolutely everything, but I was naturally skinny,"
I agree, the definition of skinny changes depending on the time and place it is used. The way people use the term skinny now wasn’t even close to how we used it in the 2000’s. Same with terms like thick, curvy, etc.
True, people cannot blame Twiggy for being herself, it's like blaming all these tall models for making short people feel bad.
What if you just have a big head, I'm fat and my head is too big for my body lol
My Nan was a flapper and she was far from slim and flatchested. Even when I was small she had what amounted to a minimising brassiere with a shaping girdle. It was all about smoothing. She always had a slip on as well.
Great video!! I love the styles from the 20s....All my grandparents and their siblings were born in the late 1800s. In all the casual photos the women are wearing the cloche hats, bobbed hair and the 20s styles.
My great aunt who buried 4 husbands but never had any children lived with me and my husband right after we married. She lived to be 100 and was hale and hearty and sharp as a tack until day she died. She was always a snappy dresser and liked to go out to dances back in the twenties. She didn't make much money though and lived at home. She told me that when new clothes came out she would pick out what she liked and her mother would go downtown and look at them and came back home and could duplicate the garments for her....she was that amazing a seamstress, even though she had been born and raised in country and they didn't migrate to the city until she was in her 40s. Though my great aunt never sewed, her two other sisters were gifted seamstress like their mother.
Thanks for sharing!
Hook and eye TAPE exists?!? Adding this to my new favorite notion. Oh yeah... great project as always.
Great demonstration, I am so impressed with your sewing skills.
Wow! A lot more work than the "lengths of stout satin ribbon, 12inches wide, heald together with hooks and eyes up the back" that Joyce Grenfell describes herself and her contemporaries wearing to flatten their busts in the 20s.
Goodness, your precision and attention to detail in your sewing is incredible. The resulting garments are incredible.
As a transmasc person currently watching this while recovering from a bruised rib from binding, I really enjoyed this take on binding. I'd love to try the corset brassiere myself at some point
I am a curvy eight figure and I assumed the 1920s look was not for me, even if I knew not everybody had that flat shape naturally. You made it look so simple I am revisiting my earlier thought. Now I have added things to sew on my already long list of things to sew 😅
I love your fashion history videos and the comparisons you do. You're very entertaining and knowledgeable.
I hope you know that you have inspired me to want to pick up making clothes. Not only do I love history as a whole subject, but you have a gift of teaching and keeping us intrigued all throughout. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Watching the act of sewing with the machine and the creativity in putting the pieces together to form a wearable item with the different textures is a satisfying thing to witness and do. You’re exceptional at putting together clothing.
My late grandmother was a flapper and she showed me some of her beautiful clothes back in the 70s. She had a lot of beautiful beadwork incorporated into the styles, purses, shoes and dresses. It was all about the beads. She was a "busty" woman and she told me that her foundations were key to fitting into the newest fashions. For some dresses she was bound about the chest area and the cut of the dress minimized the difference between hips and bust to give her a pencil silouette. She also told me that you would spend a lot of money on the proper slip, the right one would make the figure flow to the hips. I wish I had her outfits now. And her stories of speakeasies, dancing till dawn, college parties (she was also a co-ed) and parties with orchestras and fast cars...it sounded like so much fun.
It was after WWI, men returned ill or dead and people wanted to cherish life again after the time of scarcity.
I love the final jazz hands!
Thank you for covering this topic! It’s weird to me that people think their bodies just can’t “do” the 20s. It erases the diversity of bodies in that time.
It suggests that larger sized people or people with larger busts can’t look good in 20s clothing which just isn’t true.
i just love how in depth this videos are
thank you!!!
I'm really loving the combination of bright shiny colors and white lace in those chemises and combinations you showed yourself wearing. I'm absolutely going to make myself an outerwear top inspired by that look
This was so informative. Fun and quirky at the same time!!
This was so interesting! I really liked the dress and undergarment comparisons at the end. It showed a big difference.
This video was so helpful!! I always appreciate all of the historic references and research you put into the videos. The side by side comparisons were so helpful. This definantly makes me feel like the 1920s are more achievable for me.
You shared this at exactly the right time! I’m working on a 1920’s evening look, and getting rather stuck at the foundation garment stage. Thank You!
Thank you so much for all of the recent 1920’s content! I’ve been really into 20’s fashion for a bit now and it’s been great help especially for my body shape ✨
So interesting! I love these videos where you compare stuff, really easy to see how it works!
Ahh!! This was such a great watch. You are so incredibly talented...
Waw! Thank you so much for this video. It's very informative especially with the comparison shots!
1920's doesn't get a lot of love and I think it's because a lot of people feel intimidated or uncomfortable with the silhouette. It does have that reputation with us modern folk that you have to be a particular size to participate and enjoy it. People know they can add padding or accentuate their waist the corset to look flattering in fashion of different times but they don't know about the tricks the 1920's had for creating the desired silhouette. It's so cool to see someone do a real informative video! I think 1920's has a lot of beautiful fashion to offer and I would love to see more people explore it!
Outstanding work as always. The achievement of shape is mind-blowing
I have some pictures from the 1890s and 1920s of one of my great great grandmothers and the silhouette of the 20s definitely did not fit her in any way shape or form 😅 I imagine it must have been a lot more comfortable, but the silhouette from the 1890s suited her figure much better! It’s actually really cool to have pictures of the same person thirty years apart to compare the fashion
Up until my 30’s a had the ideal 1920’s figure, now I’m more Romanesque 😜
As always a super informative video, the side by side comparisons were super interesting and surprising.
Very much enjoyed this exploration. The side-by-side comparisons were very helpful.
The results from the three brassieres you made are incredible! I’m always astounded by how talented you are!
One of my grandmothers, who was in her seventies before I was even born, wore a real corset. It was fascinating to watch her do it up in the morning. My other grandma was almost twenty years younger and wore something more like the bandeau bra her entire life. They were always in house dresses and bundled up on top so you didn’t see much definition unlike my mother’s generation who wore hard supportive bras that drew attention to the bust and girdles that flattened the stomach and smoothed the hips. In my late teens and early twenties, I didn’t wear a bra at all later moving to something a bit more work appropriate, usually a bralette although I did own a colourful corset just for fun. Today I wear camisoles and tank tops with built-in shelf bras or bralettes that slip on over my head because I can’t stand the the metal hooks on the back or the pieces for adjusting the length of the straps against my skin. I’m glad it’s all about comfort these days.
seeing how complex these garments are/were makes me appreciate my usual outfits of jeans, t-shirts, sports bras, and my dad's long-sleeve shirts.
The work that went into this whole video is incredible 👏
Wow, the difference is wild! Can't wait to see the other items you are making with these foundation layers under them.
Practical history. Thanks so much for presenting this in a way that is not just dates and names. I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and sense.
This was a highly informative and entertaining video about antique fashion. I love learning about fashion history. Your way of explaining historical fashion made it very easy to understand.
I just want to say thank you for providing this content. I’m not in the fashion industry but I like learning about fashion and history in general. So far I find your content interesting. Keep going. 😁😊
This is so amazing and informative! Thank you for making this 💜
I’ve read books that mention combinations but I don’t think I ever really stopped to wonder what they were. Glad I find know!
I'm making an 1920s outfit and I was waiting for this video. Thank you for sharing it❤
This was fascinating. I enjoy your videos so much.
It is seriously calming to watch you sew.
I really, really appreciate you showing the difference side by side. It really helps understand the roles of the different garments and why they were used.
I've never really liked the 20s style, but found the video absolutely fascinating due to your explanations and comparisons.
Keep up the good work!
i’m quite petite but also very curvy (around size 0-2 except in my hips where i’m more around a 4) and it makes me look like a dorito in 1920s dresses. since it’s my actual hip bones that cause the curviness there’s not much to really lace down
BUT i’ve found a lot of antiques i’ve personally bought that are drop waist but have some sort of waist definition, either through seams or a tied belt, and those look SO much better on me! not everything was so straight up and down even if we think it was. so basically don’t feel bad for putting a little waist definition in your 20s dresses!
My only concern for my personal ability to achieve this silhouette. Is the fact I have rather large implants. Unlike natural Brest tissue. It has very little compressibility. Iv always had a fascination with this era of fashion. But realistically I may not be able to pull it off accurately. Because of my body modifications. I’m sure the right structural garments will make a significant improvement. But I’ll just have to accept that this era. I really would not have been able to achieve the ideal silhouette. Not as I am now anyway.
(I am SO happy with my decision!! My outward appearance now matches my inner being!)
Oh wow! This was really cool and encouraging. I've always thought 1920s wasn't going to be for me with my hefty up top and my B belly. But I like that you can just combine some tricks together to get the right silhouette. Beautiful! ❤️
BTW I love your clothing style its the perfect match of tailoring but also the lace on the sleeves is definite chefs kiss 💋
Brilliant video, Nicole. Thank you!
I love how you went for the super vibrant shades for your undies! I'm not much of a pastel person (and, truly, not much of a brights person, either,) and your undergarments are such a lovely break from the pastels and neutrals that are so prevalent in modern department stores. There's a time and place for neutral undies, but there's also a whole rainbow of colours out there!
That rayon satin - I actually gasped when that came on screen! Is there any chance you might remember the source of that?
You did a fantastic job of engineering all those different undie styles and getting all of the tiny pieces to come together smoothly. The lace insertion is the obviously tricky bit, but the tricky part you don't expect is nesting tiny tubes made of slippery fabric, making sure everything sits smoothly, and affixing it all securely.
I'd like to add a thank you to everyone in the comments who've shared their thoughts and anecdotes! Family stories like yours are what really humanize and give perspective to eras and garments and remind me that people are people. Thank you.
Ooooh, that corset made my chest-binding nonbinary heart sing!
Thank you for all of your hard work Nicole. This video was very clear & easy to understand how the 20's fashion was possible regardless of measurements. I think there could be a museum that would be interested in you doing a presentation or exhibit on this. It was that good.
You are awesome, a true archeology of costume researcher and animator.
You are so methodical at searching for and presenting the recreation of the whole style of the 20ties figure. bravo.
Excellent video. Thank you Nicole
Whew! SO much work! Thank you.
You really rock this look; I believe it was such an elegant but liberating time for Ladies and so classy! Thank you!
I have always loved historical undies. The way it was made and the effects it have to the shape of the body is huge. Thank you
This was such a great video and I loved the sewing techniques and the comparison at the end. So informative and I loved your design of the first set too.
Excellent comparison at the end.
I love your lectures Professor Rudolph!
I needed this so bad!!!! Thank you so much
I'm here no thanks to the TH-cam algorithm.:-# ! But either way super happy to be here ❤
YT algorithm really seems to suck when it comes to linking together costubers for one to find, doesn't it!! 😮💨 I only discovered the fabulous Nicole through her featuring on Abby Cox's channel, and the awesome & hilarious Ariel (Hazariel Costumes) through a link to a recent project of Bernadette Banner's... There really doesn't seem to be any definitive listing of costubers & YT sewers anywhere, it's very much a case of stumbling across mentions in other posts and comments. Particularly for those channels that are smaller, or run by guys!