Flapper Costumes – A “New Breed” Of Woman

Get your Flapper costumes HERE!

Wear a Flapper costume this Halloween…

… and show the world you’re no run-of-the-mill, ordinary woman either!

Flapper costumes are so cool. In fact the 1920s term “flapper” referred to a “new breed” of younger woman

Dressed in a flapper costume you will be bringing to life those daring young women who went to jazz clubs, smoked cigarettes through those long holders, drank with the men and refused to be put down just because they were females.

Get your Flapper costumes HERE!

Who Were These Flappers

When we think of flappers, bebopping around in their cool looking flapper costumes, we think of them driving cars, riding bicycles and drinking alcohol openly. But we don’t realize that flappers also went to Petting Parties, where making out and/or foreplay were the main attractions. (Some things never change, do they, girls. LOL) Yes, the flapper was definitely a new breed of woman.

How The Flapper Looked

But when we think about flappers, we usually think about how they dressed. The “flapper style”, (or flapper costume) made them look young and boyish, with short hair, flattened breasts, and straight waists so as not to accentuate their curves. Metal lipstick containers and compact mirrors had just been invented so the flapper look required lots of makeup and they wore “kiss proof” lipstick. Blush, “bee stung” lips, dark eyes, especially a very old look dating back to the Bronze Age of “Kohl-rimmed” were also the rage.

Short, boyish haircuts were in vogue. Cuts like the Bob cut, the Eton cut and the Shingle cut. Hats were all the rage and a couple of the popular styles were the Newsboy cap and the Cloche hat. The flapper costume would also need art deco jewelry and lots and lots of beaded necklaces, along with pins, rings and brooches because that’s what they wore back then.

Get your Flapper costumes HERE!

Flapper dresses (and the same thing with flapper costumes) were straight and loose. Remember they had that boyish, non-curvaceous look going on, and the waistline went all the way down to their hips, plus their arms were bare. By 1927 the skirt hems rose to just below the knee, but the way they danced made any loose skirt flap around so much that their knees always showed. In fact they even powdered or put rouge on their knees to show them off. (Women will be women. LOL)

When we think of flappers and flapper costumes we also think of the many great things they brought into vogue. Because their flapper costumes were loose and comfortable they danced such cool. fast, shocking dances in the 1920s (for that time) like the Charleston, the Shimmy, the Bunny Hug (Bunny Hug??? WTF) and the Black Bottom. (I guess if you look cool in a flapper costume you can dance to the Bunny Hug without anybody giving you any flak.)

Flapper Slang

They of course also had their own slang. “Snugglepup” was a man who frequented petting parties and “barney-mugging” was sex. (Those crazy girls!!!) “I have to go see a man about a dog,” meant they were going to buy whiskey and a “handcuff” or “manacle” was an engagement ring. (Sounds kind like a guy talking, doesn’t it?) Defining something as cool could be heard as “That’s so Jake”, or “That’s the bee’s knees”, or isn’t that “the cat’s pajamas.” (Hum, I can’t figure out how they came up with that one. Oh well.)

But just like the flapper costumes, some of the flapper slang has lasted until today and is still in use. Calling someone a “big cheese” means they’re an important person. “To bump off,” means to murder someone. (Where would all those 1950s gangster movies be without that phrase, huh????) And “baloney” meant it was nonsense. (Hey, I use that one.)

This new breed of woman, (who looked so snazzy in  those flapper costumes) also bobbed their hair, listened and danced to the new jazz and blues music of the day, wore excessive makeup, frequented places where illegal liquor could be bought (speakeasies), drank bathtub gin, smoked, treated sex casually, went to petting parties and drove automobiles shocked the world and their parents. In short flappers were a total rebellion from what the previous generations of women had been. In a way, with their lifestyle, little regard for society’s rules and their flapper costumes) they were far ahead of the feminist movement of the 60s. They upset the way society was at that time by wanting to vote, too. (What crazy girls they were. No wonder wearing flapper costumes is so popular at Halloween.)

Get your Flapper costumes HERE!

But don’t think for a minute that just because the flappers costume look was very “boyish” by wrapping their breasts tightly to flatten their chests that there aren’t some great plus size flapper costumes available. Check out this great flapper costume on the left, the Gatsby Girl Plus Adult costume, or look at all the Plus Size Flapper costumes here. Flappers had an attitude and if you go dressed in one of the many flapper costumes available, so can you. If you “got it, flaunt it”. LOL

But just as in other times in history when there’s been a major shift in cultural attitudes (think the 60s and hippies and free love and marijuana), there’s always a reason for it.

Before World War I, the rage for young women was the “Gibson Girl” image. A Gibson girl wore her long hair loosely on top of her head. She wore a long, straight skirt and a high collared shirt (nothing at all like the flapper costume). Although she participated in several sporting activities like golf, roller-skating and bicycling, she didn’t date. Instead she waited until a young man formally paid her interest with intentions of marriage. (Is that the Gibson Girl or the Blah Girl?)

However, the war was to change all this. During World War I the young men, being used as cannon fodder for the older generation’s ideas of how a war should be fought, were dying by the droves. In fact they were dying so quickly that they found themselves adapting the “eat-drink-be-merry-for-tomorrow-we-die” spirit.

When the war ended, the young men who came home and the young women who had aggressively entered the workforce during wartime found it difficult to settle back down to a life as if nothing wrong or bad had happened.

Get your Flapper costume HERE!

On top of that, nearly a whole generation of young men had died in the war. This made it nearly impossible for a young woman to wait at home for suitors to come around, because there just weren’t enough of them. The young women of that day knew they weren’t Gibson girls and decided they couldn’t waste their lives waiting for suitors to come to their door and feared they would end up as spinsters. So they decided they were going to go to speakeasies, dance the wild dances of the 1920s and enjoy life. And the era of the flappers and the Roaring Twenties was about to begin.

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