fashion history

1910-1920 fashion history 

1910-1920

Between 1910 and 1920, fashion began to loosen up. French designers like Paul Poiret encouraged the trend after 1907 by designing women’s clothes for an non corset  figure. Their clothes were softer in line and followed a woman’s body rather than forcing the body to conform to clothing as previous designers had done. Women were able to throw away there corsets. And feel more comfortable it what they was wearing as the years went on.

Within a few years women could finally throw away their corsets–underwear garments with long laces that were pulled until a woman’s body was held in a tightly defined silhouette, and then tied to keep it that way. Corsets was as uncomfortable as they looked and wasn’t good for women’s health as they controlled how a woman moved and stood. If they were too tightly laced, restrict her breathing, even her eating. Yet, many women found them comfortable and women of all classes wore them to conform to the fashion of the day.

There had been a movement since the mid-nineteenth century to get rid of corsets. Women were wearing at-home gowns, sometimes called tea gowns, with minimal corseting and a long, slim shape. Between 1908 and the end of the 1920s, the tubular silhouette, which was a more slim line dress more comfortable and followed the natural motion of the body, remained fashionable…

During the First World War (1914-1919), changes came to couture. With a lot of men fashion designers being called into the military to fight for their county a lot of their fashion houses where having to close the likes of  Paul Poiret and other fashion designers of that time . Wartime prevented commerce between France and the United States and, although the French silk industry remained in operation in Lyon, its clientele in the couture disappeared into the army along with many of its weavers.

When the first world war occurred this was a huge change in the fashion industry the clothes began to change from a young fashion designer appeared called  Gabrielle Chanel was in the West of France, out of the earlier fashion zones, producing hats and designing loose-fitting chemise dresses with belts at the hip. By 1916, she was making casual pleated skirts from the practical Rodier wool jersey that before the war had been restricted to men’s underwear, and topping them with sailors’ sweaters–in the mode of the sportswear that had begun to appear earlier in Vogue.

The art deco movement came about in the 1920s and lasted until the outbreak of WWII in 1939.It is marked by the women's liberation movement, a prosperous economy, and key improvements in technology, all of which led to the development of a whole new way of life - a life of progressive modernity, luxury and leisure.

And these are the key themes that represent the three classic fashion styles which are the embodiment of Deco fashion.

Women started to fight for their equal rights in 120s too late 1920s  women dressed a lot different to prove they had freedom Women started wearing their hair and skirts short, got their drivers licences (so that they no longer had to rely on a man to take them shopping or visit their friends!) fashion was changing a lot women had more of a say and sense of their own fashion and freedom it what they chose to wear.