1919 and 1920, fashion began loosen up. French designers like PAUL POİTRET encouraged the trend after 1907 by designing women's clothes There had been a movement since the mid-nineteenth century to abolish corsets. By 1900, women were wearing at-home gowns, sometimes called tea gowns, with minimal corseting and a long, slim shape.
As male designers were off defending France, a young female designer came of age. IN 1915, Gabrielle Chanel was in the West of France, out of the combat zones, producing hats and designing loose-fitting chemise dresses with belts at the tip.
World war I was affected men’s and woman’s fashion in fashion terms the ideal new woman was a tomboy, young, slim, athletic, short-haired and short-skirted, almost androgynous in appearance.
Unlike women’s fashion, men’s fashion was centered in London during the 1920s.
Unlike women’s fashion, men’s fashion was centered in London during the 1920s.
Many Parisian 1920s dresses for evening were straight and slender. A slimming effect, no matter the waistline of the wearer, was achieved through the drapery and the fall of each fold, especially with the implementation of a lace overdress.
1920s evening dresses became more daring and flamboyant. The designer gown to the left was featured in Gazette du Bon Ton in 1922 as “Princesse Bara” design, one of the “Afrique” dance dresses inspired by “women of color of Central Africa. Two town or country hats of larger proportions are featured with whispering net wrappings forming a semi-veil appearance. Worn as a restaurant or garden party hats, the brims are narrow at the back and in front.
Men’s fashion also reflected the changes of the time.Provided is a dress chart for 1920s mens fashion, illustrated with hand-colored fashion plates from Gazette du Bon Ton, advising the debonair gentleman on how to dress for a variety of social situations. In men's clothing from the 1920s sack coats had the tendency towards a higher waistline with more defined body lines and with shoulders and lapels wider.
Men came back from World War 1 and wore the same clothes they had been wearing in the “teens”, before the war. Pants were fairly straight-legged and there was a trend of military-inspired jackets. Men also wore their actual army jackets from time to time.