A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

Originally, this post was going to address 1920s fashion as well, but I think that will wait until later.  There is enough to discuss in just the meaning of the term!  My issue is with the tendency of people to ascribe the term "flapper" mainly to the 1920s (perhaps mentioning that it was used before then, but ignoring how frequently it was used before then) and of the simplistic description often given of the rise of the type; later I'll address the realities of 1910s and 1920s dress as compared to the image of the flapper. In the 1920s, a new woman was born. - About.com "Flappers" in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. - Wikipedia

When I was coming up with topic for my qualifying paper, one of the ones I was most enthusiastic about at first was the idea of writing a guide for authors of historical fiction - obviously they could get the same information from books like Patterns of Fashion , but sources focusing on construction or the progress of fashion history don't spell out exactly what writers need to know.  Obviously , I went in a different direction, but it just occurred to me that, hey, I could very well make the writer's guide a sporadic series here!  (Sure, it's mostly preaching to the choir, but if you mentally retitle these posts as "rants about minor issues that niggle at me" it will all make sense!) The first issue I've got to mention, the one that comes up in nearly every book I read that describes women getting into or out of their clothes, even if they're generally well-researched, is closures on eighteenth century gowns. The dress was a Robe a l'anglaise a l...