By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Elsa Schiaparelli made women feel beautiful, daring, and independent—by convincing them to wear insect jewelry, clown prints, and shoes on their heads. Schiaparelli (pronounced “skap-a-reli”) routinely made headlines in the 1920s and '30s, overshadowing rivals like Coco Chanel with her outlandish costumes and endlessly copied staples. Many Schiaparelli designs were so avant-garde that they still have the power to shock, and contemporary designers continue to riff on her work today. "A...

Did Hollywood Give the 1920s a Boob Job? 'Gatsby' Costume Designer Tells All

By Lisa Hix — Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” has the straw boater hats and bowties, the cloches and drop-waist dresses, and the shiny roadsters that you’d expect of the Roaring Twenties. But in terms of women’s fashion, there’s one dominant element you would not expect: Boobs. "People would be startled if filmmakers put real 1922 fashion in 'The Great Gatsby.'" Breasts are everywhere in 2013’s new “Gatsby,” which came out on DVD last month. They’re pushed up to create cleavage, peeping out of...

'The Great Gatsby' Still Gets Flappers Wrong

By Lisa Hix — Have you heard? There’s a new swell in town named Gatsby, and he’s bringing flapper flair back into fashion. Baz Luhrmann’s latest cinematic spectacle—his take on —promises to be a sensational commercial for Prada and Brooks Brothers, who partnered with Luhrmann's wife, costume designer Catherine Martin, on the film’s clothing. Fashion-world heavyweights, like and , are already gushing about the new Roaring Twenties styles. "She flirted because it was fun to flirt. The things she did...

Leading the Charge Against Casual Style, Armed With Antique Clothes and a Bike

By Lisa Hix — Tziporah Salamon is used to being photographed—by everyone from New York City tourists to famous "New York Times" street-fashion photographer Bill Cunningham. She's impossible for shutterbugs to resist, when they catch her riding around the city on her turquoise Bianchi, often a symphony of lush colors, decked head-to-toe in exquisite, embroidered, antique fabrics. Salamon also caught the eye of 30-year-old photographer Ari Seth Cohen, who made waves in the fashion world when he launched his...

The Bee's Knees: The Lingo of Flapper Fashion

By null — Picture, if you will, a Roaring Twenties nightclub, a live jazz band in full swing, everyone dressed to the nines. A young woman stands by the pillar in a sleek little black dress, her hair in Louise Brooks bob, her slender arms piled with bangles. She smokes through a quellazaire, while checking her makeup with a jeweled compact. What's going through her mind? Well she might be dodging a "corn shredder," an "alarm clock," and a "dewdropper," or looking for a little "feathers" or a "blow"...

Dreaming of a Posh Christmas, in Postcards

By null — As a fan of vintage clothing and all things vintage related to Christmas, I naturally seek out vintage Christmas cards that have a fashionable edge. The clothing shown in these vintage card illustrations is often stylized and a bit romanticized, but looking at them, you can still get a good idea of the fashion trends of the day. All of the cards shown here are from the Great Depression of the 1930s. Even though many people were either making their clothing from cheap fabrics like...

Good Girls and Bad Boys: How to Achieve That Cool '50s Rockabilly Look

By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — Jayne Mansfield is buried in my hometown. You could drive past the cemetery and see her heart-shaped headstone from the road. We had our own historical society, a tiny little museum, if you can even call it that. I remember going on a class trip there once. Some of her things were displayed, like long sequined cocktail dresses and some of her little personal effects. That stayed with me into my adult years: “Wow, as cheesy as my little hick town is, Jayne Mansfield is buried...

Dress Hound Cherie Federau Explains How She Makes Vintage Work for Her

By Maribeth Keane and Jessica Lewis — I’ve pretty much always been a little bit fashion-nutty, ever since I was about 16 years old and I discovered Vogue. I started like a lot of other people, buying vintage to recreate the looks that I saw but couldn’t afford as a teenager. Then slowly over the years, as my hobby turned into more of an obsession, I became interested in the designers behind the labels and it just snowballed from there. Everyone I knew was constantly coming to me to dress them and lend them vintage clothes....