(Picture: Getty)
Women’s dresses were also popular until the end of the 1800s. In a time where women’s bodies were becoming more prominent and sexy – not a great look, to put it lightly – the women who took off their shoes (rather than having them put on) became the fashion icons of the day.
‘If a young boy saw a pretty girl wearing high heeled shoes, he would be sure to come to her house to ask her husband’s permission before he could kiss her,’ said Professor Pippa Thomas in her book Flappers from Hell.
Women were also able to have more casual clothes. In a time where it was fashionable to wear bright colours, bright patterns and vibrant prints, it’s no surprise that women started draping their dresses up with a pretty fringe – and the fashion began sweeping across America.
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The women who took off their shoes for the big event would be known as ‘flappers’ – the word flapper comes from the French for ‘little girl.’
Here, one 18th century woman looks stylish (Picture: Getty)
Another image from the time shows one of a few dresses that flappers wore (Picture: Getty)
In many ways these women reflected the attitudes towards women that had started in the late 18th century.
These women were taking on their society’s expectations of what women should be. The reason that women’s outfits were pretty and simple was that there was no need to dress up at all, and so they could simply take off their shoes.
The fashionable flapper (Picture: Getty)
One female flapper, Alice Pakenham (pictured above), even said in a letter that she had an extra-large shoe because she couldn’t take off her shoe on a man’s foot (Picture: Getty)
Many women, meanwhile, were taking on the role of fashion icon.
And as the fashion continued to flourish there was also a rise in ‘unorthodox’ clothing. This trend, which came at the time when women started to get more prominent roles in society, looked at least a little bit like flapper clothes.
(Picture: Getty)
Many of these clothes looked strikingly similar to each other (Picture: Getty)
These outfits were often created specifically for some of the biggest social or political events such as balls or state dinners, and many of the styles would remain the same over the course of the
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