The 1920s was the height of Old Hollywood glamour. Think Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and more. These ladies wrote the book on what it meant to wear silk to bed, drip in diamonds on a Monday afternoon, and prove to the boys that you can still be a woman and wear a tailored pair of trousers. They were the fashion lovers and exquisite dressers but were also rule-breakers. And for that, they reached an icon status so high that we still look to them for style inspiration even when we don’t know we’re doing it.
As we celebrate the sporty trends of the ’80s, the new shapes of the ’70s, and the whimsical prints of the ’60s, let’s ride the time machine a little further back toward the beginning of last century and remind the world how the fashion icons of the 1920s truly started it all when it came to modern fashion. Those tweed jackets? Most notably beloved by Coco Chanel. Your embellished dresses? Zelda Fitzgerald was one of the favorites. And we can’t forget about true silk gowns and looks dripping in jewels, which were championed by Joan Crawford.
Though we might be showing a little more skin these days and pushing the boundaries of our own generation’s dressing in ways that were simply unheard of in the ’20s, these women are still the OGs in our book. These are the six fashion icons from the 1920s you need to know.