Jazz Influences

The 1920s was a decade of profound social changes. The most obvious signs of change were the rise of a consumer-oriented economy and of mass entertainment, which helped to bring about a "revolution in morals and manners." Sexual mores, gender roles, hair styles, and dress all changed profoundly during the 1920s. Americans regarded these changes as liberation from the country's Victorian past. But for others, morals seemed to be decaying, and the United States seemed to be changing in undesirable ways. The result was a thinly veiled "cultural civil war."

For years, jazz images have been presented in Black and White, because the photographic methods of the early jazz years were black and white, but this also confers those images an archaic taste and feeling. Then, the most colorful era brought to America and later one Europe a more colored style, taste for fashion and music.

This movement involved a blend of elements from "high culture" - the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the paintings of Pablo Picasso, the plays of Eugene O'Neill - and from popular culture, particularly styles of music, dance, and speech modeled on black American prototypes. The idea of the jazz age was promoted by the mass media, especially by Hollywood.

Stunning images are carefully stored up to nowadays. Images representing short hair, short skirts, flappers, bobbed hair styles, baggy dresses, colored suits, antique lace collars, T-strap shoes and, of course, new straw hats continue to impress nowadays a lot of people.

Jazz era constituted a source of inspiration for the fashion followers. There was an explosion of unrestrained creativity and a new optimism. The influences of American Jazz also influenced the way of thinking, costumes and sets designed by the greatest artists. They all showed a freedom and sensuality never before seen, images of short hair, sexy lingerie and strong attitude where showed everywhere.