Gatsby Fascination

My fascination and love affair with the Gatsby era, or rather with 'flapper girls' goes back to the days when I was at design school, and to one of the sessions about the Roaring Twenties in our culture-study class. It was a second honeymoon altogether when I did a Gatsby themed shoot for ATELIER juxtaposed against the twenties car collection of the very admirable Diljeet Titus. The age of prohibition and prosperity side-by-side right after the end of World War 1 is the period where I would love to be reborn in if given a choice (this is given more conviction as I am listening to Sweet Georgia Brown while writing this). Jazz, Robert Frost, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the 19th Amendment and women's rights, Olive Thomas... Is there any such decade that has been this explosive with such good things?

And then it is the rebellion against conventions of society in the avatar of flap girls, influenced probably by their predecessor or how I like to say, their grandmothers, the Gibsons that enthralls me to no end. These girls, in the prime of their youth with a fierce idea of freedom who probably tried to defy every unspoken rule around them layed the foundation for a lot of modern privileges in the Western world. Their origin is quite well documented in books throughout history but the most commonly agreed upon explanation tells us that once men were back from the war, women who were working in place of them suddenly found themselves out of jobs. Bored, agitated and grieved, they descended into a lifestyle in which they sort of found themselves partying away to glory. The social structure being already topsy-turvied in America at the time, the flappers faced little indignation and resistance, besides just radically shocking others with their outright boldness. Frederick Lewis Allen puts it beautifully: "They found themselves expected to settle down into the humdrum routine of American life as if nothing had happened, to accept the moral dicta of elders who seemed to them still to be living in a Pollyanna land of rosy ideals which the war had killed for them. They couldn't do it, and they very disrespectfully said so."

These girls drank and smoked, they wore makeup for the first time (makeup was considered the vanity of harlots), the preferred not to marry and flaunted their sexuality, spoke slang, and drove cars. "Young, expensive and about 19" as they were defined, they also embraced some pretty groundbreaking fashion. While Mademoiselle Chanel was busy dragging girls into embracing astute classicism in France during that time, the flapper disposed off her corsets or even bras, put on dancing shoes, and wore skirts that promised a view of her legs once she passed. The influence no doubt came from the boyish style doing rounds in France (courtesy madame and more) and they even started taping their chests in an attempt to look flat-chested with a body of a 15-year-old boy. The tube dress (not our modern give-a-sneak-of-your-tits tube), cloche hats, long strings of pearls, and permed or waved bob hairstyles essentially became the identity of flapper fashion.

Alas, like a hangover after a party, the flappers dissappeared quick, especially post the American stock market crash, leaving behind their mark that excites and evokes fancy even to this day.

Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan in the film, who Luhrmann wished to define as rich and beautiful (Prada customer)

Now Baz Luhrmann's scheduled May 2013 release The Great Gatsby roped in my very favourite Miuccia Prada alongside Catherine Martin (Luhrmann's wife) for the costumes. A movie that transgresses Fitzgerald with Fergie, the costumes no doubt are too many tads away from reality. As told through WWD, the two women agreed upon the need to evoke the Twenties, specifically, without getting mired in what Martin calls “historical pedantry.” Martin maintains that rigid adherence to historical minutia can impede the modern audience’s appreciation of a story. That said, Martin was quick to defend whatever license was taken. “The reality is that from 1920, I could find a photo or a fashion illustration that would support almost any choice that we’ve made in the film. But we are not making a documentary. We are trying to express a story in a way in which Fitzgerald’s visceral modernity is able to transgress the plane of the screen.”

That being said and done selected costumes from the film are now being exhibited at the Prada store, Broadway, New York presently as I write this. The exhibit brings together besides the fashion, production stills, backstage footage and trailers from the film. The exhibition will next be showcased at the Prada Tokyo Epicenter store from June 14 to 30; then will move to IFC Mall in Shanghai in mid-July.