Katz Corner

So you’ve got the swing look, with your threads and shoes, you can walk the walk but can you, talk the talk….?

Hepcats and Hepkittens here’s a few words and sentences to get you “back-to-date” with the swing slang…otherwise known as SLING!

1. Bearcat: A sexy or seductive woman.
2. Beat one’s gums: To talk.
3. Behind the 8-Ball: In trouble, disliked by someone.
4. Bill and coo: Hug and Kiss.
5. Cat: musician in swing band.
6. Comes on like gangbusters: Lays, sings, or dances in a terrific manner.
7. Fine dinner: a good looking girl.
8. Frisking the whiskers: what the cats do when they are warming up for a swing session.
9. Gimme some skin: Shake hands.
10. Hep cat: A cool guy who knows all the answers, understands jive.
11. Hepkitten: Cool girl.
12. Jalopy: An old beaten up car.
13. Jive: Harlemese speech or lingo; or to kid along, to blarney, to give a girl a line.
14. Joint is jumping: The place is lively, the club is leaping with fun.
15. Lay some iron: To tap dance.
16. Mitt pounding: Applause, clapping.
17. Muggin’: Making ‘em laugh, putting on the jive.
18. Off the cob: Corny, out of date.
19. Tied to an apron string: Dominated by the wife or a woman.
20. You don’t know which platters to pick: You don’t know which records to pick.

So Katz and Kittens next time your about on the town, spread the word! – Hello Kitty (aka The Suzeeee)

P.S. – Feel Free To Add More To This List Guys ….

Okay Now Its The Ladies Turn – The Endless List Of Hats, Shoes, Hand Bags, And Dress Styles Of The 20s This Was The First Time Of Women’s Liberation In Style ! And A Time Where One Miss Coco Chanel Rose To Fame …. First Lets Add Some More Historical Knowledge To What We Already Have From The Mens Blog.

Swingin’ Styles & Fashions

Short History:

Historians have characterized the decade as a time of frivolity, abundance and happy-go-lucky attitudes. In 1920, women got the right to vote, and a year earlier, alcohol had become illegal. World War I had just ended. The 1920′s would mark the first youth revolution, long before the 1960′s.

Young people were very indignant after World War I, and felt the older generation had just murdered millions of young boys. So they stopped obeying conventional rules and invented their own liberated culture: driving their own cars, and drinking, and petting with people they weren’t married to. And, for the first time in history, older women started copying younger women. For the first time, everyone wanted the thinness and relative bosomlessness of early adolescence. People felt free-spirited and wanted to have fun. As a result, fashions became less formal. The biggest phenomenom of the 1920′s was the worship of youth.

It was a romantic era for fashion, which is why people look back at this era with great fondness and still emulate its style. The era set the standard for the modern concept of beauty. 1920s fashion was about so much more than fringed flapper dresses and feathered headbands, the cliche that many people associate with the era.

Women’s Dresses

The Decade That Brought Bright Colours & Showed Off Ladies Legs!

1920′s Dresses were lighter and brighter and shorter than ever before. Fashion designers played with fabric colors, textures and patterns to create totally new styles of dress. Hemlines rose for most of the decade but dropped slightly toward the end.(Hemlines hovered at the lower calf at the start of the 1920s and remained there until nearly 1925 when they rose to an unprecedented high — the bottom of the knee. They stayed there until 1929 when they dropped back down to the lower calf). Shoes and stockings assumed a greater prominence now that they were more visible. Silk stockings in all the colors of the rainbow, often with patterns, were designed to match the coordinated outfits of stylish women.

Daywear - There were two important ethnic influences on the fabric and prints of the 1920s. One was a Chinese influence, with kimono-styling, embroidered silks, and the color red. The discovery of King Tut’s tomb brought a rash of Egyptian fashion and and accessories, including snake bracelets that encircled the upper arm. Small floral and geometric prints were prevalent throughout the decade, especially toward the latter half.

Evening clothes were made of luxurious fabrics — mostly silks — in velvets, taffetas and chiffon.Dresses were designed to move while dancing. Some had long trailing sashes, trains or asymmetric hemlines. Typically, women did not wear hats for evening, but instead wore fancy combs, scarves and bandeaux.

Flapper Fashion

Flappers did not truly emerge until 1926.  Flapper fashion embraced all things and styles modern.  A fashionable flapper had short sleek hair, a shorter than average shapeless shift dress, a chest as flat as a board, wore make up and applied it in public, smoked with a long cigarette holder, exposed her limbs and epitomised the spirit of a reckless rebel who danced the nights away in the Jazz Age.

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Swim Wear

Barer bathing wear took on special significance as an expression of women’s newfound freedom. Swimsuits of the 1920s were either short taffeta shifts or tight, sleeveless wool tank suits with built-in undershorts which stopped at mid-thigh. Women protected their bobbed hairdos by wearing bathing caps. Some women, especially in the most fashionable resorts, wore dramatic cover-ups over their suits. People became health-food, exercise and sun-worship oriented in a major fitness fad, triggered by all that flesh out in public view for the first time.

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Hair & Makeup

The 1920s saw a universal fashion for short hair a more radical move beyond the curtain styles of the war era. Women chopped off the poufy hairdos of the 1900s and 1910s for modern ‘bobbed,” waved or shingled styles. Those stragglers who chose not to cut their hair wore it pulled back at the nape of the neck and knotted in a chignon. Popular styles of the time included The Bob, The Dutch Boy, the Shingle, And the Eton Crop in (An Eton crop was considered the most daring).

During the era there was an increased use of make up and it was fashionable to perform the rites of make up in public.  Instead of disappearing to the powder room women got out their engraved compact and applied lipstick and powder in sight of a whole restaurant or nightclub or tearoom.  Ox blood lipstick was used lavishly, but rouge was still used sparingly.

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1920s ladies accessories and hair styles

Accessories

Hats - In the early 1920s, hats had deep crowns and medium-to-large brims, but in 1923, brims began disappearing and hats became helmet-like. These hats, or cloches, were quite popular even though they were the fad for most of the 1920s, finally easing out of fashion around 1930.

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Jewellery - The Art Deco movement was a popular design style of the 1920′s that often used strong colors and geometric shapes to convey the “modern” look. Jewelry materials ranged from the new plastics through to rubies, gold, and platinum.

1920 jewellery

20s jewellery

jewellery of the 20s

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Shoes - Daytime shoes were neat and feminine looking, with oval toes and straight, high heels. Strapped shoes were called Mary Janes, T bar shoes or others with buckles and bows made interesting fashion statements. Sequin or diamante trims were quite usual. Heels were over 2 inches high and waisted until the 1930s when they were lower straighter Cuban shapes.

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ladies shoes in the 20s

1920 ladies shoes

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Others - The Endless List Of Ladies Accessories Hand Bags, Gloves, Umbrellas, Boa’s

ladies acesories in the 1920s

endless supply

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There Have Been A Flood Of Recent Tv Series With Fashions From This Time Period Lookout For Underbelly: Razor & Boardwalk Empire HBO

So there You Have It Gals All The Fashion Knowledge And Photos You Can Handle – j