Flapper

Flapper was an American slang term for a sub-culture of young women that emerged following the First World War,^[1] and especially during the 1920s. It was used to describe fashionable young women intent on enjoying themselves and flouting conventional standards of behaviour,^[2] including a sexual freedom that shocked the Victorian morality of their parents.^[1]

The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, characterised the flappers as “flat-chested lovelies in rolled-down hose, living it up at house parties and in the backseats of roadsters”.^[3]

The flappers disappeared in the economic meltdown following the Wall Street crash of 1929, just as quickly as they had emerged.^[3]