Jazz Music's Influence on Fashion

These stunning flapper dresses were created by Deborah Wingfield and Pheobe Maynard of South Essex College.

Fashion and jazz' was another area which the NLHF invited us to consider and (as with our 'Voices from the Past' project) we enjoyed working with South Essex College and their students. This involved some dress design (we concentrated on that most iconic image the 'flapper-dress' worn by dancers of the 'Charleston' in the 1920s) but also consideration of the way jazz fashion, over the years, has challenged the everyday accepted societal concepts as to 'how you should look'. So we took an iconic image from every jazz decade to illustrate (and celebrate) how this happened. And by using images ranging from Billie Holiday's gardenia and Louis Armstrong's fashionable 1930s plus-fours to Dizzy Gillespie's zoot-suit, beret and dark glasses and Miles Davis' rock-star outfits and cool shades we were able to create a visual exhibition which took us through a hundred years of jazz fashions.

Click the button below to learn more about our ‘Jazz at The 100 Club’ project on our website.