Telephone for Mr. Jay Gatsby! (An attempted 1920s Flapper FOTD)

Ze Boyfriend took me to see The Great Gatsby! I really like going all-out for certain movies (yes, this is weird. I don't care). Since this movie takes place in the summer of 1922, I knew flapper makeup would work wonderfully.

In the Roaring Twenties, flappers were all the rage. It was the new wave of independent women. They bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and treated sex casually. They were showing their disdain for what was considered to be acceptable behavior. These women smoked cigarettes, drove cars, wore short skirts. The trendy thing for them clothing-wise were shorter skirts, corsets were done away with in favor of "step-in" panties, and they wore stockings held up by garters.

Society didn't like them for this garish appearance yet the look gained popularity in the younger women. It became popular for older women too, in a toned down fashion.

We can thank French actress Polaire for the "dark eyes and emphatic mouth." Bee-stung lips were in vogue, as was rouge. Regularly, women stuck to paler complexions but when fashion icon Coco Chanel showed off a tan from a holiday, the tanned look became the rage with women.

In ads from the 1920s, women are depicted with dark kohl eyes, lightly smudged and small, doll-like lips. They would overdraw their lips and use both light and dark lip colors. This is how my look came to be. Two popular colors for the eyes at the time were turquoise and green, alongside the smudged kohl.

FOR THE EYES:

No mascara yet

I used black eyeliner and blended it out, blending matte black eyeshadow on top on the outer corner. I used a little turquoise-teal eyeshadow near the center and blended that with the eyeliner/eyeshadow mix. The result was a dark, slightly sultry look seen in old films. As I was blending on the outer corner, I would go back and clean it up a bit with makeup remover on a cotton bud, merely to keep it in a rounded shape.
- Personally, I used Urban Decay 24/7 eyeliner in Zero (basic black), a matte black by tokidoki, and Unhinged (turquoise-teal blue) by Urban Decay. I also used Black Market and Desperation (by Urban Decay) to blend the turquoise into the black and soften the look. You can use your favorite black pencil, any black shadow you have (feel free to use a sparkly black, if that's your thing!) and just about any color. The 1920s were very colorful in the US!

FOR THE LIPS:

You can see around the edges of my bottom lip that the line was slightly distorted.

For my lips, I took a brown-red lip liner and lined my Cupid's Bow without overdrawing. I blended it down and concealed the slight area of my upper lip I left unlined. For my bottom lip, I drew the shape without overdrawing and keeping it centered as well as small. I concealed the unlined area again. I blotted my lips on a tissue before I applied a berry lipstick over the lip liner. I really do think the only acceptable time to wear dark lips and dark eyes is in a flapper style. Of course, other colors included were orange, raspberry, and brick red. In fact, in The Great Gatsby, golf star and friend to Jay Gatsby, Jordan Baker, sported light orange lips with a specific shape created with lip color and concealer. (You can see her real lip line in close ups during the film.)
- The lip pencil I used was a Rouge Pulp by L'Oreal. There isn't an exact color listed, instead it just says "The Sultry Plums." This pencil was actually discontinued but I'm sure I'll find a pencil to match it. I also had to blot my lips twice, first to remove the lip balm I had on to hydrate my lips while I did other things, the second time to remove some of the lip liner after blending since it goes on a bit heavy but it's very smooth! I put Covergirl Lip Perfection lipstick in #360 Euphoria on top.

A very popular look for the brows was long, thin and, well... A bit flat! There was no arch, just a gentle curve over the eye that. In the film, the two main female characters, Jordan Baker and Daisy Buchanan, had eye brows that extended down to the outer corner of their eyes. Quite it an interesting look but one they could certainly pull off!

How do you like the flapper makeup? I'll do actual tutorials on the eyes and lips, particularly the lips because I was using a diagram showing how the flappers' drew their lips as a starting point:

From Return2Style.

Since I didn't have a flapper-appropriate dress, I wore my H&R London swing dress which is much for 1950's than 1920's. We have an independent, "alternative" clothing/accessories store that carries many British brands (H&R London, Hell Bunny, Poizen Industries, etc.) as well as American brands.

SPOOKEHDOOM