Striking a pose?

I've been looking at quite a lot of old photos of everyday women lately, and something struck me. If you look at ladies from the first half of the 1920s, they tend to stand very ungracefully; feet wide apart and angled out. Comfortably, rather than in a way calculated to make their legs look good. Ten years later, they're all posing in quite a different and much more sophisticated way. At first I thought it was just an aesthetic preference, but then I thought, maybe it's a remnant from the longer skirts that most of those women had grown up with? Or is it just a matter of being more used to cameras?

Did anyone else notice this or am I imagining things?

Flicka said:

I've been looking at quite a lot of old photos of everyday women lately, and something struck me. If you look at ladies from the first half of the 1920s, they tend to stand very ungracefully; feet wide apart and angled out. Comfortably, rather than in a way calculated to make their legs look good. Ten years later, they're all posing in quite a different and much more sophisticated way. At first I thought it was just an aesthetic preference, but then I thought, maybe it's a remnant from the longer skirts that most of those women had grown up with? Or is it just a matter of being more used to cameras?

Did anyone else notice this or am I imagining things?

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i could definitely see what you are saying haha i think how they photographed had allot to do with how unused they were to having their picture taken haha or like you said they were used to the long skirts and dresses they wore growing up

I think the long skirts of the pre-twenties era are a big part of it -- when you aren't used to the idea of showing your legs, you don't pay much attention to them. But another thing is the fact that snapshot photography really came into its own in the twenties -- more people were using cameras than ever before, and people got more comfortable with the the idea of clowning it up for the camera instead of just standing stiffly as Aunt Gertie fiddled with her Brownie.

Yes, you're probably right. Likely a little of both.

I love 20s pictures precisely because of that. Women look so comfortable in their own bodies somehow, as opposed to more recent photos where they increasingly try to appeal to the camera gaze.

This is not something I had noticed before but, thinking of my old family photos, you do make a good point! The younger women (my great aunts, all now deceased) who would have been in their late teens/early twenties in 1925-26 when the group shots I'm thinking of were taken have always looked a little ungainly yet comfortable in the way they are standing in their drop-waist dresses yet my great-grandmother, who would always have worn long skirts (but was by now beginning to show her ankles, daring minx!) stands with her feet very close together, as if very conscious of showing more leg than before. I'll have to dig out some more old pictures and compare, because you've got me intrigued now!