# What would a busty dame wear in the "Roaring 20s"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 5, 2005, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135 "2005-01-05T03:08:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FaerieBeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FaerieBeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FaerieBeth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/1 "2005-01-05T03:08:24Z")
We’ve been invited to a party! Yay! We aren’t as antisocial as I had imagined! The party is an anniversary/renewal of wedding vows event with a 1920s Murder Mystery theme. We’re supposed to dress in costume and play a part, but I don’t know what to wear! If you google 1920s costume, you end up with all these cutesy Flapper outfits that are darling! Fringe…beads…seaquins with spaghetti straps and a drop waist. I can’t pull that off. It seems the classic Flapper figure is something of a waifish silhouette. Waifish would be the absolute last word anyone would use to describe me. So, what’s going to be flattering and in costume for the 20s for a short, curvy me? Help? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/2 "2005-01-05T03:14:46Z")
Check out an early Marx Brothers movie, and dress like Margaret DuMont. I believe a tiara would be a nice touch. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/3 "2005-01-05T03:54:34Z")
Margaret DuMont’s classy, but also frumpy. If you want to “razzle-dazzle 'em,” don’t be afraid of your curves. Think Queen Latifah as Mama in Chicago. [Hot Mama](http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Spring_2004/ling001/latifah-chicago.jpg) If you’re not so daring, [anytime costumes](http://www.partylounge.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=0035A17203&Category_Code=ACX) has a cute little plus-size number. Or [this one](http://www.partylounge.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=008001048&Category_Code=ACX) ---
**Author:** ![FaerieBeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FaerieBeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FaerieBeth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/4 "2005-01-05T05:27:34Z")
Hmmm, descisions…descisions. I liked the black fringe number, but size 16-22? Way too big. My dress size is a 12 (sometimes a 14 depending on the way the bust is cut), and I saw a couple on that site that might work, but I hate shopping online for clothing/costumes because I’m so hard to fit. I was born to wear a corset…gimme Elizabethan, Renaissance, Victorian, Civil War Era…I could even manage Edwardian or heck, even old west saloon costume, but something with as little foundation as a unwaisted slip-dress is scary for me :eek: Oh well, I have a month and a half to shop or sew. I am keeping the tiara idea, though 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Primaflora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Primaflora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Primaflora)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/5 "2005-01-05T05:34:23Z")
I think busty dames used to bind their breasts if they were small and curvy. Sounds muchly uncomfortable ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/6 "2005-01-05T08:02:58Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Margaret DuMont’s classy, but also frumpy. If you want to “razzle-dazzle 'em,” don’t be afraid of your curves. Think Queen Latifah as Mama in Chicago. > > [Hot Mama](http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Spring_2004/ling001/latifah-chicago.jpg) Heck yeah. She looks good. Go with that! ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/7 "2005-01-05T14:12:35Z")
Busty dames were outta luck in the '20s. Almost no one looked good in “flapper clothes.” You had to be tall and thin and have a perfect heart-shaped face (anyone else looked like Mr. Ed in those cloche hats). Yep, elastic corsets and bust-binders were in, and that’s the decade that the “starve yourself to look like a pre-teen boy” crap got started, that still plagues us to this day. A pox on the 1920s! ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/8 "2005-01-05T15:35:52Z")
Simplicity has a pattern for the [Queen Latifah dress](http://www.houseofanoria.com/Costume_Supplies/Simplicity%20Patterns/5400-Flapper.jpg) that _looks_ good on the envelope. I can’t testify for the quality of it, as I haven’t had the guts to open up the envelope and lay the pieces out in the store, as I’ve seen some people do. (It strikes me as gauche somehow.) I’d like to make it some day, though, if I ever have a reason to. Have to slog through the Civil War ballgown first. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/9 "2005-01-05T16:38:27Z")
> [@FaerieBeth](#): > > It seems the classic Flapper figure is something of a waifish silhouette. So? The classic fashion model figure now is famine victim/heroin addict. Nuts to that. All I can add to the comments about Queen Latifah in Chicago is “hubba-hubba \ A-ooogah! \.” ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/10 "2005-01-05T18:28:11Z")
> [@Miss Purl McKnittington](#): > > Simplicity has a pattern for the [Queen Latifah dress](http://www.houseofanoria.com/Costume_Supplies/Simplicity%20Patterns/5400-Flapper.jpg) that _looks_ good on the envelope. I can’t testify for the quality of it, as I haven’t had the guts to open up the envelope and lay the pieces out in the store, as I’ve seen some people do. (It strikes me as gauche somehow.) > > I’d like to make it some day, though, if I ever have a reason to. Have to slog through the Civil War ballgown first. I’ll second that gauche and raise you a how-in-the-heck do they get it all back in that envelope? Look like a good pattern, and a little less scandalous than the dress in the movie. I’ve been pretty happy with Simplicity’s new “period” costumes. Remember what they used to try and shove off on us as “renaissance maiden”? Ugh. I betcha you could make the whole Mama outfit in less time than a single farthingale! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![FaerieBeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FaerieBeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FaerieBeth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-busty-dame-wear-in-the-roaring-20s/283135/11 "2005-01-05T22:59:10Z")
Oh! I like that pattern! I’ve got to get myself one of those feather fans! I suppose this is a good time to get out that new sewing machine my aunt gave me for Christmas and get busy. Thanks, Ladies! 🙂