Art Deco is essentially a style of decoration which was applied to buildings as well as home decor, jewelry, and clothing. Vivid color and stark, geometric shapes influenced architecture, furniture, and fashion worldwide. Clean shapes and elegant lines are emphasized. From luxurious objects made from exotic materials to mass produced, streamlined items available to a growing middle class, the world of Art Deco represents a "graciousness of form" from a simpler time.
At the beginning of the 20th century the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 ended the Victorian era and technology caused the pace of life to speed up. Technology, including electricity, airplanes, and telephones were introduced around the world. After World War I ended in 1919, life had changed drastically. The world looked to Paris for leadership in fashion and design, and France's largest city delivered. Art Deco was born in 1925. The name was derived from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, held in Paris, which celebrated living in the modern world. Today, "Art Deco" is used to refer to a mix of styles from the 1920s and 1930s. The Art Deco style infused the everyday world with an elegant style of cool sophistication. Travel was in the news with ocean liners racing the Atlantic and trains crossing continents, as speed became a metaphor for modern times.The Art Deco era ended with the start of World War II in 1941.

The Art Deco era was one of contradictions.The role of women changed during World War I. With their husbands away at war, women had to take care of matters outside their homes and they were reluctant to give up their freedom when men returned. When that war ended in 1918 corsets and petticoats were no more. Many women received the right to vote and most women now wore short hair, short dresses and makeup in public for the first time. Many women also began smoking and driving cars. After the terrible carnage of war, a 'live for the moment' culture pervaded and heralded the '"Jazz Age", the Golden Twenties or the Roaring Twenties.

The young set themselves free especially, the young women. They shocked the older generation with their new hair style (a short bob) and the clothes that they wore were often much shorter than had been seen and tended to expose their legs and knees. Women: saucy, outspoken bombshells with short skirts, shorter hair and plenty of "It."  "It" was nothing more than sex appeal -- something women were not supposed to exhibit. In the 1920s, any girl who possessed "It" was called a Flapper. The person who the Flappers most looked up to was Clara Bow - the vamp in the film "It". The Flappers also went out without a man to look after them, went to all-night parties, drove motor cars, smoked in public and held men’s hands without wearing gloves. Mothers formed the Anti-Flirt League to protest against the acts of their daughters. But after the horror of the First World War, the younger generation mistrusted the older generation and ‘did their own thing’ which flew in the face of the establishment.
Ellen Welles Page, a young woman writing in Outlook magazine in 1922, tried to explain why this was:
"Most of us, under the present system of modern education, are further advanced and more thoroughly developed mentally, physically, and vocationally than were our parents at our age. … We have learned to take for granted conveniences, and many luxuries, which not so many years ago were as yet undreamed of. [But] the war tore away our spiritual foundations and challenged our faith. We are struggling to regain our equilibrium. … The emotions are frequently in a state of upheaval, struggling with one another for supremacy."
Gradually, the Flapper look entered mainstream America. Single and married women in the cities and the country came to enjoy the comfort and ease of the new styles.
Linked to the growth of an alternate generation, was the growth in jazz. This lead to new dances being created which further angered the older generation. The Charleston, One Step and Black Bottom were only for the young and the last one angered the establishment by name alone.
Along with jazz went the ‘crazies’ when people would do crazy things for fun such as sitting on top of a flag pole for as long as possible; marathon dances that went on until everybody had dropped and wing flying when you stood strapped onto the wing of a flying plane until it landed. Women began to drive the car, fly the plane, jump with parashute.This was also the era of great sports champions. Women played baseball, golf, tennis.
The 1920’s made Hollywood. 100 million people a week went to the movies. In the 1910’s the stars of movies were never named (especially true for women) but by the 1920’s stars were world famous. For many films, the star was more important than the film itself and they could earn a fortune. The leading women were Clara Bow and Mary Pickford.
The emancipation of women and the general liberalism that prevailed in the 1920s were central to the development of the Art Deco style in all aspects of art and fashion design, music and poetry.