POOFERS, The Young Women Who Changed the World; 1920
It is hard to understate the importance to not only the history of fashion, but the history of the entire world of the “Poofer” movement of the 1920s. In our world, they were known as flappers, young women who wore very small dresses that would make a loud flapping sound when they danced, thus giving them their name. They were rebels who’s shocking fashion choices steered the world towards the place of short skirts and pants it is today. In this world, they had equally important role, but in a very different direction. While the hoop skirt had remained fashionable since its invention in the 1850s, its size had been relatively stable at around 4 feet in diameter for daily wear dresses. That is until the Poofers came around in the 1920s. Unlike in our world these young women found liberation and freedom in wearing significantly larger gowns than that of their parents. This fashion rebellion was born out of of a desire to take up space both figuratively and literally, by wearing dresses wider than they were tall! And it worked!!!!! It was hard to ignore someone wearing a literal wall of fabric that was pushing into you at a party! You see a girl coming towards you on the street wearing a dress like that you step out of the way! At first, their oversized dresses were viewed as an annoyance! Try walking down the narrow sidewalks of the time and you’d understand!!!! One Poofer could take up the same of space as two or even three women would wearing their own smaller hoop skirts. Though just like always, the fashions of young people tend to catch on sooner or later. Soon the Poofer movement’s designs and silhouettes were being incorporated into fashion around the country at an alarmingly quick rate! By 1925 it was not uncommon to see the skirts of dresses of all styles inflating in size! And not just here, but around the world as well. The classic Victorian hoopskirt silhouette had proliferated around the world by this time. It was extremely rare to see a woman anywhere in the world wearing a skirt without any hoops at all! And in some countries, it was not uncommon to see skirts wider than in the US at the time! Though they were nothing compared to the scale of the dresses the Poofers wore! By 1925 this extreme silhouette had spread far beyond the United States and was immediately popular with young people everywhere! By the beginning of the 1930s you’d be hard-pressed to find find a woman wearing a skirt less than 5 feet wide anywhere!
