Dress code. The two little words, usually found at the bottom of an invitation in a font smaller than the significance warrants, that fill some partygoers with joy – sending them down a rabbit hole of fancy dress outfitters and Vinted treasures – and others with resignation, capitulation or blind panic. Guaranteed to make most of us look good, even 100 years after its heyday, is a 1920s theme; submit to a monochrome-metallic dazzle of sequins, chevrons, bobs, brogues and neckties, à la Alex and Spencer in Netflix’s 1923, and dance the night away.
The design language of that era was bold and unapologetically opulent, born from the fast-paced Roaring Twenties, a period of dramatic social, cultural and economic change that straddled two World Wars and the Great Depression, and ushered in the Jazz Age, the automobile and the skyscraper. It also bestowed upon the world a style of architecture and product design that was glamorously geometric, showcasing craftsmanship that maximised the potential of symmetrical patterns and rich materials.
Although the style had started to appear in Paris just before the First World War, with its origins in the bold forms of the Vienna Secession, Bauhaus and Cubism, it was in the 1920s that the movement flourished in the United States and Europe. The name subsequently ascribed to the aesthetic we recognise today emerged from Paris’ 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, or the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. And so the name Art Deco (short for Arts Décoratifs) was born.
‘It should cover a wide field of contemporary industrial and decorative art,’ stated the criteria set down by the exhibition’s organisers. ‘Reproductions or mere copies were excluded and… all exhibits should display genuine originality, fulfil a practical need and express a modern inspiration.’ Sixteen million visitors passed through the exhibition’s doors during its seven-month run.
Released in the same year were Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which would go on to become a classic. The cult novel epitomised the period, depicting the era’s distinctive fashion trends, as well as jazz music, flapper culture, lavish interiors and rebellious youth.
So just why has Art Deco captivated and influenced designers, collectors and consumers for more than a century, across such a wide range of design disciplines? “It is one of the few periods that does not come in and out of fashion,” says Frank Everett, vice chairman for jewellery at Sotheby’s auction house. As a craft, jewellery embraced Art Deco’s geometric shapes as much as any other, early pioneers of the style including the likes of Boucheron and Van Cleef & Arpels.
Art Deco-inspired pieces glitter in the current collections of David Morris, Boodles and Tiffany & Co. At the 2016 Oscars, Charlize Theron made quite the entrance in a deep V-neck red Dior gown and Harry Winston sautoir – a long, Jazz Age-inspired piece featuring twisted ropes of diamonds and pearls. The jewellery felt “timeless and architectural,” said Theron, speaking at the time, “like wearable sculpture – it feels both strong and feminine”.
Wrists around the world still sport Jaeger-LeCoultre Reversos, released in 1931, and Cartier Tanks, launched in 1917. “I don’t wear a Tank to tell the time,” said Andy Warhol. “I wear a Tank watch because it’s the watch to wear.” Worn through the decades by the likes of Clark Gable, Truman Capote and Princess Diana, the Tank’s parallel brancards, blued hands, Roman numerals and sapphire-crowned winding mechanism have hardly changed since.
Fashion designers past and present – from Jean Patou and Jeanne Lanvin to Miuccia Prada, Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani – have similarly mined the 1920s for inspiration. Those lining the front row of the Fendi SS25 show were treated to a carousel of outfits that celebrated the brand’s centenary and, as such, showcased dropped waists, crystal embellishments and flapper-style silhouettes, all the work of creative director Kim Jones.
“1925 has so many milestone moments,” said the Londoner, referencing Fendi’s foundation and the Paris exhibition. “There’s modernism in dress, design, decoration and thought [so we] approached the collection with these things in mind, as an amalgam of epochs, moods and techniques – then and now.”
Also in search of inspiration for his SS25 Haute Couture collection was Schiaparelli’s creative director Daniel Roseberry, who happened upon a Parisian antique shop where he found spools of ribbons in butter yellow, peacock green, mink-grey and saffron brown. The shop’s owner explained that many of the ribbons, made in Lyon in the 1920s, had been shipped around the world until Germany invaded France. Such was their worth, they were hidden away. “I realised I wanted to create something that feels new because it’s old,” says Roseberry. “I’m so tired of everyone equating modernity with simplicity: can’t the new also be worked, be baroque, be extravagant?”
This extravagance was celebrated throughout 2025 at Claridge’s hotel. Guests were invited to sip Flapper cocktails from original Lalique glassware, twirl in Charleston masterclasses, and enjoy a series of talks. “We have dug deep into our archives to find rare pieces that create a window into our position at the heart of the Bright Young Things [movement],” explains Claridge’s archivist, Kate Hudson. “We are showcasing everything from rare front covers of Tatler magazine to dance cards and programmes for glamorous balls… and luggage labels with geometric Claridge’s logos so evocative of the time.”
Those glamorous parties were brought to life on stage in London this year, in a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby, demonstrating that Fitzgerald’s fictional world still has magnetic allure. Writing in The Times, critic Dominic Maxwell praised Marc Bruni’s production: audiences were treated to lavish recreations of the Gatsby mansion, with pillars, staircases, swimming pools, Rolls-Royces and “20ft-high racks of white-collared shirts that glide on and off with seamless panache… It is all a triumph,” for the set and costume designers.
The challenge of interpreting Art Deco on a grand scale, from stage to skyline, has thrilled creatives for a century. In architecture, Art Deco’s boldness has been taken to, quite literally, greater and greater heights, with the defining characteristics of geometric patterns, symmetry, stylised motifs and industrial materials like steel, glass and aluminium. Describing the Chrysler Building, John Malkovich declared it “so crazy and vigorous in its execution, so breathtaking in its vision, so brilliantly eccentric”. In Art Deco Britain: Buildings of the Interwar Years, Elain Harwood sheds light on some of the best-loved and some lesser-known buildings around the UK, including London’s Eltham Palace, Broadcasting House and the Carreras Cigarette Factory.
We may tire of being told that a new penthouse or latest product range blends ‘tradition and elegance with innovation’, but Art Deco really does encapsulate that style, a continually reinterpreted, adaptable language of luxury that still speaks to modern tastes. A response, in 2025, to minimalism burnout, the anti ‘quiet luxury’? Perhaps.
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