Source: http://www.fashion-era.com/1920s/fashion_icons_1920s.htm

Louise Brooks is one the most famous fashion icons of the 20th century and of the 1920s.  You may not know her name, but you will know her face.  Her distinctive black helmet like bob cut hair often worn with bangs or a fringe as we would call the curtain of hair today was her trademark.

The silent camera loved her freckled pale face and the dramatic physical features of her head were well suited to movies made only in black and white.  Likewise Louise Brooks suited silent films best, as one look from her could convey more than a thousand words.   Louise Brooks made only one talkie.

She was a gifted actress and appeared in 24 films between 1925 and 1938 starring with names such as W.C. Fields, Jean Arthur and William Powel.  Her best known role was as Lulu in Pandora’s Box in 1929.  Her parallel stage career enabled her to have a social life with the wealthy.  Louise Brooks mingled with the socially eminent and the artistic and glamorous elite of the day.  She mixed not only with movie stars, but also intellectuals such as F Scott Fitzgerald who brought attention to the sophisticated aspects of a new post war society that emerged in the 1920s.

When her film career waned Louise Brooks had years of poverty and was disregarded as an actress.  In later life through the 1950s to 1970s she became a well known thought provoking essayist, often writing for film magazines as Louise Brooks.

Louise Brooks was the famous flapper of her era.  She was a model as well as an actress and frequently appeared in advertisements.  Louise Brooks had short hair, a short skirt and wore make up.  She bore no resemblance to anything vaguely Edwardian and embodied the spirit of the Jazz Age.  The flapper era worshipped young people and Louise Brooks was the Madonna of her day with her signature image of the perfect flapper look.

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