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When looking at black and white photographs of women considered glamorous in the 1920s and early 20th century, I often find it difficult to relate to their look. Their make-up is strange and melodramatic, their hairstyles usually unflattering and even macabre; almost like there was a preference for a rather un-natural beauty. But then I came across the Alfred Cheney Johnston portraits of the Ziegfeld Follies girls and discovered a refreshing female “prettiness” that I found this era had always lacked in its historical imagery. They are women that could have rivalled the modern-day rat pack of Victoria Secret supermodels; a carefully curated troupe of natural beauties dressed to enhance their Botticelli-esque figures, with sex appeal, free-flowing hair; soft and seriously attractive faces that can truly be believed as having broken many a man’s heart…
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