These Shorpy pics have finally made made sense of a song lyric for me. In "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?" I never understood the line "Turned up nose, turned down hose." I guess it means she was up-to-date and fashionable. My grandmother was a flapper who scandalized her Victorian father when she had her waist-length hair cut into a bob. I never thought to ask if she rolled her stockings.

There have been several different pictures here that show young women with their stockings rolled and it made me wonder so I asked my 90 year old mother in law about it. She and her 93 year old friend both said yes, sure we both did, you put a rubber band around the stocking near the top and then rolled them down to where you wanted.

"I'm gonna rouge my knees and roll my stockings down ... and all that jazz."
- From "Chicago," the musical (and, yes, the movie)

My mother's family had a housekeeper in 1922 who remained a friend of the family all her life. I remember "Auntie Gail" turning down her hose in just the same way in the 1960's! I think it was a more expedient and comfortable alternative to a garter belt.

Only fast girls bob their hair!

I read somewhere (The Great Gatsby or some Hemingway novel?) that rolled hose were quite the daring fashion statement for a time.

It was the kind of thing the mom of a teenage girl would freak out about at the time. Kind of like umm... hmm, no, it seems like moms of teenage girls have an "anything goes" policy these days.

...okay, so we know from the later photo taken of winners & judges that the lovely young lady with the long braid was a winner, as well as the heavier, frizzier gal with the beautiful smile. (It's hard to believe that the sultry one in back with the bold paisley-type suit didn't get a movie contract!) Oh, and as for the tomboy in the back...those shoes have GOT to go--at first glance, it looked like she had cloven hooves!

These poor girls must have been freezing. They're sitting on their winter coats, and all of the judges, male and female, are all snug and warm.

Is this the swimsuit competition? Those outfits don't look like dresses to me.

Boo-poop-ba-do

The poor "applicant" standing in the back on the left looks spooked by the camera. And check out the patterned hose of the girl in the front! Why were the hose rolled down like that? It couldn't have been very comfortable. This picture also reminds me that as a child I heard my grandmother say she was going to put on hose. I remember thinking that her leg would never fit in a garden hose!

The girl with long hair looks so much like my mother at that age, it has me spooked. I can't stop staring at her.