Life — July 21, 1927 — page 6: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Week-End Bag" - Life Magazine Satire This page satirizes women's weekend social activities and fashion during the 1920s Jazz Age. The top panel shows five sequential illustrations of a woman preparing for a Friday afternoon house party, each featuring a different outfit extracted from her week-end bag. The accompanying text humorously documents her social itinerary: shopping at department stores (Macy's, Oppenheim's, etc.), encountering an "obnoxious" fellow named Hodkins, attending a matinee, and dining out. The bottom illustration depicts George Washington as a bewildered week-end host, captioned with a joke about how many different beds he'd need to accommodate all the changing social obligations modern women juggle. The satire mocks both the frenetic pace of women's social lives and the wardrobe demands of keeping up appearances during the era's leisure culture.