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How to date a photo from the 1920s: bobbed hair, short skirts and small snapshots

· 5 min read · The Memory Palace Team

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Short answer: A photo from 1920 to 1929 is usually a small black and white snapshot with a white border, or a studio portrait in a card folder. Women wear straight, loose dresses with a low waist, skirts that rise towards the knee by the middle of the decade, bobbed hair and close-fitting hats. Men wear looser suits and fedoras.

Last updated: 2 November 2026. Every year on this page was checked against the museums, archives and photo-history sources listed at the bottom.

After the First World War roll film became really popular, and the 1920s are the first decade in which many families have more snapshots than studio portraits. The clothes changed sharply as well: the long skirt and the long hair of 1910 were gone within a few years, which makes women's fashion one of the best clocks in this decade.

Formats and prints

  • Snapshots. Most are small contact prints, the same size as the negative, with a narrow white border. Folding cameras and box cameras made rectangular prints; the exact size depends on the film the camera used.
  • Albums. Prints were often mounted with photo corners on black or dark grey album pages, with captions written in white ink.
  • Tone and paper. Chlorobromide papers gave a warm brown-black image on a cream base, typical from the 1920s to the 1950s. Sepia-toned studio portraits also remain common.
  • Studio portraits. Usually in a card folder or on a plain mount, with the studio name embossed or printed.

Clothes and hair

Women's dresses became straight and loose, with the waist dropped to the hips. Hemlines rose, reaching just below the knee in the middle and later years of the decade, and dropped again from about 1929. Hair was cut short in a bob, often under a close-fitting cloche hat that covered the forehead. Long hair pinned up points to the early years, or to an older woman.

Men's suits became looser, with wider trousers, and fedoras and flat caps replaced bowlers in many places. Most men were clean-shaven. Children's clothing also changed: the custom of dressing young boys in dresses faded in the early 1920s.

In the background

Cars become a normal sight in town photos, mostly upright, square models with spoked wheels and running boards. The Ford Model T was made until May 1927. Radios, gramophones and electric light in interiors fit the decade, but they also stayed in use for years after, so treat them as an earliest date.

Writing and dates on the print

Printed dates on snapshots are rare in this decade. Look for pencil notes on the back and white-ink captions in the album. When a caption gives a year, check it against the clothes: an album was sometimes labelled years later, from memory.

Quick checklist

  • Small snapshot with a narrow white border, or a studio portrait in a folder?
  • Dress: straight with a low waist? Skirt length near the knee?
  • Hair: a short bob, perhaps under a close-fitting hat?
  • Men in looser suits and fedoras, mostly clean-shaven?
  • Album page: black paper, photo corners, white ink?

Try the free photo date tool

Not sure yet? The free photo date tool asks what you can see (the material, the colour, the edge, the back, a printed year) and turns your answers into a period, with the source behind each year. It needs no account and uploads nothing. For digital photos and scans, read when was this photo taken.

Once you know the year

Write the year in soft pencil on the back, and put it at the start of the file name when you scan it. Then hang it with its date in your palace: in The Memory Palace each photo gets its year, the people in it and the story that goes with it, in a room the family can walk through together. You can start your palace for free.

Date a photo from another decade

Previous decade: The 1910s (1910 to 1919). Next decade: The 1930s (1930 to 1939).

Start from the overview: when was this photo taken, or the seven general clues in how to tell when an old photo was taken. All guides on old photos:

Sources

Questions people ask

How can I tell if a photo is from the 1920s?

Look at the women first. Straight, loose dresses with a dropped waist, skirts towards the knee, bobbed hair and close-fitting hats are typical of the mid and late 1920s. The photo itself is often a small black and white snapshot with a white border, mounted in an album with photo corners.

Were there colour photos in the 1920s?

Hardly in family albums. Professional colour processes existed, and some black and white prints were coloured by hand, but colour film for amateurs only came in 1935 (Kodachrome) and colour prints in 1942. A hand-coloured portrait has soft, painted-looking colours on top of a black and white image.

How do I tell the 1920s from the 1930s in a photo?

Watch the waist and the hem. In the 1920s the waist is low and the skirt short; in the 1930s the waist returns to its natural place and skirts drop to mid-calf. Bobbed hair stays into the 1930s but becomes softer and waved.

When was this photo taken?

Reads the date taken from digital photos and says when only a file date is left. For paper photos and scans, a checklist with sources estimates the period.

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