Icons of an era: defining the 1920s
• The Great Gatsby
Published on April 10, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald started writing the novel earlier in the decade, soon after the cessation of the First World War. In contrast to the preceding years of deprivation, the characters of millionaire Jay Gatsby and flapper Daisy Buchanan occupy a world of smoke and martinis, jazz and satin, Champagne and chandeliers—a world of possibility—and live on as our go-to symbols of the decade.
• Josephine Baker (right)
The American-born French cabaret performer was perhaps the brightest and most recognisable star of the Art Deco years. Known for dancing wearing little more than bananas at Paris’s Folies-Bergère and for appearing with her diamond-bedecked pet cheetah, Chiquita, at Casino de Paris, Baker went on to
