Vintage Photos of Pop Culture Icons in Cross-dressing

Cross-dressing, whether for pleasure or for mischief (or for plays or films), is no new phenomenon. Every little child experiments with putting on the opposite gender’s designated garb, all on-stage women in Elizabethan theatre were played by men, and many people of both sexes have dressed in drag for a variety of reasons, from personal to professional.

Virginia Woolf and her friends dressed as Abyssinian dignitaries (she’s the one on the far left), 1910.

Frida Kahlo in drag, with sisters Adriana and Christina and cousins Carmen and Carlos Verasa, photographed by Guillermo Kahlo, 1926.

Marcel Duchamp’s alter ego Rrose Sélavy, photographed by Man Ray, 1921.

Two of Andy Warhol’s famous self-portraits in drag, 1981.

Two shots of F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1916, the leftmost of which was published in The New York Times as a publicity photo for Princeton’s Triangle Club musical, “The Evil Eye!.” The Times called Fitz “the most beautiful” show girl in the whole production.

Another side of Mick Jagger, photographed by Anton Corbijn, 1996 (this one isn’t exactly vintage, but look how great it is).

Keith Moon, 1973.

Keith Richards, in an outtake from the photo shoot for the cover of Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?. Photo by Jerrold Schatzberg, 1966.

Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall. Photographed by Philippe Morillon, 1978.

Queen in their “I Want to Break Free” garb, 1984.

Charlie Chaplin from 1914′s A Busy Day.

(via Flavorwire)