Yaya and Friends: Athens, Greece, ca. 1927 (photo, Boing Boing Flickr Pool)

"Yaya and Friends," a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (2.0) image from bigfatstupidslob's photostream, contributed to the Boing Boing Flickr pool. About the image, I asked him where it came from, and he explained:

It's my grandmother and some of her friends in what seems to be a dress-up photo studio. Who knew they had them way back when? And in Greece no less! That's Yaya on the top right - her name is Domna.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: genealogy • History • Legacy • Vintage Weird

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sokun

Looks a bit like the last tzars of russia before they were assassinated
voiceinthedistance

What happened to Yaya’s cigarette? Someone give her a smoke.
blueelm

This photograph is so awesome.
Jack

The submitterâ€™s grandma is kind of hot â€¦ Her friends as well!
scooterscooter

I partied with all four at Burning Man. They’re as awesome as they look.
bklynchris

Given that I have just come back from Greece, can say I very much appreciate this photo. Greece is AMAZING. Total vacation trifecta:mind blowing beaches, tasty locavore food (when on the islands), and history/ruins that make your brain spin.

I am amazed that the Greeks gave up the gods who gave us architecture, math, and democracy wholesale for a bearded hippie who offered something unavailable until after death.

Off to the link. Again, thank you BoingBoing/Xeni, and of course, bigfatstupidslob (no wonder the name was unavailable when I registered for it on flicker. Instead I had to go with bigfatstupidlazyslob LOL).
Anonymous

The women in the back are dressed like young men from the streets. The women in the foreground are wearing sparkly head dresses and their attire is totally different from the women behind them. It seems obvious they’re posing as boys and girls which is pretty awesome given the time and place this photo was taken.
Anonymous

Yiayia is, of course, grandmother in Greek. What a cool photo!
Antinous / Moderator

Makes me wonder if David Sedaris’s grandmother started out like this.
querent

I call top left.
Gar the Pitiless

I second the hot yaya, but I’d be hitting on her friend in the lower left corner, myself.
Anonymous

I love this photo, too.

Actually, dressing up in costumes for studio portraits, especially exotic and slightly scandalous costumes, was a very popular thing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Also, women dressing as boys and men was particularly fashionable in the 20′s and 30′s, at a time when women wearing pants was just beginning to become more accepted.)

We have a photo from around the early 1900′s depicting my husband’s grandfather (then in his early twenties) and two of his buddies dressed like bootleggers and/or gamblers, complete with a bottle of whiskey.
Anonymous

Looks like Yaya is the only non-smoker of the group, at least for this particular photo.

(Unless they were just using the cigarettes as props)
Anonymous

My Yia-Yia did stuff like that too with her sisters but not in Greece…btw the clothes look Turkish to me!
Baron Karza

Were they Sisters, in the old-fashioned sense of the word? (i.e. Black Dahlia)
Church

1927? Shouldn’t that be public domain?
Anonymous

The genderf*ckery, the smoking (You’ve come a long way, baby), the faux exoticism, the hotness of all 4 women … this picture screams “insta-classic.” Thanks for sharing….