WAR-CLASS-DIOR

Rationing-Expectations-Realizations

SECOND INDUSTRIAL WAR IN 21 Years No rationing in 1914-18

except 4.5 yards limit on material for dresses. (Start of dresses going to ankle length)

By 1916 Women’s armed forces in being as conscription introduced for men.

Traditional view of women’s role was a ‘holding one’. Huge fear of panic if bombing becomes the norm.

After 1920 they had The Vote

In 1940 and the years that followed the people of Britain were protagonists in their own history in a fashion never known before. (Angus Calder)

FATALITIES WWI WW2 Forces 744,000 264,000 Civ. 1500 62,000

First thing people asked for after being dug out was their false teeth

Note trousers being worn in the Ops. Room

But Interwar and Wartime Britain a Class Ridden Society

Perfection in bias cut Vionnet.

The last pre-war gasp of the era of debutantes and knowing your place.

ANGUS CALDER Pre-war it was a very class ridden society, was there ever a mood of national solidarity? 1945-1951 saw huge voting polarization. Was ‘myth of the blitz and pulling together a middle class thing?

However the Reality for Most Married Working Class Women (Stepney 1937)

Old before her time Ill educated Ill informed Poor health (Teeth,

Rickets, TB, No Natal Care)

Husband in casual work

Living in slum housing in one of the world’s richest countries.

KNOW YOUR PLACE IN THIS RICH COUNTRY

JUST A PERSONAL POINT

Thinking Behind Utility and Rationing Much More Democratic

Country with a full franchise

Economic Necessity to control inflation

In 1930s huge ‘import’ economy.

Had experience of WW1 Civilian Morale Why should people at the

bottom make sacrifices for a country that had abandoned them

Rationing: Draconian Sumptuary Laws

Bacon and ham - 100g/4oz Butter - 50g/2oz Cheese - 50g/2oz Marg - 100g/4oz Cooking fat - 100g/4oz (often

dropping to 2oz) Milk - 3pts/1800ml (but not

always) Sugar - 8oz/225g Preserves - 1lb/450g every two

months Tea -2oz/50g Eggs - one shell egg a week if

available Dried eggs - one pack per month Sweets -12oz/350g a month Plus monthly points scheme for

fish, meat, fruit or peas

It wasn't just food that was rationed during World War II. Clothing also became scarce.The war made it almost impossible to import cloth and other raw materials from abroad needed to make those fancy dresses and pretty pink frills . The clothing manufacturers in Britain had more important items to make for the war effort, such as uniforms, parachutes and other items needed in the battle against Germany.

The Start of a Shabby Country Each person was allowed a

maximum of 66 coupons per year, which was equivalent to 1 complete outfit per year.

Items that could be bought without coupons were such things as clothes for babies under 4 months old. Boiler suits, overalls and workmen's bib and brace.Hats and caps, mending wool, sewing thread, mending silk. Shoe and boot laces, tapes, braids, ribbons and other fabrics less than 3 inches in width.Elastic, lace, lace net, sanitary towels, braces, suspenders, garters, hard haberdashery, black out dyed cloth and clogs.

Indeed clogs became very fashionable because they weren't on ration.

UTILITY 1941“Il faut SKIMP pour etre chic” (Vogue 1939)

Women now on the front line Morale Warmth Durability No obvious class Lines Fashionable and Stylish The Utility clothing line was produced

under strict regulations, the new looks were presented to the British public as not sacrificing style but as redefining style.   Focusing on the cut and line of each garment, the designers of the Utility collection were praised in British Vogue in October 1942 for the clean elegance of a style stripped of all superfluities'".   Utility defined the wartime silhouette as narrow and sharply defined.   An attention to tailoring provided for pronounced shoulders and waists that were sharply nipped in.  

Second World War: the Masses find Fashion and Glamour in the Middle of World War.

THE UTILITY SUIT Designed by Haute Couture

designers Modelled on Middle class ladies

suit Cheap and well cut ‘Uniformed’ Fashion for the masses The body was highlighted with

short, boxy jackets or long lean ones and hips were accentuated with slanting pockets and straight skirts with gently flared panels near the knee for movement.   Hemlines were eighteen inches off the ground or just below the knee, furthering Utility's "smart yet practical" look   The look the anti-fascist nation endorsed and prescribed was curiously similar to the linear and decadence

BEAUTY IS YOUR DUTY

A MIDDLE CLASS FASHION ‘I always have

designed utility’ (Hardy Amies)

Control of Use Order No 90 - 1943 prohibited the use of elastic in all garments except ladies underwear and corsets.

Government Report ‘suspicion that women are starting to enjoy the war and their new wardrobe’

Veronica-Turbans-Promise of Nylons-Utility Glamour

Glamour and Morale Cosmetics, Lipsticks,

Nylons never rationed. Used the ‘black market to mop up inflationary spending power.

Hats not rationed, became a huge fashion item

Utility fashion now mass produced with long production runs.

For most working class women utility or uniform was the best clothing they ever owned.

BUT CAN YOU TRUST THEM WITH ALL THIS FREEDOM? Fears of women

getting ‘drunk on sex’ because of men in uniform.

But did anybody care when you could be dead tomorrow?

WAR WAS A JOB Best way to keep up

morale was to try to keep as ‘normal’ as possible.

Psychiatric Hospitals emptied

Most popular questions for people dug out of bombed buildings were.

A) Where are my false teeth

B) My nylons are ruined Huge Propaganda aimed

at women

Glamour Goes to War Lipstick never on

ration. Tangee Lipstick

Lipstick will not win the war but it symbolizes one of the reasons why we are fighting this war.

For most young women life was wonderful.

But Real Life Could be Hell London bus conductor Wearing male uniform

tied in to fit Cold and hard work But at last a move to

trousers among working class women

IT WAS COLD WITH NO HEATING AND WORKING NIGHTS

BUT WITH THIS NEW FREEDOM AND INCOME Young women the

‘enemy’ at home. Government did

not like people to enjoy the war: what could they do when it ended.

Huge problems with USA forces segregation

Propaganda Face of War-Time Women Workers Was it accurate? Were there hordes

of women entering factories?

Or was it just a continuing evolution?

So, did it have any effect on change?

GOOD OLD ADOLF

I THOUGHT EVERYBODY HAD A BOMB SITE TO PLAY ON

SAVE THE CHILDREN-WELL THE MIDDLE CLASS ONES MAYBE!

‘was there any necessity for the spoilation of decent homes and furniture, the corruption of speech and declining moral standards of our own children. (Crosby)

“We should have concentration camps and segregated areas for evacuees from bombing” (Letter Windsor Express. Oct. 1940)

CALL TO ARMS

AS Usual the Propaganda Does not Fit Reality But, for many Working

class girls a uniform was the first set of new clothes they had ever had.

Army girls no uniform for a month to put on weight

Many turned down for the Navy and Air Force because of lack of underwear

Maureen and the raincoat!!

At First Even Women’s Forces were Class Orientated. WRNS WRAF WRAC

Commissioned Nurses

F.A.N.Y.

But, They Loved it.

Her poverty and lack of education was Shown up by War After Female conscription into the

armed forces after 1940 (500,000) the authorities were horrified by the poverty and hygiene standards of many recruits.

Hygiene Classes (Teeth) Underwear Feminine Hygiene Reading ‘Birds and Bees’ Good Grooming Classes

But, Reality for Women with Families Shopping for

China to replace bomb damaged.

Increasingly shabby

Increasingly ill fed and ground down.

What do you offer these people out of the war?

But the Blitz Photographs well. Fashion Photo shoot

for Vogue in front of bombing ruins.

More a Morale boost than an actual sales pitch

Advert for Clarke’s Shoes. “ It would be dreadful if every woman went to war”

Practical clothing takes off in some areas but not so in others

SO! Apart from health care what did the war give

to women. 1) Opportunity to show courage 2) Opportunity to take responsibility 3) A view of another way to live life with good

grooming and mass fashion. 4) Excitement, being valued by society and a

break from hard grind. Ordinary women taken to extraordinary

heights by being allowed to rise to the occasion.

Those Girls and Their Flying Machines Not allowed to fly

armed aircraft or aircraft in action.

Ferry Command.

Female ferry pilots actually had the record for types of planes flown.

“The poor are poor because they smoke too much, drink too much and fornicate too much”

That may be true but the working class were never going to go back to a pre-war condition of no healthcare and high maternal mortality.

Churchill at the cinema

Hanna ReitschThe Greatest Pilot of all? Committed Nazi Great supporter

of Hitler Flew the V1 Bomb Personal Pilot to

head of Luftwaffe Last plane in and

out of Berlin

Vera Atkins Ruthless Spymaster. Ran F Section of SOE The brains and

power of the unit. Sent people to their

deaths Refused to give up

on final destinations of her people.

Left a legacy for others

AND CHANGE OF VIEWS (NATIONALIZING FEMMININITY)

“Looking at 1948, I might have desperately wanted and got a dress like I saw on the pictures or like Princess Margaret’s new one. But, this did not mean that I did not view the Royal family as a bunch of parasites or that we, the working class, deserved attractive clothes and glamorous dresses a million times more than them.

PARIS Pre War and Post War No milk and 40,000

francs for a dress. Broke country

needing to sell abroad and raise France from the ashes.

Fashion saved from being moved to Germany

JUSTICE PREVAILED??(That is if the Allies did not want you)

Note the ‘innocent gentleman on the right (Speer)

Why Jodel? Why William

Joyce?

One Small Step for Man and D.O.R.A.

SPOT THE NAZI

Schiaparelli

Chanel

London (1948) Austerity, Rationing and Bomb Sites Bread Rationing All rationing until 1953/4 No Nylon for stockings. (Pledge of

Nylon stockings in election broadcasts)

A drab, poor exhausted nation

without even the excitement of war.

THE GREATEST FASHION SHOT EVER?

1939 Lisa Fonssagrives

Fashion by Lucien Lelong

Paris 1947 (OUTRAGE AND SUMPTUARY LAW

WAR-CLASS-DIOR

Rationing-Expectations-Realizations