This blog post is for before I forget!  In London we visited the Imperial War Museum – Fatty loves war history and I love history and museums – so it was a perfect fit for both of us.

And it so happened there was an exhibit called “Fashion on the Ration: 1940s street style” which was about how WW2 impacted fashion in the 40s (along with every other aspect of life).  It runs until 31 Aug so I made it just in time woohoo.

The IWM is free but you have to buy tickets for the special exhibitions.  I so kan cheong spider the first thing I did when we got there was go to the information counter and purchase two tickets for 10 pounds each.

When Fatty was done looking around the lobby he said, “ok we better go get the tickets now” but surprise! Your efficient wife has already done that. Hahahahah he was damn surprised cos uhh I’m not very efficient normally.

This excerpt from the IWM website says:

This exhibition explores how men and women found new ways to dress as the rationing of clothes took hold. Displays of original clothes from the era, from military uniforms to functional fashion, reveal what life was really like on the home front in wartime Britain. This is a story not about the end of fashion but about creativity, innovation and coping in adversity, the impact of which can still be seen upon British style today.

Leave it to the experts to put it so eloquently hahahaa.

Here are some photos I took because I found everything so interesting! Sharing is caring after all.

With the war, clothing standards became more relaxed due to the scarcity of resources.  Also women took up many men’s jobs now and in addition to housework etc, they resorted to clothing items like housecoats (a sort of dress to wear over your usual clothes when doing housework) and pants.

Misogynists weren’t happy about women wearing pants -_- as highlighted in the above painting by some sexist man wtf.  It depicts two heavily made up women in slacks smoking on a street corner.  The portrayal of the women with the soldier in the background suggests disapproval of their dress and behavior.

Wah lau all the women no choice step up to take care of the home and country while men are out fighting also kena slut shame like this. *fire blows from nostrils

For the first time ever, women were conscripted to work.  They didn’t necessarily go to war but they did take up jobs that were traditionally held by men – working in arms factories for example.

By 1944 there were 7 million women in war work so this pamphlet is a guide on how to dress practically yet fashionably. Hahaha.

A quote from placard reads: “There is no need for the munitions girl to be drab in her clothing. Bright colours have a cheering effect, but no-one with common sense would wear pale pink or duck egg blue on a dirty job.  Durability and smartness can be easily and cheaply combined.”

Beauty businesses continued to advertise to women too. I love this quote hahaha.

A huge slogan in 1940s Britain was “Make Do and Mend”. The government urged people to make their clothes last as long as possible. Magazines like Vogue and others would publish articles like this: how to redo old clothes into new ones. They’d normally recommend and then show you how to cut a sleeve short if the wrist was fraying, or layering a bib on the front of a blouse to hide spots or tears and it would be a whole new style. This article suggests how to take old evening dresses and other things people normally wouldn’t wear in wartime and redo them into shorter day dresses. The woman lying on the bed even better. They recommended taking your bedspread and remaking it into a coat WTF hahahaha. Very ingenious!

Trends followed the necessities of war.  On the left are white flowers to be pinned on a lapel or your hair.  The Germans were bombing Britain so at night all the lights were turned off to avoid giving them a visible target.  But people would get into car accidents at night cos drivers couldn’t see them wtf. :X So it became the trend to wear white accessories (flowers, hats, etc) which would reflect some light and tell drivers there were people around. On the right is a handbag, designed to store gas masks. :O

Because of the war, people would get married in a rush before one got sent to the front line.  So articles like this were popular – how to get married in a week hahaha.

Speaking of weddings…. wedding dresses obviously were a luxury but women still wanted to get married wearing white.  So they improvised.  This wedding dress was made from a silk which would normally have been used to make petticoats.

I also remember reading that wedding dresses would be passed from a girl to her sister to her friends and worn repeatedly by different brides.

It was also common to get married wearing military uniforms.

This is a bridesmaid dress made from…parachute silk.  Parachute silk wasn’t really silk either, it was either rayon or nylon.

This was cool! Jewelry was also improvised.  The clear bangle shaped like a snake was made of broken German windshield. :O And so were the star earrings.

As expected, hobbies like knitting were really popular.  The green item on the right was a baby’s swimsuit! Hahhaha can’t imagine how heavy it would be when wet.

Even hats could be knitted.  Hehe I took this picture cos I really liked the child’s coat.  Very contemporary leh the style!  

And then there was also a very interesting scheme called the Utility Clothing Scheme.

From Wikipedia: it was a rationing scheme introduced in the United Kingdom by the British government during World War II. In response to the shortage of clothing materials and labour due to the requirements of the war effort, the Board of Trade sponsored the creation of ranges of “utility clothing” meeting tight specifications regarding the amount of material and labour allowed to be used in their construction. Utility clothing, and later utility furniture, was marked with the CC41 mark.^[1]

Although it was a rationing scheme, designs were commissioned by famous British designers of the time, to make them more desirable to people.  

Under Utility, boys below a certain age could only wear shorts, not long pants (to save fabric presumably)

Baby girl dresses under Utility! If I remember rightly only 15 or so designs were allowed for children’s clothing.

Some women’s dresses.  Utility didn’t really look utility actually.  I remember reading also that small print fabric was used so they could use scraps to make a full article of clothing? I presume large print fabric cannot simply cut and reuse and still look presentable.

Girl’s clothes.  The designs quite nice right!  The red striped dress on the left was made more interesting by alternating the stripes in vertical and horizontal alignment.

And that was all the photos I have wtf.  I was completely absorbed in this exhibition!  If you’re in London until the end of August, try to go, I promise it’s worth it!

I love fashion and reading about it but fashion is a reflection of the times.  This exhibition, in showcasing fashion back in the 1940s, essentially reveals how people adapted and coped, and how life really was back then.  And that was really what was interesting to me – not just the trends on the surface but how they came to be with the times and continue to evolve until today.

Okay since this is a fashion related post I post my Audfits ok wtf.

Denim on denim!

Jacket – Forever21
Jeans – Topshop
Shoes – Fashionbloggerrr
Bag – Kenzo
Top – Honey Mi Honey

Jacket – Lip Service Cult
Shirt dress – Fashionbloggerrr
Shoes – Converse
Stockings – can’t remember, Tutuanna probably

OHAI

Top – Nasty Gal

Skirt – Nasty Gal

Skirt and shirt – Evris Earrings – Nasty Gal As you can see I only shop at a few places wtf.

Comfy hoodie – Mount Holyoke! Hahahaha.