Wartime Fashion: From Haute Couture to Homemade, 1939-1945
Ebook
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Overview
A comprehensive analysis of Second World War dress practice and appearance, this study places dress at the forefront of a complex series of cultural chain reactions.
As lives were changed by the conditions of war, dress continued to reflect important visual narratives regarding class, gender and taste that would impact significantly on public consciousness of equality, fairness and morale. Using new archival and primary source evidence, Wartime Fashion clarifies how and why clothing was rationed, and repositions style and design during the war in relation to past expectations and ideas about clothes and fabrics. The book explores the impact of war on the dress and appearance of civilian women of all classes in the context of changing social and economic infrastructures created by the national emergency.
The varied research elements combined in this book form a rounded and definitive account of the dress history of British women during the Second World War. This is essential reading for anyone with an active interest in the field, whether personal or professional.
From rationed and repurposed fashion to high-end glamour, this accessible book examines the ways in which dress and appearance changed during the Second World War and reflected new attitudes to class, gender and taste.
Examines a wide range of topics from uniforms to rationed fashion
Covers high end to working class dress
Well illustrated, in-depth and accessible
Introduction
Buying into Fashion: The Social Background
Shopping for Fashion in the Pre-War years
Being Chic and Being British
The Healthy Body and the Politics of Fitness
Evacuation
Fashions for a Phoney War
Calls for Rationed Fashion
Setting the Ration
The Utility Clothing Scheme
Assessing the Impact of Clothes Rationing
Home Front Clothing Initiatives
Clothes for Coupons
Keep Smiling Through: Good Health and Natural Beauty
Utility and Austerity
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
This is not another book about wartime fashion, but a social history of wartime clothing as worn by the civilian population in the UK and the cultural conditions that produced it. As such, it is without equal.
Readers interested in dress history, or in a more gendered or class analysis of the UK’s home front during the Second World War, will find this book well worth their time.
A rigorous, meticulously researched - and fantastically well referenced - text which will make a significant contribution to existing studies on women’s dress during wartime Britain.
BERG TITLES ARE of a more academic bent, so Geraldine Howell’s new book may not be for those seeking an introductory guide to the make-do-andmend era. That said, it would still be a highly readable account for the uninitiated - just be aware that it is deemed a ’comprehensive analysis’, and that it most certainly is!
- Title: Wartime Fashion: From Haute Couture to Homemade, 1939-1945
- Author: Geraldine Howell
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2013
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 256
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780857854292, 9780857850713, 0857850717, 0857854291
- Resource ID: LLS:9780857854292
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T10:06:24Z
Geraldine Howell taught Theoretical Studies for over twenty years on the Fashion Design course at the University of Westminster, UK and recently became a freelance writer on Dress History.