What were postwar fashions like? As you can see from the picture below, in the short term very little changed for the average woman. Perhaps they were allowed an embellishment or two (like the peplum worn by the figure on the left) but rationing was still in force in most countries, and economy was still the order of the day.
In 1945 "make do and mend" was still very much in fashion. Magazines were full of ideas for renovating, restyling and repurposing old garments. This issue of Stitchcraft contained instructions on how to convert old clothes into a new hat.
The coloured picture shows this really elegant hat turned up at the side. [Below], the girl has decided to wear the brim down all round. Be sure to wear the hat dead straight on your head.
Materials: The original model was made from an old pair of silk stockinette knickers, dyed turquoise. However, if you're at all like us you will not want to part with such a useful garment, and so prefer to copy it in material from an old flowered evening frock, gingham, cretonne or velvet. It doesn't really matter what you choose so long as you follow the diagrams carefully.
You will need a piece of spartra or buckram, 21 by 18 inches, for stiffening, a yard of ribbon for trimming, and binding for inside headband.
Making: Cut out spartra as diagrams A, C, and D. Cut out the V in the back of brim as shown, and join up cut ends with light but firm overstitching.
In same way join short ends of crown piece. Start by making the crown first. Cover the top C with a piece of material, tacking raw edges on to under side firmly, then stitching lightly on same side, so that the stitches do not show through.
Now cut a piece of material for crown 23 by 7 inches. Arrange this over crown as in diagram B, gathering the top edge as indicated. The dotted line represents the line of the spartra crown under the fabric. Now turn up this superfluous material, so that it acts as a lining to the crown, gather it, to match the first lot of gathers, and stitch together with previous gathers.
Stitch top neatly over the hole, pinching the crown to make a hard line for centre-front as shown in photograph.
For the brim, cut a piece of material 36 by 7¼ inches. Fold over the brim, and sew along the edges of material with a fine running stitch, not sewing any of the buckram or spartra. This line of stitching is on the inner edge of your circle. Gather up so that the folds are evenly arranged. Join the ends of the fabric neatly at back of brim.
Place crown over the brim, so that all raw edges are inside; stitch firmly. Trim off raw edges of brim materialso that only about ¼ to ½ an inch remains. Finish off this untidy edge with a piece of ribbon or bias binding.
Neaten the inside of the top with a piece of material cut in the same way as for top. Sew on hat elastic and trim with ribbon.
Spartra was an open weave straw material, used to create the foundations of hats. Alas, it is no longer produced. Buckram, a stiff, supporting material, is still available if anyone wants to try making this hat.
If women in some countries were repurposing old zips to make jewellry, and old curtains to make aprons, women in other countries had enough resources to pursue the occasional fashion whimsy. I'm referring here to "pedal pushers", which first appeared on the cover of Life in 1944 as a youthful fad.
"PEDAL PUSHERS"
This fall college girls will wear a new kind of knee-length shorts
For years male bicyclists have had the sensible custom of rolling up the right trouser leg to avoid tangling with the chain. When college girls took to riding bicycles in slacks, they first rolled up one trouser leg, then rolled up both. This whimsy has now produced a trim variety of long shorts, called "pedal pushers". Introduced at recent college fashion shows, they look like little boys' short pants.
Best footwear with pedal pushers are moccasins. Since these are rationed, girls this summer have been going barefoot (see cover) and they are expected to appear on campuses this fall in bare feet. But bare feet are not allowed in class. In some places pedal pushers themselves will not be allowed in classrooms.
Most Eastern colleges will permit girls to were pedal pushers on the campus. Some of them (Smith, Vassar, Mount Holyoke, Sarah Lawrence) will also permit them to go to classes. California colleges will have none of them either in class or on campus. The University of Kansas begs the question by saying that these knee-length shorts are permissible "if they look enough like a skirt to fool a nearsighted professor."
In some ways these garments seem the epitome of wartime praticality and economy: practical because they made riding a bicycle easier, and economic because they didn't use much material. It's clear that some conservatives in the older generation didn't approve of them, but that probably made them all the more appealing to the girls who wore them!
Pedal pushers would go on to be a post-war staple in American casual wear. Once they moved from campuses to the suburbs they'd change slightly in design, becoming a little bit longer and a lot slimmer. I wonder how many of the young students mentioned in the article above continued wearing pedal pushers as adults?
Every country caught up in the Second World War was affected by civilian shortages, but some countries were more affected than others. These magazines, published in Great Britain, are full of tips and projects for making the most of a limited clothing ration.
Knitting, as always, was a popular pastime. Since it was important to use as little yarn as possible, designers started creating patterns for tight, waist-length jumpers in stitches that saved wool. Multi-coloured patterns (as in the hat and gloves below) became popular as a way of using up odds and ends. If all else failed, knitters could always unravel an old garment, and use the wool to knit something new!
Now on to the magazines.
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| January 1943 |
The cover shows a ribbed jumper with a camels in cross stich on the yoke. Other contents include patterns for detachable collars made of wool (only half an ounce of wool for each!) , a pattern for an apron to make out of old blackout curtain, and a pattern for "sockettes" to be worn to save one's precious stockings.
Japan entered the war in 1942, and for the first time Australia had the enemy on their doorstep. However, Australian manufacturers were still capable of turning out stylish outfits like the coat and muff (with matching hat) illustrated on the cover of the catalogue below.
COAT AND MUFF, 5 GNS.A three piece ensemble (the hat sells separately) with furrier-made tawny luxurious leopard-dyed coney fur, mounted on a brilliant Loyal Blue English all wool coating. Seven panel, slim as a whistle princess with new lines in every inch from moulded, semi-extended, immaculate shoulders to flared full hem. British rayon lined throughout. Matched skins and material in the zip closing muff purse.
McDowells was one of Sydney's smaller department stores, and like so many others, began as a drapery in the 19th century. It was founded as John McDowell and Partners in 1889, and became McDowell and Coogan in 1893 when one of the original partners dropped out. In 1895 it became McDowell and Hughes, when Hughes bought out Coogan, finally becoming McDowells Ltd in 1917.
McDowells prided itself of old-fashioned service and providing value for money. Staff often spent their whole careers there, and discipline was considered to be firm, but fair. (That didn't stop one enterprising manager stealing 70 dozen pairs of stockings from his employer in the early 1920s!) Notably, McDowells refused to reduce the pay of its employees during the Great Depression.
McDowells did a lot of business via mail-order catalogue, which brings me to this publication from 1941.
War or no war, Vogue Patterns was still capable of producing glamorous and sophisticated patterns. Illustrated on the cover of the June 1940 Vogue Pattern Book is pattern S-4189 for a skirt, a blouse and a jacket.
S-4189——RIDING HABIT JACKETS will make your town suit look crisply English and pay homage to the flared-hip silhouette above a slim skirt.
Suits and separates would remain staples during the war years, though as time went on the cut of this jacket would be seen as wasteful.
This is the British edition of Vogue Pattern Book. It would have gone to press around the time of Dunkirk, and subsequent issues during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. Though the patterns would have been the same as the ones in the American edition, the war crept in via the editorial content. This issue warns readers of possible fabric shortages as British manufactures are exported to pay for the war effort. The October issue warns readers of a possible purchase tax on paper patterns (a tax had been imposed on clothes that month) while the December issue exhorts them to be economical.
Eventually, due to paper shortages, the British edition of Vogue Pattern Book would cease publication as a separate magazine, and would not resume until some years after the war.
