And at last we reach the final year of the war. The editors of the
Australian Home Journal start anticipating the frivolities of peacetime...
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| January 1945 |
Holiday Season
This holiday season the beaches and the mountains will be extremely active, regardless of restrictions on travel and hotel and guest-house "bookings". People feel that the major part of the war is nearing its end and they can express their joy in colourful dressing at holiday resorts. Aided by the gay range of dress materials they are certainly adding brightness to the atmosphere. You cannot go wrong in colourful dressing; the drab, quiet folks who think otherwise are in a definite minority.
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| February 1945 |
Cutting-down
Here are ideas for turning grown-up's discarded garments into children's clothes, once you are certain they are past converting for their owners—
Bathing wraps can be made into children's dressing gowns.
Grey flannel trousers will make children's knickers and skirts.
Mackintoshes will cut down to a child's waterproof coat or cape with pixie hood to match.
Plus-fours would make two pairs of shorts for a schoolboy.
Pyjama legs will make children's vests.
An old skirt will make one pair of knickers and a little play-skirt for a seven-year old.
Vest and combination tops will make bodices on which a little girl's skirt or a small boy's knickers will button.
Washing-silk dresses make up into gay pyjamas for children.
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| March 1945 |
Paris Fashions.
The so-called Paris fashion news in some daily papers is censored by members of French textile circles. Without news from their own houses they dismiss 75 per. cent. of current newspaper stories as inaccurate vagaries from sources unaccustomed to handle factual fashion news. They are particularly critical of fantastic coiffure and millinery sketches appearing daily, which they stigmatize as "poor taste" at this stage of the war, and say they do not have the Paris hallmark.
... The reports that military notes inspiring first fashions from Paris, like hats copied from British and American helmets are also strongly discounted. Opinion is that when real couturiers and important milliners present their first collections, there will be a swing away from war reminiscent fashions and concentration on pretty feminine clothes, because the whole world will be weary of uniforms.
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| May 1945 |
Suits Dominate.
Suits predominate and find expression for every occasion, from the tweedy sports type to one called "Holiday," made entirely in sequins plaided in vivid blue, pink , purple and fuschia. Shoulders are still extremely wide, and jackets, for the most part, regulation length, with sleeves easy and approaching a modified dolman in a few of the dressier models.
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| August 1945 |
Knee-length Coats.
The new knee-length coats are high fashion and new. Most of them are straight and simple; others have a defined small belt line to accentuate sharply the dashing depth and flare of the long peplum that, in turn, contrasts the straight and narrow skirt.
Hat Changes
Hat fashions bring in great changes. Long forecast, big hats are now here, sponsored by all the biggest names in millinery designs in this country.
Each and every one of you is going to get a lot more hat for your money when you go out to buy that new bonnet.
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| September 1945 |
Dress Display
At a recent dress display exhibition we noted the following—
More floor-length evening gowns than in years.
Woollen fabrics more vivid in colour and more daringly unusual in contrast and combination.
More individual detail...
No Shrinking
In America there is quite a boom in garments made of specially treated woollen fabrics which guarantee non-shrinkage. So far, this process has be reserved for use by the armed forces. There it has had a good test and has come out with flying colours; but now the War Production Board has allotted limited quantities for regular commercial production.
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| October 1945 |
Summer Fabrics.
Prints are given lavish display in a number of shops. Screen prints of small flowers, polka dots, and stripes on crepes and rayon jerseys figure in the current showings.
The present shortage of plain coloured crepes has many women turning to the printed crepes, as "they want a new dress and are willing to make it from any material available."
Prints are also featured in spun rayons, and rayon shantungs.
Women are buying these rayons for house dresses in place of the cottons on which there is a definite shortage.
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| November 1945 |
The Alarmists.
We are being persistently told there is a cotton shortage coming. One hardly knows whether this is propaganda or fact. The end of the war and the return of service folks to their usual employment will certainly make an extra call on peacetime habilments; but on the other hand there will be much increased manufacture of light woollens, cottons, tweeds and the like...
... However it is obvious by the end of the year that even a nation as untouched by the war as Australia would need some time to return to normal. (As a matter of fact, clothes rationing lasted until 1948 in this country!)
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