1940’s in fashion for women in WW2. Trends, utility dresses, seamed stockings, peplum’s, shoulder pads, and the post war New Look.
Women in World War 2 left us an iconic and beguiling style which is forever celebrated in movies, books and magazines. Rationing encouraged women to “make do and mend”. With all resources going to the war effort, Fabric shortage meant longer skirts and less revealing evening dresses. Austerity was reflected by a more austere fashion in the early 1940’s. Makeup and hairstyles however never looked better.
Browse the 1940’s fashion trends as worn by women in that troubled decade. Find inspiration for your next 1940’s style dress, victory rolls hairstyle.
Now you know the highlights, dive in to our archive of 1940’s fashion history. Find out how women in WW2 lived, worked, served in the forces and of course dressed.
Pathe 1940s fashion newsreel from 1943 – In wartime Britain, women had to make do and mend, with severe rationing from coupons and utility clothing a must, the new ethos was to be innovative with your current wardrobe. This Pathe film suggests – a tad optimistically that a girl could get by for a whole …
Mary Baldwin College for Girls 1940s Yearbooks – Published every year of the 20th century, the yearbook of Mary Baldwin College, now a fully fledged university since August 2016, is a great resource for the clothing and hairstyles of young women in the United States. Every year is published on Archive.org and are a real …
Ever wondered why a size 12 is called a size 12? – Kass McGann of Reconstructing History.com Explains – Dress sizing is certainly confusing! I mean, a man’s jacket size 42 fits a man with a chest measurement of 42″. Jeans sized 36/32 fit a waist of 36″ and an inseam of 32″. But what …
More Women are buying more clothes for more money – In the country’s custom fashion salons and high-priced stores, with the post war fears of fabric shortages, business in fashion is booming .. and women are in a frenzy of buying, at least those who can afford it. Shown here are this falls latest silhouettes …
Pathe News report on the new Liberty Cut hairstyles – Utility is the key note in the new 1940s Liberty hairstyles. Here’s an example. In days like these, with so many women in war work, there is no time for coiffure. Long hair in such circumstances is a nuisance rather than a blessing. The new style …
Pathe News report on the new US hairstyles – From America comes a new 1940’s hairstyle that’s almost as smooth as a plate across the top of your head. For the girl with an oval face, this is the newest idea with soft curls drooping to the shoulders. A variation, is a centre parting and …
Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris from Pittsburgh USA, is now acknowledged as one of the great photographers of his generation. His documentation of the daily lives of African American women and men in a collection of some 80,000 photographs, is quite simply unique. The Photographs of Charles Harris African American Women of the 1940’s We’ve picked out …
Visionary designer forerunner to Dior – In 1938, a young American female fashion designer named Elizabeth Hawes, an author, a journalist, a political activist and union organiser with the foresight of Chanel and Dior and a razor sharp wit that made her the Dorothy Parker of fashion, published a book called Fashion is Spinach, a long forgotten …
When tobacco tied in with 1940s fashion allure – Whilst the War Production Board had begun pushing sensible restrictions in women’s clothing through its L-38 Apparel order, silhouettes had tended toward the slim side in tobacco advertising since the mid 1930s, particularly in Marlboro cigarettes, a brand, though chiefly remembered for its cowboy image of the …
Vintage advice for bespectacled girls 1943 – We generally flee like mad from statistics, but the other day we ran smack into some figures on girls who wear glasses, that sent us dashing out to find out more about them. Do you know that you and some 25,000,000 of your sisters in the United States wear …