This month we commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) – 8 May 1945, when the Allied powers in the Second World War formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany’s armed forces. Joyful celebrations broke out throughout Britain, North America and much of the western world as nearly six years of military conflict ended in Europe. With many servicemen and women still overseas, civilians keeping the home fires burning welcomed the restoration of peace and a return to normality. But what was ‘normal’?

Rationed fashion
As the victory euphoria of May 1945 evaporated, everyday life in Britain continued under a cloud of austerity and economic restraint, the prevailing spirit of compromise and sacrifice expressed powerfully in dress. Escalating shortages of material resources during the war and the need to ensure fair allocation of essential consumer goods had prompted the government to introduce a system of clothes rationing in June 1941. Under the scheme most civilians received the same number of coupons that could be exchanged for clothes in shops, along with money. Each type of garment purchase required a specified number of coupons: for example, a woman’s jacket or short coat required 11 coupons; a girl’s gym tunic used six coupons; a boy’s raincoat or overcoat took 11 coupons. The initial modest annual clothing coupon allocation of 66 per person was slashed in spring 1942 to 60 coupons for 15 months. Some, including expectant mothers, received slightly more coupons, but by 1945 those (mainly women) controlling the household clothing budget were hard pushed to buy more than a few essential dress items. Far from being lifted in May 1945, due to continuing shortages strict clothes rationing persisted for almost another four years, until March 1949.

The beauty of Utility
Besides limiting the number of new garments that the populace could buy, from February 1942 the government decreed that a proportion of factory-made civilian garments had to be produced under the Utility clothing scheme, that is, according to strict manufacturing specifications. Effectively such garments used high-performance, affordable textiles that had passed stringent tests in terms of economies of production, fabric shrinkage, colour-fastness and so on, their retail prices set by the Board of Trade.

At around the same time, ‘austerity’ restrictions were also introduced: trimmings on women’s clothing such as embroidery and other ornamental stitching were prohibited and the use of certain scarce materials banned. To economise on precious cloth and haberdashery, garment patterns were skilfully cut, kept as small as possible, and the number of buttons, use of pleats, width of belts, seams, collars, sleeves and skirts all limited. Austerity guidelines also applied to civilian men’s wear: the size of pockets and lapels were restricted and less material was to be used in tailored trousers, turn-ups eliminated.

At its height, 85% of British-made textiles were produced under the Utility scheme, while all clothing under the CC41 label had to be necessary and economical: there were no resources for short-lived novelties or extreme fashions. Austerity styling of clothes made for a relatively plain, rather standardised look during and after the war, but specified dye colours were deliberately bright, and Britain’s top fashion designers were employed to create simple yet chic designs. Utility clothes were very much in vogue in May 1945 and, although production declined, they continued to be made for almost seven more years, until March 1952. Some reluctant wearers inevitably found functional wartime and post-war austerity fashions drab and uninteresting but they could always be enhanced by a glamorous hairstyle and hat (headwear was not rationed). Over all, the emphasis on durability and affordability had a positive effect, advancing general perceptions of quality in dress and good value for money.

One of the lads
One prominent feature of wartime and post-war dress was the trend for women to adopt masculine bifurcated garments: all-in-one ‘siren-suits’ and boiler suits, jodhpurs or breeches, bib-and-brace overalls (dungarees) and tailored trousers or ‘slacks’. Before the war such garments were not widely accepted for women, although slacks might be worn for sports such as sailing and for gardening. During the war many female occupational uniforms included trousers, from ARP wardens to bus drivers and post women. Land Army girls were issued with breeches as part of their outdoor dress and munitions factory workers wore uniform-like boiler suits as protection from their hazardous environment.

Many active young women, less bound by traditional dress etiquette than their elders, found that comfortable slacks were simply more practical than dresses and skirts for busy wartime lives. The young generation also continued to wear trousers after the war, and increasingly relaxed, interchangeable separates came into vogue – soft jerseys, casual blouses and various trouser styles. In the absence of the usual fashion direction from France after the fall of Paris (June 1940), not only was British couture talent harnessed to the war effort, but also a new wave of American fashion designers emerged on the international scene, their youthful, carefree clothes appealing to young wearers and heralding new post-war directions in dress.

Demob suits
After the war, military servicemen had to dress as best they could, many having had relatively little use for regular dress for several years. Upon official discharge from the armed forces, each was sent to a demobilisation centre for processing, his military uniform and kit exchanged for a ready-made ‘demob’ suit designed to equip him with a basic outfit for civilian life. Choice was limited to a double-breasted pinstriped three-piece suit, or a less formal single-breasted jacket and flannel trousers, with two shirts, a felt hat or flat cap, tie, leather shoes and raincoat. Produced for the War Department, all of these items were sized and labelled much like military dress; mass produced and cut along Utility lines, often shapeless and ill fitting, men’s demob suits were seen as yet another kind of uniform and were generally unpopular.

To the beach
The post-war period was a strange, often contradictory time. The ending of hostilities paved the way for a gradual resumption of pre-war activities, one of the most popular the reopening of British beaches by 1946, when holidaymakers flocked once more to the seaside. July 1946 marked the official unveiling of the daring midriff-baring bikini, insensitively named after the American atom bomb test on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. Some women found the skimpy costume too risqué for comfort, but equally alluring were the glamorous corseted swimsuits of the later 1940s, designed with shaped stomach panels, flattering boning and bra cups. For the beach and general holiday wear, short strapless or halter-neck printed cotton sundresses and ‘playsuits’ with all-in-one shorts were also becoming fashionable.

Male swimwear now usually comprised short-legged waist-high trunks, some styles featuring a webbing belt around the waist, producing a tailored effect. Crisp shorts, short-sleeved shirts and beach robes were fashioned in bright materials, again reflecting a growing taste for colourful, casual American styles. Men and women both enjoyed wearing soft canvas beach shoes and open summer sandals after the ‘sensible’, hard-wearing leather wartime shoes that were made to last. Women’s footwear experienced a major revival after 1945, fashionable styles including sling-back, peep-toed court shoes and wedge-heeled or ankle-strapped platform sandals.

The ‘New Look’
The most notable development in post-war dress occurred with the so-called ‘New Look’, launched in February 1947 by Parisian designer Christian Dior. Characterised by a cinched waist, softly rounded shoulders, a prominent bust and full, long skirt using many yards of fabric, the New Look was not strictly new, for the ‘corolle line’ (as it was first termed) was heavily influenced by the 1915 ‘war crinoline’ and the earlier mid-19th century crinoline. The silhouette had first appeared in 1938/1939, on the eve of war, chiefly in the form of evening gowns, and had continued to evolve in Nazi-occupied France in the hands of French couturiers. Therefore in 1947 Dior developed an existing theme, expertly transforming an ostentatious evening style into a daring new daywear that surpassed anything seen in Britain since before the war. The sensational feminine glamour of the lavish new costumes evoked a powerful sense of romantic nostalgia that contrasted starkly with the bleak austerity of the decade. Janey Ironside, later head of fashion at the Royal College of Art, described the New Look as ‘a new chance in life, a new love affair’. The style certainly reinforced the fact that, despite continuing material hardships, the war was over. However, it initially met with a mixed reception in Britain: the government feared that such indulgent creations would herald economic disaster, while Picture Post magazine observed: ‘Paris forgets this is 1947. The styles are launched upon a world which has not the money to buy, the leisure to enjoy, nor in some designs even the strength to support these masses of elaborate material… there can be no question about the entire unsuitability of these new fashions, for our present life and times.’

Some women also objected to the excessive frivolity on economic and patriotic grounds, while others rejected the ultra-feminine silhouette that required firm corsetry and artificially padded busts and hips as not only impractical for a modern lifestyle, but also overtly anti-feminist – symbolic of the ornamental, indolent upper-class woman. However, British designers like Hardy Amies, who understood Dior’s thinking, favoured the elegant longer skirts, arguing that fashions emphasising women’s best attributes – ‘curved shoulders, high busts, small waists, full hips and a good carriage’ – would instil better relations between men and women in the challenging period of acclimatisation following the war.

In the autumn of 1947 Dior showcased his collection in London and demonstrated it privately to the royal family, Princess Margaret becoming a firm supporter of the new style. Princess Elizabeth also wore the New Look on an official visit to France, where her elegance was reportedly admired by Dior himself. New Look collections emanating from Paris became progressively extravagant and theatrical, with horsehair and canvas padded skirts and voluminous hemlines brushing the ankles. Not surprisingly, the style appeared, to many, to be an essentially elite mode; however, the haute couture look was reinterpreted as affordable, attractive fashion and modified versions were being adopted in Britain by late 1947. Magazines endorsed the new line, suggesting ways of adapting existing garments, for example by adding inserts of material or tiers of extra fabric to dress hems or lengthening fitted coats with bands of fur trimming. Meanwhile ready-to-wear manufacturers disregarded government decrees, material shortages and rationing and created New Look copies, some garments accurate imitations of Paris models, others fashioned as hybrids, retaining the familiar wartime square shoulders but featuring a nipped-in waist and longer, fuller skirt. By 1949 most shops were selling versions of the New Look and women could even copy it from scratch at home, using cut out and ready-to-sew dress patterns from popular dressmaking magazines like Weldon’s Ladies Journal. Ultimately the New Look style appealed to many women and it went on to dominate fashion during the 1950s.