During world war two england the ministry of information issued everyone with a book called, 'make do and mend'. This was because the country had come onto rations and they were low on materials for clothing and wanted people to reuse what they already had to make new garments. This was offensive to the poorer women of the war as they were already doing this as they couldn't afford to go out and buy new clothes when needed so had no choose but to 'reuse and make do'.
In this time around 1939-1942 they had many styles for dresses such as these above, these consisted of buttons, collars, waistbands/belts, short sleeved and one colour fabric with a patterned fabric. All the dresses at the time went just below the knee and they would have worn plain black shoes with them.
Hats and purses were also a big accessory during the war. sometimes bows were added if they had enough fabric to do so.
The main fabrics that they used were floral , green, brown, blue and sometimes red.
Another shortage they had was on stockings so what the women had to do was use gravy browning to colour there legs and then use something to draw the black seam up there legs such as, coal or if they were lucky to have one an eyeliner pencil. However, if they lived in a place where they had American soldiers coming in they were given stockings as, there wasn't a shortage in America.
The reason why I have been researching the second world war is because, I have been assigned a project to make a dress for a tea dance during the second world war. I have been rationed to use only £3 for this garment as, it has to be a, 'make do and mend' dress, just like they did in the second world war. So, what I did was I went out to a charity shop and bought floral sheet for £1.50 to make my dress with along with some green fabric I already had at home.
This image is of my final garment in full colour, with no editing straight from the photo shoot.
This photograph above is my final garment image that i edited in photoshop. I made the background white; then i cloned the dress next to it and turned it black and white. To finish the image of i wrote make do and mend in green.
........Use what you've got! You don't always have to buy new......
