Wednesday, January 6, 2016

So What Would You Wear?

What were you supposed to wear as the middle class lady in the war winter of 1940?

Here are some suggestions from France for the month January:












Don't forget to buy a new hat during a seasonal sale:







According to the description, the one above is especially practical:)









For those less fortunate there are D-I-Y ideas in the form of sewing patterns:









Except for the outlandish hats, I'd say the suggested daily wear for ladies was rather simple, and yet distinctly feminine. What do you think?


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5 comments:

  1. Housewife from FinlandJanuary 7, 2016 at 5:35 AM

    Very nice indeed. Well, the hats were bit weird to modern taste, but at least people wore then.

    Have you noticed how sleeves have been attached to the body of the blouse or jacket? Sleeves used to be much looser around your armpit. Nowadays it is very hard to find a shirt or jacket were sleeves are not too thight in the armpit. I wonder if the sleeves were done that way because there were no good deodorants available -and people did not wash their clothes that much.

    But I like those clothes. They are slightly militant, and yet very feminine. The first one is my favourite, including the hat. Though I would have removed the "bling-bling" from pockets and shoulders. But the cut is perfect.

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  2. SanneJanuary 7, 2016 at 5:43 AM

    Hats actually make a lot of sense in the Northern climate,it's a pity folks stopped wearing them. Funny your remark about the sleeves, one of the reasons I prefer stretchy shirts to proper blouses is exactly the way the sleeves are attached. They restrict your freedom of movement. I don't know if in those times it had to do with the lack of deodorants (there were plenty of advertisements for them, though)or the clothes were simply more practical.

    They are a bit militant, that's for sure, but then, the war was going on. You know they mentioned Finland as well? The same lady who wrote the editorial mentioned the courage of Finns in the next article...

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  3. Housewife from FinlandJanuary 7, 2016 at 8:08 AM

    Really? I suppose we were pretty famous after the Winter War.

    I really like that militant touch in those clothes.

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  4. SanneJanuary 7, 2016 at 8:13 AM

    Yes, and she wrote about Mannerheim, too! I'll post more stuff from this issue tomorrow, there are some really cool photos in it, including those of the little Swedish princesses with their mother.

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  5. SanneJanuary 7, 2016 at 11:28 AM

    BTW, I prefer simpler fashions of late 1930s, 1940s and early 1960s to the elaborate but hardly practical 1950s designs, but that's just my personal point of view.

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