Siren by Shweta Gandhi

Siren

Shweta Gandhi Editor Carlotta Buosi

Contributing Editor Cover by Paula Bressel Designer: Kuldeep Shetty Design House: Qrious LABZ THIS MAGAZINE HAS BEEN MADE AS AN ASSESSMENT PROJECT FOR THE UNIT UNDRESSED: FASHION MEDIA EXPOSED UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF COURSE LEADER ANDREW TUCKER FOR MA FASHION JOURNALISIM BY SHWETA GANDHI (GAN13401486) All rights reserved. This magazine may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the permission of the editor. Advertisement of Siren suits in Vogue during 1939-1945.

Editor’s Letter Welcome to the first issue of Siren – your one and only source of fashion during the World War II. History has always been a fine mixture of intrigue and mystery, and we often look back at the past to learn, inspire and educate ourselves. The World War II period, which lasted from 1939-1945, was a time of the biggest international conflict our world has seen, with the Axis powers fighting the Allied forces. This era is of special interest to us all as it was one of the most defining moments of our history. Despite a waging war, the unperturbed women of that time continued the best they could to dress fashionably, wear make-up and act all glamorous, with much inspiration from Hollywood. Read more about the life and times during the war in The World War Woe on page 8. Also, don’t miss out on our exclusive interview on page 12 with 83-year-old Jane Harris in The War That Was as she recounts to us her childhood during the war whilst giving us a first-hand account of the fashion and style she witnessed as a little girl. And for all the perfume enthusiasts out there, our Contributing Editor Carlotta Bousi takes you on A Long Scented Tale with inputs from her grandmother Angela, a hit girl in Paris in the 1940s, who was in on all the juicy happenings with perfumer Lucien Lelong, on page 14. Hairstyles during the war were perhaps one of the most important weapons that women possessed, and they prided themselves with their fancy hats and feminine hairstyles. Turn to page 16 for our cover shoot on famous hairstyles during the war featuring Veronica Lake inspired waves, the Lauren Becall look, V for Victory rolls, pin-up curls and the scarf-inthe-hair look adorned by young women. Fashion is never complete without a fancy pair of shoes, and it was true even during the war. Turn to page 25 as we take you on a visit to the LCF archive which houses the Cordwainers College Historic Shoe Collection, complete with shoes from the late 1930s by famous shoemakers Rosenthal and Doucette, F. Pinet and Nil Simile. Did you know that women wore ridiculous one-and-a-half foot long hats in France to silently show their hatred towards the Occupation? Enlighten yourself with more such fun fashion facts on page 28. Enjoy the issue! Shweta Gandhi Editor

Siren

INSIDE

8 The World War Woe 12 The War That Was 14 A Long Scented Tale 16 Suave Style 25 From The Archive 28 Fashion Facts From The WWII

The World War Woe

rom the shortages of important materials to make do and mend, from women delving into men’s jobs to practicality paradoxically entering fashion and from Hollywood glamour overtaking Europe to women having to use leg make-up, being alive during the period of the biggest international conflict was definitely not a piece of cake. Fashion researcher Karen Harris talks to Siren about the life and times during the World War II.

rom a 21st century point of view, when we think of the’40s, we have a rose-tinted perspective reminiscent of the classy charm of Hollywood. The glamour of the films portrayed the Britons with an immaculate look complete with glossy, perfectly-curled hair and red lips associated with a time of great sexiness and femme fatale.

LET’S TALK FASHION If we think of fashion during the World War II, there are three things that come to mind – the glamour emanating from Hollywood, the smart, well-tailored suits and military uniforms that women wore, and the “Make Do and Mend” campaign promoted by the Board of Trade in 1943 which encouraged women to reuse old garments and materials. The ‘40s also put an end to the ridiculous fashion of corsets, with practicality stepping in. There were no feminine restrictions that were put on women because they had to work and they were seen getting into male work clothes like overalls and trousers in the factories as well as in the forces.

1940s actress Rita Hayworth

Clothing during this period became drab and functional, and women didn’t mind wearing old, frumpy-looking cardigans which created a sort of utilitarian, everyday-wear look. Every attempt was made to economise on fabric due to shortages, and the problem of shortages for civilian clothing was tackled by rationing, introducing Austerity measures and finally, the Utility Scheme.

Image Courtesy: Google

Just like food rationing, now clothes could only be bought with coupons and money; Austerity measures were undertaken to remove all non-essential elements on garments like zips, metal buttons and pockets to save time and money in the manufacturing process; whereas the Utility Scheme was implemented to control quality and production.

The combination of these three shaped British fashion throughout the war. They say creativity is born out of necessity, and it was completely true during that period when women were forced to make their own dresses, hats and shoes. The movie Gone With The Wind (1939) was a great inspiration for women who saw the lead actress Scarlett O’Hara make herself a beautiful dress out of old curtains. Magazines like Vogue ran regular features like how to make your own turban or how to sew a jumper whilst advocating the Make Do and Mend campaign. It really was a time of great need, and women used whatever material they could get their hands on to make fashion items. If you knew how to sew and darn, you could save money by purchasing fabric using the coupons and simply sewing your own dress. The other day on the radio I heard someone say that instead of washing their socks, they wore a new pair every time and threw the old ones away. This would be considered appalling during WWII when even a sock was considered so precious. Girls in school would be knitting socks for sailors during that time. Fashion also seemed to reflect the patriotism that women felt when they wore their service uniforms, and a military influence was clearly discernable in Parisian Haute Couture.

Actress Marlene Dietrich

Image Courtesy: Google

WOMEN POWER It was an eye-opener for women when they realised that they could do the same jobs that men did – whether it was to work in a factory, be a part of the army, do mechanical work or even engineering – this was a period when women took part in intellectual jobs whilst being a part of tough trades like men.

“It was an eye-opener for women when they realised that they could do the same jobs that men did” It was an egalitarian society and women felt the sense of independence. There were two thought processes that emerged from this – on the one hand, women realised they loved the fact that they could work, and on the other hand, they felt liberated. One example of this can be of trousers – women started wearing them to work; they realised that trousers allowed them more ease and comfort.

1941 advertisement of woman applying make-up brand Henry C. Miner Copyright of London College of Fashion

It was a masculine style, yet at the same time they had their make-up that let them experiment with this sort of style which allowed them to be more attractive and glamorous.

THE BLITZ SPIRIT Movies were seen as a means of escapism during such depressive times, and the red lips with the perfect curls reminded women of the fact that they were still a woman at the end of the day and should look glamorous despite being important workers helping the nation. This gave them the independence and confidence to enjoy that equilibrium. Historically, movies changed people’s perceptions and the idea of fantasy and glamour was all there was to it.

American actress Veronica Lake

Image Courtesy: Google

Also, women were so inspired by the movies that when famous American actress Veronica Lake grew out her hair in waves from the page-boy look she had, millions of girls copied it all over, and it became such a hassle as it led to a lot of accidents at the factories with their hair getting caught. But women just wanted to be beautiful and this was the time of the formation of a sexy hybrid. There was widespread American influence during the ‘40s – kids wanted their chewing gum and the women wanted their nylon stockings.

“Women and men needed the entertainment and the pleasure they derived from the movies, especially during the depressive times” It has to be kept in mind that there was no other powerful medium except the cinemas or Hollywood – there was no TV, the internet came years and years later, and there was only the radio. Women and men needed the entertainment and the pleasure they derived from the movies, especially during the depressive times, and they wanted movies that had happy endings with love stories that made them cry. It was called the ‘Blitz Spirit’.

MAKE-UP AND COSMETICS 1941 advertisement of make-up brand Henry C. Miner Copyright of London College of Fashion

Fashion, make-up and dressing up made women feel good about themselves, and it was all about boosting their morale (especially during the war) with women always wanting to look good. They had strength that kept them

going, and if they could, they would have actually won the war with their beauty and glamour. Boots came out with their line No. 7 in 1935 with a tagline that promoted self-respect, glamour and duty. Fashion may be termed as frivolous now but looking at that era, it was all about appearance. Women never underestimated looking good and feeling good about themselves. They may dismiss it now, but it was a time of real discovery then.

“Even today, looking good, feeling sexy and being confident is what makes a woman who she is”

It is no coincidence if you look at women today – they have a job and at the same time, they want to look beautiful. It’s pretty much how women were then. Even today, looking good, feeling sexy and being confident is what makes a woman who she is. Women were so cautious about economising everything that when they couldn’t afford stockings anymore they would do leg make-up, which basically meant using gravy granules or tea bags to draw lines on the back of their legs to give an illusion of them wearing stockings.

Woman with imitation seam line by Henry C. Miner 1941 Copyright of London College of Fashion

FASHION IN THE ‘40S VERSUS TODAY’S FASHION Diversification in fashion is huge today – there are cultural influences from all over. If you were to describe today’s fashion, it would be really difficult to because of the diversification. You can easily look back and say, oh, that’s 40s fashion, that’s 30s fashion. But to be able to describe our fashion today will be problematic in the future. At the same time, it is very fragmented. The ‘60s revolution and the rebellion added to where we are today. Right now, we have unprecedented freedom to wear whatever we like with no restrictions. There is no cohesive fashion, no homogeneity, nothing to recognise or any known style that represents us. But then again, maybe that’s what our era is all about. As told to Shweta Gandhi.

Liquid stockings by make-up brand Henry C. Miner, 1941 Copyright of London College of Fashion

The War That Was... By Shweta Gandhi

une Harris, born in 1932, was a young girl of 7 years when World War II was declared. Brought up by her stay-at-home mother whilst her father worked in the Air Force, she claims to have a fairly happy childhood despite bombings in her back garden. In a little tête-à-tête, June shares with us her experience of growing up during an ensuing war. 1. As a child, how was it going to school with a war was going on? How much did it affect your day-to-day life? You were always aware of it; I was interested in what was going on. I was listening to the news all the time. We’d see newsreels at the movies, awful things like bombardments. School was pretty normal; most of my friends’ dads were in the services. If there was something important going on in the news I wanted to talk about it with my teachers, but of course we had to do normal lessons. I especially remember D-Day, that was quite momentous. 2. What was the situation like at home during the war? I was lucky as I had a fairly happy childhood. After a bomb dropped in our back garden we moved away from London. I remember the Battle of Britain and the searchlights. We used to hear the buzz bombs and knew they’d landed on someone else... Awful.

3. Cinema meant a great deal then -- Hollywood glamour was huge. Were you inspired by Hollywood? How often did you go for movies?

Clark Gable

Very much, I was a big movie fan, adored them. I some-

Bette Davis

Robert Donat

Betty Grable

times went about three times a week. We had a beautiful movie house. My favourites were Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Betty Grable, Robert Donat. 4. Coming to fashion, how did you dress up as a young girl in the ‘40s? Did you enjoy the fashion during that time? There were terrific shortages; we had clothing coupons which didn’t go far, and we had to make do and mend. We would have liked new clothes but it wasn’t really possible. I hated having to wear my school dress in the holidays. If we managed to get a length of fabric and knew of a dressmaker...then I used to design the outfits which she’d make. Many women then wore turbans and everyone wore hats. Little girls wore knitted pixie hoods which covered their ears. At school, we knitted socks for servicemen. 5. What was your mother’s style – how would she dress up during the ‘40s? She was making do with the dresses she had bought before the war. She always looked very pretty and presentable. She didn’t work, but always managed to cook beautiful things despite rationing. 6. Having seen the fashion of ‘30s and ‘40s, how would you compare that generation with today’s? What are your thoughts about today’s fashion? Today some of the ‘40s styles are coming back, like severe tailoring. Some of the clothes in the ‘40s movies were quite wonderful. I have mixed feelings about today’s fashion; some of it is interesting, some of it boring. Some of the clothes now are quite lovely and imaginative; while some are a bit stupid, I think. What amazes me is that clothes for little girls are droopy and long; I don’t like it, it’s not becoming. I wish there had been trousers when I was a little girl – I was always getting scratched knees! You can’t crawl through hedges and climb trees in skirts, it’s ridiculous. Women had trousers, they were called slacks. 7. Lastly, what is your favourite memory from the war times? Listening to jazz and swing on the radio. And my dad coming home on leave. Images Courtesy: Google

Turbans adorned by young women (above) Pixie hats worn by kids (below)

A Long Scented Tale

By carlotta buosi

any would describe a perfume as a form of frivolous embellishment used by women to please their desire of not only looking good, but smelling good too. A perfume, though, is so much more than that, and it has been, for a very long time. But let’s not talk about perfumes – let’s talk about fragrances.

Black Orchid by Tom Ford

t the time when my grandmother Angela was a hit girl in Paris in the ‘30s and ‘40s, there was a man whose love for fashion ran through his own veins for a matter of inclination and background. Luicen Lelong, considered today as the one who saved French couture from the Nazis’ aim of making Germany the world’s fashion leader, first started his career by joining his family’s small couture house. He was set to become one of the most iconic French fashion designers of all times, beginning at the take off of Chanel and employing over 1,200 people in his maison in Rue Matignon by 1926. But Lelong’s love for a woman’s style didn’t necessarily begin and end with fashion and clothing – he instead thought of style in every aspect of it and that’s why in 1924 he embarked on a whole new adventure: fragrances. Thinking of him, granny still says that he called his ideal woman a creature de la mode, a ‘fashion creature’ that he thought of from head to toe, smell included. “He liked mystery very much, he always thought of a story for everything he made,” my grandmother remembers, “It was almost as if he had created something that had already lived before and released it into history.” When granny first met Lelong and his beautiful wife, Natalie Paley, the Romanov princess had already became the face of the New Look developing in Paris after the crash of the American market in 1929: boy-ish, extremely thin and opinionated enough to become a consultant at her husband’s boutique, but also the first one to try each of his new fragrances. “She smelled like anything I had ever smelled before,” grandmother says, describing the trail of perfume Natalie left behind when taking off her coat and walking into the foyer of my great grandparents’ house in Paris. At the beginning, Lelong’s fragrances were named with letters such as A, B, C, J and N, but the most iconic ones had mysterious names such as Indiscret and Sciroc. When I ask my granny about her favourite one, she describes an afternoon spent with her mother and Lelong, smelling scents and being helped by the couturier to choose one for her own debut. At that time they all had no idea that Lelong’s fragrances would have saved the French perfumeries during the Wars, becoming something women would hold on to even in the most tormented times. Fragrances were still a guilty pleasure for the ones who could enjoy them, but also a way of creating a character, becoming who they wanted to be, dressing like that woman and smelling like her. “My favourite one was this cologne called Talispin,” grandma tells me, “It was so delicate, just as I

Natalie Paley

Edmond Roudnitska

wanted to be. It reminded me of my own mother: the most elegant, exquisite creature I had even seen.” When I ask her if one can still find that fragrance today, she tells me that one might be able to, but she would never wear it now – “That smell carries too many memories,” she says.

Advertisement for the famous Indiscret

Fragrances became something fundamental in a woman’s life through the Wars and there were many changes that people living in the first half of the last century witnessed. Francois Coty was the one who understood the need to develop a market overseas in the USA, after the devastation Europe was left in after WWI. At that time, something began to change in fashion and a woman’s desire to appear and behave in a certain way. With this great revolution in taste, the tendency of creating soliflower fragrances for respectable women embraced by Houblagant at the beginning of the century left space to novelty. And with novelty came Edmond Roudnitska, trained in the perfumery Mecca of Grasse, one of the greatest perfumeries of his time and creator with his wife Therese of iconic fragrances such as Dior’s Diorissimo. Diorissimo, along with Jean Patou’s fragrances could be considered as an example of how a woman of that time wanted to smell. Abandoning the limited scents of the soliflowers and the restrictions imposed by the fashion pre-Wars, a woman could now wear trousers and smell exotic, if she wanted to. The desire of experimenting with fragrances gave perfumes a completely new meaning from the one Lelong had thought of: they were no longer the perfect detail to complete a look and define a personality, further enhancing one’s qualities. Fragrances became something with a function: a sweet and flowery scent to portray innocence, spice to seduce, musk to refresh. A woman began to choose the smell she wanted to have according with what she wanted to communicate, and this change is extremely relatable to the turnover fashion itself embraced in the same time period. With the birth of new fashion movements and currents, women could choose who they wanted to be, express their rebellion and their desire of speak, create, smell. Who knows if Lelong thought of this when creating his first fragrances; granny says he would have hated most of today’s perfumes and I don’t find it difficult to believe her. Somehow though, in the extremely over-loaded, large-scale perfume market of today, I managed to find a fragrance which reminded her of Talispin a lot: Mr. Tom Ford made us both want to smell like a Black Orchid.

Images Courtesy: Google

Lucien Lelong’s parfum advertisement

SUAVE

STYLE

The depression of the war was countered intelligently by women â&#x20AC;&#x201C; with beauty and glamour. Photography by Debarati Sanyal. Styled by Shweta Gandhi.

Victory rolls (left) and actress Veronica Lake inspired waves (right).

Scarf-in-the-hair (above) and Victory rolls as before (right).

Lauren Bacall inspired short waves (left) and updo hair with big curls (above). Creative direction: Shweta Gandhi Models: Nina Yndis and Victoria Evelyn Clore Hair and Make-up: Neha Kumari Retoucher: Fedi Gioia and Daria Nikolskaya All clothes are modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own. Shot at LCF Lime Grove

From The Archive During

the WWII, shoes (like other commodities) were rationed. Due to a shortage of vital materials like rubber and leather, it was impossible to manufacture shoes, and civilians had to make do with the shoes they had and special care was taken to protect shoes. The history of shoe fashion and shoemaking can be understood from the Cordwainers College Historic Shoe Collection which features famous shoe designers of the 1930s and 1940s like American brand Rosenthal and Doucette, French designer F. Pinet and British shoemaker Nil Simile.

By shweta gandhi

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Fashion Facts

Peasant skirts and blouse

During the war, fashions were polarised between the sporty and utilitarian peasant skirts versus high extravagance. Claire McCardell modelling in her own dress

Clare McCardell was the most innovative fashion designer during the war, using fabrics like denim, gingham and jersey, and was the originator of American casual style.

From The WWII

Gas mask poster

An example of the underwear during the war, advertisement by Bestway

Elizabeth Arden produced a waterproof white velvet gas mask for evening wear to counter the much-feared gas attacks.

1943 Spirella Rubber Corset

Underwear was scarce during the war as it couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be manufactured.

In Germany, a warm winter jacket was rationed for 40 coupons whilst a handkerchief was rationed for 2 coupons.

The unpopular rubber corset was introduced during the war.

Rationing posters during WWII

Images Courtesy: Google

The shape of the 1940sâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;wide shoulders and nipped waistâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; was actually the signature look of the famous studio fashion designer Travis Banton.

German-American actress and singer Marlene Dietrich in Travis Banton

The rebellious hats worn by French socialites

Woman in France wore one-and-a-half foot long hats to silently show their hatred against the Occupation.

30 30

Upholstery materials like curtains and furnishings were converted into dresses which were perfectly acceptable.

Scarlett Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Haraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s green curtain dress in the 1939 movie Gone With The Wind

Due to a shortage of stockings, women used make-up on their legs to draw a line down the back of their calf to look like a seam!

Images Courtesy: Google

A woman drawing a seam line using an eyebrow pencil

SIREN 2015