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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Shanks, your thoughts about "liberty" line of clothing being something for the war effort reminded me about an odd anomaly-- women's shirts and wars-- Women skirts get shorter during times of war. During WWII, (and WWI) skirts got shorter and shorter- after the end of the war-- Dior "New Look" dictated almost ankle length skirts (1947) During the US Vietnam conflict-- Miniskirt where the rage. With extended "peace"-- women are once again wearing longer and longer skirts.
This anomaly is pretty long standing-- woman clothing get sheerer, or shorter, or deeper necklines-- in some ways more revealing than before or after the time of war.
There is a mountain of speculation as to why, one theory is, when women perceive a shortage of men, they wear more revealing clothing... the better to attract one of the few remaining men. During peace-- no shortage of men, not as much need to attract.. skirts are and clothing in general is less revealing.. (with exceptions like Jennifer Lopez)
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veteran
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Wartime clothing
You don't think it has to do with saving material in wartime? In the US, prior to WWII, most men's suits were 3-piece (with vest), pleated trousers with cuffs and fairly generously cut. Once the war started, there were no more vests (they went out of fashion until the late 60's), trousers were plain, no pleats or cuffs, and suits were cut narrower. After the war, the fashion in men's suits was those horrible looking hugely cut suits, mostly double-breasted, that you see in old pictures or newsreels.
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Anyone familiar with the "Zoot Suit Riots" in California during the Second World War? Black kids, Latinos and white hipsters wearing floppy, exaggerated clothing were regularly set upon by military types. Apparently they thought their dress was un-American and an affront to the war effort and austerity programs.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, maybe--only there was no austerity during the VN war– when mini skirts were the rage. And the style (short lived) during the Napoleonic wars was for women to wear gauze dresses, made even sheerer by wearing them wet-- the 1800's idea of a wet t-shirt contest. Unfortunately, this was done in cold, damp England-- and women found fashion had its price-- pneumonia! Some PM lost his wife to pneumonia after she went to some ball in one of these fashionable gowns..
I don't think women wore gauze for austerity...
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gauze dresses
O matchlessly beautiful one, you are flitting around what many would say is a true point, but I believe you are way off in this instance. During the Napoleonic War period, classical, esp. Roman, styles were all the rage (see pictures by Ingres and J.L David) and the gauze dresses were an attempt to imitate the filmy clothing shown on classical statues (genuine representations) and on paintings (putative representations).
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old hand
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old hand
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Well, I think that most Canadians that you might ask would define a mukluk as something like a moccasin, but built like a boot...it goes higher up the leg, and is obviously warmer, is made of leather, has fur on it, sometimes tassels, and is worn in the wintertime. Then I checked my Oxford Dictionary of Canadian English (I don't know the cute abbreviation for this) and it agrees with me (of course, it's at home, I'm at school, so I can't give the word-for-word definition). Also my husband had the same definition for it, when I asked him.
People actually wear these things, not just up north, but in the big cities - though not often, and generally for cultural events (such as the Festival du Voyageur, a Francophone festival which takes place in Winnipeg every February)! My mother even had a pair stashed in the basement, which I never was anyone wear because there was a hole in one of them.
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