World War 2 Fashion Advertising Analysis

The most prevalent and popular stereotype of the post World war II era in America is one filled with women abandoning their wartimes jobs and retreating into the home to fulfill their womanly duties. In Joanne Meyerowitz’s Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, she shows how far women departed from this one dimensional image. While Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is reflexive and focused on the mainstream, Meyerowitz’s analysis is a broader and more inclusive exploration of media, as she draws upon multiple sources. Although Friedan effectively unveiled the thought process and reasoning behind society's belief that the message of media was to make women think that their place was to be the happy housewife, Meyerowitz expanded her media archives and found a differing message in analyzing both female responses to media and exploring their stories.

In Adorned in Dreams, Elizabeth Wilson theorizes that there are social and cultural aspects of fashion that correspond to modernity. Wilson uses popular culture to develop her theory of fashion and modernity. “Journalism, advertising and photography have acted as the mass communication hinges joining fashion to the popular consciousness.”(157) Originally the purpose of advertising was to provide information, today Magazines and photography are producing new ways of dressing. In the mid-nineteenth century, women were restricted to “appropriate dress.” Women were unable to wear clothing outside of societal standards; there were six personality types: the Romantic, the Statuesque, the Artistic, the Picturesque, the Modern and the Conventional.

Before the World War II, many women only held jobs in the house providing for their children, husband, and the needs that came with taking care of the household, but during the war, this completely changed. Many women were given new opportunities consisting of new jobs, new skills, new challenges, and greater chances to do things that were once only of imagination to them. Women made the war especially possible with taking over the jobs that men would usually do, but could not do because of the war. One of the first things that encouraged women to take on jobs of the men who went off to war was the propaganda. Propaganda consisted of films, radio, and print. These advertisements used showed women fighting in the army and many working in

Let’s take a look at the women’s of the 1920’s, the changes that took place in fashion and the roles of women in society. Women’s fashion will be compared from early days up until the 1930’s, with a brief comparison of the roles of women before and after the 1920’s. A discussion of the different avenues that opened up for women after 1920 and the impact that it has had on modern day women will also be covered within this paper. you need a stronger introduction

As young men responded to their call of duty and enlisted in the armed services, this left the American war industry with a severe labor shortage. With so few men left to satisfy the labor needs, a call went out to women to fill this void. However, the initial response to this request was not satisfactory . As a result, the government devised a propaganda enriched advertising campaign to motivate the masses of women by appealing to their sense of patriotism as well as telling women their labor efforts would help end the war and bring soldiers home more

The war brought challenges, new jobs, new skills and lots of opportunities for women. Women were needed for jobs that were traditionally deemed for males only. According to Mathis (1994), government propaganda was responsible for much of the change in society’s acceptance of women in the workforce. These changes enabled women to enter factories and proved that women were capable of being more than housewives. The propaganda campaign was to mobilize women and was necessary in order to change the public’s attitude towards women. Propaganda was also used to appeal to women to do their part in order to bring their men home sooner.

Women who had to work out of the home was the stereotype of a nurse, secretary, and teacher- any feminine occupation. This all began to slowly change during WWII as media played an immense role encouraging women’s participation in the war. This affected women’s magazine content, columns, and articles during this time,

World War Two has regularly been depicted as a defining moment in the fight for balance amongst men and ladies. From the earliest starting point, ladies were continually attempting to pick up status, regard, and rights in their general public. Preceding World War Two, a lady's part in the public arena was viewed as somebody who cooked, cleaned, and conceived an offspring. The years amid and taking after the war denoted a defining moment in the fight for equity. Ladies, for once, were being viewed as people with abilities outside the kitchen, and we're interestingly allowed to substantiate themselves.

The political and economic crisis of the 1930’s strongly affected the way women dressed. The harsh situation in the country forced them to abandon fancy trends (in clothing, accessory, beauty department) in favor of the simplicity. Women quite often looked up to the glamorous Hollywood movie stars for fashion and beauty inspirations. However, the upcoming war stripped them of this sole way to escape the grim reality of day-to-day life. The hard times that emerged at the end of the 1930’s with the upcoming war on the horizon translated into simple and practical clothing.

Fashion has evolved over the past century and as culture and attitudes shift, the depiction of an era, as defined by fashion, directly impacts the decisions of what to wear. Fashion symbolizes the spirit of the times and throughout history, women have embodied every decade by distinctively making a statement with garments created by various top fashion designers. Due to the burdens of World War II, the early 1940’s was a time of conformity, regulation, and limited accessibility of basic needs for every citizen in the nation. Encouragement and support of the war effort in all ways possible and making the best of out what resources were available was expected and considered patriotic. Being in style was not necessarily top priority during the war years, however at the same time, fashion had a great influence on how people dressed.

For a market to succeed through these products the advertising industry continued to remodel the stereotype of the happy home maker. Homemaking was generating high revenues for advertisers and they needed for more and more women to aspire to become a housewife. “Studies of postwar culture found that government propaganda, popular magazines, and films reinforced traditional concepts of felinity and instructed women to be subordinate their interests to those of returning male veterans” (Meyerowitz,

This emphasizes that fashion was and still is used to display a person’s social status in society. Women’s fashion in the 1920s portrayed the advancements in women’s

The change and a break from the past, needed by women who were living in the 1920s after World War I, was reflected in the many changes in women’s fashion and the fashion industry in the United States and Paris. Fashion took drastic changes in many ways during the 1920s. Many of these changes were seen as rebellious compared to the old, much stricter styles of the past. There are many factors that contributed to the drastic change in women’s fashion and the fashion industry in the United States and Paris during the 1920s. The status of women in the United States was changing and the women of the time were headed towards more freedom (Haq).

Social construction through media formed and emphasized the common ideas of where women and men belonged in the early 20th century. Many posters and postcards portrayed places that seemed exclusively for men such as open trenches with burning flames, pictures with barbaric wires, and wilderness. In a sense, these settings seemed adventurous and sought to encourage men to join the war and send the overall message that the front was a place explicitly for men. The traditional representation of men at war also brought about its opposition of ideas that women belonged at home. The propaganda tactics intelligently used uniformed women to appeal to men and ultimately shame them into enlisting. In Figure 1, a British propaganda poster shows a long line of men which all appear to be going to war. In big bold blue letters it is written, “STEP INTO YOUR PLACE .” This first shows the pressures put on men to join the war by claiming that war is specifically a place where all men belong. Secondly, the absence of women in the poster shows that women did not belong on the battlefront. Many poster cards depicted soldiers living outdoors in open trenches. Portrayed as war zones, these pictures sent an overall message that these dangerous places were furthermore exclusively for men. These messages reinforced the traditional ideas of where women belonged; and further emphasized that

World war II brought with it strict rationing. Food rationing began in January 1940, clothing rationing in June 1941, and soap rationing in February of the next year. ‘Come in and have a both rather than a drink, is the new social gesture’- Vogue at the height of the blitz. Hair washing became a luxury. The magazine recommended once “every ten days for greasy heads, every three weeks for dry ones”, and when Marlene Dietrich travelled to entertain US troops, she brought with her three months worth of dry shampoo. Cosmetics weren't rationed, but might as well have been. Britain saw a 75% decrease on pre war cosmetic output. Metal was needed for armaments, petroleum and alcohol amongst other essential base cosmetic ingredients were needed for wartime products such as foot powder, camo makeup, and anti-gas ointment (see images 3, 4). Gala manufactured lipstick refills: “rescue those old lipstick cases”, “saves money, saves metal, helps win the war, and helps you