Fashion show steps back into style
1940s clothing, accessories reflected wartime cutbacks
A packed house examined history via hemlines and high heels Monday afternoon.
A 1940s fashion show at the Crafton-Preyer Theatre in Murphy Hall at Kansas University, part of dedication events for the Dole Institute of Politics, was organized by the Fashion Museum in Abilene. The museum is one of few dedicated solely to telling history through fashion.
“It makes it come more to life, especially for young people already interested in fashion anyway,” said Lynda Scheele, museum board member. “They start looking into why different fashion elements were there and learn something about history without even trying.”
The show included fashions from just before, during and after World War II. The 100 outfits demonstrated how the war changed the world of fashion.
As the war progressed, hemlines went up and sleeves crept to three-quarters length to preserve fabric. The fabrics themselves changed from naturals like wool, silk and cotton to synthetic rayon and nylon. Zippers also began to disappear, replaced by buttons that didn’t use valuable metal.
Purses and shoes also felt the synthetic crunch. Leather was reserved for war uses and women began to accessorize with plastic and reptile skin. Hats became increasingly elaborate because, Scheele said, flowers, nets and other millenary materials were not rationed during the war. Thus, fashionable hats increasingly became essential to style.
Scheele said many of the changes were mandated by the government, whose regulations included requirements that swimwear makers use 10 percent less fabric, discouraged more than one layer of fabric in a single outfit and set the height of heels at a maximum of 2 inches.
As the show moved into postwar fashions, long, full skirts and natural materials came back into style as war regulations and rationing were lifted.
A highlight of the show was Polly Bales, 83, of Logan, modeling the dress she wore at her Nov. 29, 1941, wedding. Audience members filled the theater with applause at the appearance of Bales, who said she was pleased to participate.
Jill Crist, of Abilene, models a rayon crepe dress in strawberry print as her daughter Olivia, 9 months, wears a dress with appliqued birds and flowerpots during a 1940s fashion show in the Crafton-Preyer Theatre at Kansas University. Monday's show was presented in conjunction with the dedication of the Dole Institute of Politics. Crist is director of the Fashion Museum in Abilene, which provided the vintage clothing for the show. Also modeling novelty print dresses are Reanna Putnam, in background at left, and Bekki White, both of Salina.
“I was real tickled,” she said. “I hadn’t expected to get to wear it again. It’s such a highlight for me.”
Attendees also enjoyed refreshments, including peanut butter cookies made from a recipe by Bina Dole, former Sen. Bob Dole’s mother.
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