2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

thriftwizard

Yay yay for the impending storage, Laura! And yes, Pip, the Emporium has opened its doors again, so my "storage that pays for itself" is up & running again. But they've reduced the opening hours, and I see that a few more traders have pulled out, so I don't know how much longer they'll keep going for. None of my markets have started up again, so my earnings are way down, although the Chancellor has tossed me a couple of bones which were not unwelcome! But of course they were based on the last couple of years' trading - when I was ill. Luckily we don't need the money, as such, and many people are in far worse positions, so I can't moan, really. Very much...!

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

And I may even get rid of some of my fabric...!  

Who are you?  And what have you done with our Laura????


Seriously, getting some storage for your own stuff will be wonderful, as will finally having things accessible.  (I’ve been there and feel your pain.)

- Pip

PipneyJane

thriftwizard said:

Yay yay for the impending storage, Laura! And yes, Pip, the Emporium has opened its doors again, so my "storage that pays for itself" is up & running again. But they've reduced the opening hours, and I see that a few more traders have pulled out, so I don't know how much longer they'll keep going for. None of my markets have started up again, so my earnings are way down, although the Chancellor has tossed me a couple of bones which were not unwelcome! But of course they were based on the last couple of years' trading - when I was ill. Luckily we don't need the money, as such, and many people are in far worse positions, so I can't moan, really. Very much...!

Fingers crossed for you, @thriftwizard.  I hope the emporium springs back to life, soon.

- Pip

Cherryfudge

I have a little make-do-and-mending to report this evening. One pair of DH's posh socks is back in circulation, and I attempted a mend on the tee shirt I mentioned a while back - the one I was thinking of super-fine thread for. It's a slightly marled stripe so careful drawing together with a fine embroidery needle has resulted in a just-visible mend but it could have been worse. I have to admit that shirt has almost come to the end of its days, but long sleeved tees are so useful in winter that I'm not parting with it yet.
The main mend was a sofa cushion: it's a chenille-like fabric which of course disintegrates horribly. As we have friends coming in a couple of days, we wanted it to look okay but a seam had pulled apart. The fibres had parted too much for a simple running seam so, after a bit of thought, I made a strip of dense crochet in a matching wool that I happened to have (yes, really!) and used that to back the wound. I'm satisfied with the result, though new covers are going to be the only long term solution. Or a new sofa of course but it's one of a pair and the other fits perfectly in an awkward space so it would be handy to keep these going if I can. I dread to think what two sofas would be in coupons!

TwibbleDee

Make Do and Mend came in the mail.  I’ve read through about 90% of it so far this evening.

I’m very curious as to what percentage of women already knew how to do most of what was in the pamphlets.  It obviously wasn’t all of them, or they wouldn’t have needed the pamphlets!

Laura_Elsewhere

@TwibbleDee, I think it was very variable! During the 1920s, enormous numbers of people had to manage on very little money, but then the 1930s were a bit more prosperous, and particularly with women's clothing, it became cheaper, and fashions changed more quickly so I think it was maybe the very start of the modern "throwaway fashion" and for the first time people bought a garment because they'd seen one similar to it at the cinema, and maybe it was cheaply-made and not very durable but it was colourful or glamorous or fashionable so who cares... a bit more disposable income, and lots of picture-houses and dance-halls... 

So you have some older women who have these skills but haven't used them in a decade or so, and lots of younger women who haven't the skills. Not everyone, of course, some younger ones knew lots of clever tricks - but certainly lots of them wouldn't have known how to start managing on only 66 coupons a year! 

PipneyJane

@TwibbleDee and @Laura_Elsewhere, I think it also depended on where you went to secondary school.  Until the 1970's - and even now to a point - the British school system was incredibly stratified.  In the state sector, you had selective student Grammar Schools where only academic subjects were taught, or you had Secondary Moderns, where more practical subjects were taught, including home economics, secretarial skills and dressmaking for the girls.  (f you went to a Secondary Modern, there was no possibility of qualifying for university.  Therefore if you went to a Secondary Modern, chances are that you'd been taught the relevant skills at school; whereas if you'd attended a Grammar School, the only place to learn these skills was at home.  

And then there was the class system.....  Post WW1 literature is full of middle-class and upper-class women complaining about the shortage of servants.  While a lower-middle-class woman and her working-class sisters probably made all her own clothes, cooked dinner and did all her own housekeeping, her richer sisters relied on poorly paid maids.  During WW1, many maids went to work in factories making munitions or clothing or other items that supported the war effort.  The majority tasted independence, enjoyed regular shifts and never returned to service afterwards.  Magazines such as "Good Housekeeping" were started because the publishers realised there was a knowledge gap and wealthier middle-class women had to learn to fend for themselves.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

The biggest difference between Grammar and Secondary Moderns is that your parents had to be able to afford the fees for the Grammar, unless you could get one of the very few scholarships; whereas Secondary moderns were free. 

[EDIT: spent an interesting wee while looking things up - I hadn't known that the school leaving age remained at 14 in Scotland until 1973 (!), nor that the Secondary Moderns introduced in the late 1940s were already being shut down and phased out by the late 1950s; grammar schools were brought into the state-funded system in the post-war changes in England and Wales, but only the ones that chose to be - some continued as/became public schools, which confuses the heck out of Americans as a public school in Britain is a very elite private one that costs a fortune in fees, whereas a public school in the States is a state-provided one, often less good in quality!]

But it varied hugely across Britain - Secondary Moderns and Grammars never existed in Scotland, for example  

My mother (in the Home Counties) went to a Grammar school in the 1950s and they were taught dressmaking, home sewing, cookery and so on, to a very high level - she still smiles wryly over the fact that jsut as they all finally learnt, in Sixth Form, how to slit a chicken breast without slicing through it, to make Chicken Kiev, then a very very sophisticated and fancy dish - just as they mastered it in c.1960-61, in came the frozen version...!  

But they were being taught to a seriously high level, alongside their advanced Latin and Mathematics. Grammar schools certainly weren't "only academic subjects"!

Also, the servant situation was a bit more widespread, too - previous to the Great War, it was normal for even upper working-class households to have one or two servants, perhaps a young maid living in, and a char coming in by the day. So it really wasn't only wealthy women having to learn to manage without hordes of servants, there were plenty of households where the wife of, for example, someone senior on the shop-floor of a factory had to learn how to scrub a floor, having maybe never done it before, maybe not done it in 20 or 30 years. 

PollyWollyDoodle

If you read Nella Last’s Diary (the basis for the wonderful film ‘Housewife, 49‘) she sometimes speaks disparagingly of people who don’t know how to bake, sew etc - so they certainly weren’t universal skills. She used to have a sort of charwoman who came in to do the heavy work like cleaning floors. I think a lot would depend on the home environment that you grew up in. My sisters both went to grammar school in the 1960s and I seem to think that they did home economics but I don’t think they learned dressmaking; but we had already learned to cook and sew from our mum. 

My mother (a grammar school girl in the 1920s) was a wonderful woman, but cleaning was not her thing, she would rather sit and do the Times crossword if she had a spare moment, and she didn’t get many of those. She worked very hard to feed and clothe us all and look after a succession of elderly parents but the house was sometimes a bit chaotic. My cleaning skills are not great – it’s not something I find rewarding, although I know many people do, and I have never had a routine.  My sisters are both the same, we tend to blame our mum although I suppose we could by now have learned how to do it properly! 😂  I never knew my grandmother who died quite young, but she was a country girl who had been in service all her life, so I think she must have been better at it. I wish she had passed it on!

Laura_Elsewhere

I learnt many of the skills from being parked with Gran and Grandaddy as a child, but we were not allowed to help at home, so I never had any habits at all. Even now in my 50s, it takes both of us and a printed 'Weekly Timetable' to get me to manage even a bit of routine!