2022 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

I think "brown bread" and the stuff available nowadays are not remotely the same thing! We always had :"brown bread" in my 1970s/80s childhood and I loathed it. iirc it was simply called brown bread, normal supermarket loaf, nothing specially cheap or anything. But it was made with sawdust, I think, and was very very very good for your jaw muscles as you had to chew it for a very long time. Vile stuff and I always think of it whenever I see "the National Loaf" mentioned. Mum claimed it was healthier than the terrible evil white bread for which I longed. We all loved French baguettes when we went to France, and I gradually learnt to love bread through trips to mainland Europe. Eventually in my 40s, I started finding granary loaves and multi-seeded loaves, and now I make my own bread and rolls and eat it most days - but for much of my life I could go months on end without buying bread because I hated it so much. 

Mum was in a TB ward for a year when she was a mid-1950s schoolgirl - her 16th birthday was in there - and some years back I basically nailed her to the sofa and refused to let her up til I had pages and pages of detailed notes... 

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

Elisheba said:

2 coupons to declare for tights. Utter waste of money. I needed them for a work thing the next day where I had to be very smart, so bought some from Tesco. Spend the second part of the next day constantly having to pull them up. So they have gone into the pile to be stuffed for door draught excluders. I must try Snag tights next time. 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I hear mention of some war work having an allowance for stockings? Not being a tights wearer, it passed me by.

Very true, @Cherryfudge.  Here are the details: 

"Stockings/tights. At 2 coupons a pair, stockings are really expensive in coupon-terms. Because of your connection to the armed forces, you have been given 6 special vouchers for those 4-pair value packs, which will not require coupons to redeem.  Each voucher can also be swapped for a pair of thermal tights."

@Elisheba, for the bad pair of tights, just treat them as if you spent one of your special vouchers on them and keep your 2 coupons.

- Pip 

Elisheba

Thanks, @PipneyJane adn @Cherryfudge. Glad I don't have to use vouchers for those awful tights! When I get around to buying some Snag tights I'll bear that in mind as well, although hopefully those will stay up and last a good long time.

flamingo747

I've been trying to find info, but aside from clothing swaps for children, I cannot see much about the availability of second hand clothing during the War. Anyone got info on how easily available it would have been?

Also, does anyone know much about the availability of homewares? These are my biggest spending downfall I think!

Nonnadiluca

I have a 5 coupon spend to report: a raspberry, pure wool, Aran jumper. I think it's only the second new thing I've bought this year. I'm currently wearing a 100% lambs wool jumper from Seasalt, via Oxfam, lovely and warm. 
It's the mid October day when DH spoils me and makes all my favourite foods,( I gave up birthdays many years ago so I can claim to be 59 last birthday and see how long it takes for people to openly laugh!)
He's now calling today my ' not dead yet ' day!!

thriftwizard

@flamingo747, I've just been talking wartime memories with my Mum, mainly because her hairdresser down her in Dorset hails originally from Maidstone, where Mum grew up, which brings up memories. She mentioned "hand-me-downs" which I suspect was how most secondhand clothing was dealt with in WW2 - and, in fact, before that. I know that servants were often given outdated or outworn clothing by their masters, and things were also distributed "to the poor of the parish" via the clergy, who would know who was most in need - even if they didn't come to church. These things would often - probably usually - be re-made; cut down for children, or taken in/up, let out or down, because they were made from good fabrics and with decent seam allowances/growing room built in. I don't know whether there were "dress agencies" which sold your very best cast-offs, for a small commission, back then but it's probable. 

Just added another 4 coupons; I had to pop into the Proper Fabric Shop en route, for some more elastic, and 2 more metres of cotton jersey somehow leapt into my basket! I can feel a third nightie, a full t-shirt and some more knickers coming on... 

PollyWollyDoodle

I think because clothing was hard to come by a lot would have been kept in the family, so to speak, and passed on or cut down to make children's clothes. I'm pretty sure there would have been jumble sales though. I'll have to look at my Nella Last books again (Housewife, 49) and see if she mentions them. 

flamingo747

That's interesting @thriftwizard . I imagine it'd be a blessing to be the slimmest one in a family! (Not something I've ever experienced lol)

Thank you @PollyWollyDoodle

Not my coupons, DS now has a Halloween costume, got it bigger so it will do next year before being passed to cousins. He loves trick or treating but hasnt been able to since 2019

Laura_Elsewhere

I'm seconding what @thriftwizard and @PollyWollyDoodle have said about old clothes - basically, from mediaeval times onwards we know of lots of old-clothes networks... no matter how worn something was, you could either give it to someone or you could sell it - that term "rag & bone man"...??? Yes, literally, someone came round and would buy rags, no matter how er ragged, because natural-fibre rags were shredded and used for making paper (the better quality linen rags) and for making a fabric called "shoddy" (wool and cotton), and a whole load of other uses - and that's when they were literally too ragged for cleaning the floor or wiping out the chamberpot!
It would have been reasonably common for someone not to have any new clothes lifelong - because why would you? Remember when it was completely normal for a comfortably-off family never to buy a brand-new car? My parents have never owned a brand-new car, nor has my husband... because a car a few years old was much cheaper and often in very very good condition. So you just bought a 3-year-old car, and then a few years later you sold it to someone who couldn't quite run to a 3-yr-old but was happy with a 7-yr-old car, and you bought another 3-4 yr-old car... 

When clothes and shoes/boots were made so well that they might reasonably last 15-20 years for an overcoat or man's suit or woman's skirt and jacket, you can see how many people would never have bothered buying new - and especially not for children! 

My family were nicely-off, but even so, as the younger of two sisters I can remember the 3 garments I had in my primary years that were actually my own and not hand-me-downs from my older sister or from big sisters of schoolfriends - we all swapped around and handed things on sideways as well as vertically, so to speak - and that was the 1970s. For most of history there was a hugely extensive system for clothes from literally royal courts down to rags for linen-paper... 

flamingo747

@Laura_Elsewhere that's similar to how I grew up too. We've never had a new car, we're in the ten year club