design and fashion studies

Design and fashion studiesassgnment-1

Effects of World War I and World War IIOn the economic depression and its effects on the way people

wore, fashion lifestyle and culture.

SUBMITTED BY:SWARNAJYOTI SUTODIA20, LD-IV2009-2013

EFFECTS OF WWI

ENGLAND had been the center of the great British Empire before World War I. The war marks the beginning of the decline of that empire in the face of rising nationalist demands for independence throughout the non-European world.

England had also been the great creditor nation of the world, providing shipping and insurance services to the rest of the world. The cost of the war was so great that England consumed all of its credits and became heavily indebted to the United States. As a result of the war, the world's financial center shifted from England to the United States, from London to New York.

The demands by women for the right to vote had become most strident in England prior to the war. It could no longer be denied. Women acquired that right throughout most of the countries of Europe following the war.

Working class people, as well as women, were fully employed during the war, and their status, once defined as very subordinate to the aristocracy, was greatly enhanced. The distribution of income shifted in favor of the poor. Relatively, the status of the aristocracy was diminished. Politically, this is reflected in England by the rise of the Labor Party as one of the two major parties.

In FRANCE, the heavy losses in manpower at the front decimated an entire generation of Frenchmen and is thought to have created a leadership vacuum when that generation came of age. France had fallen behind Germany and England in population during the 19th century. They were, therefore, less able to sustain wartime losses.

France also suffered untold property damage since most of the war on the western front was fought on French soil.

EFFECTS OF WWI

Germany had entered World War I as the greatest power among the belligerents, with its people immensely proud of Germany's achievements in the years since unification. Defeat in war was a profound shock, and coupled with economic privation and collapse, was more than the German people could accept.

The unusual circumstances at the end of the war, in which their government collapsed and the Social Democratic Party assumed power, were not of their choosing. Revolution was forced upon them by outside pressure, before the people were prepared for change. The new government was unpopular from the beginning. Rather than being in the mainstream of German politics, its support came mainly from the working class. Its popularity was further eroded by the fact that it was tainted with having to sign the armistice and then to accept the Versailles Treaty, a treaty which was universally denounced by the German people.

Severe economic difficulties created by the war and the demand for reparations caused despair and hardship which ensured an uncertain future for the nation.

Austria-Hungary collapsed during the war, torn apart by its multi-national divisions. Though the Treaty negotiators in Paris in 1919, recognized a new political arrangement after the war, it, too, lacked stability because it was impossible to put to rest the multi-ethnic tension between the people in the region.

Czechoslovakia was a relatively stable successor state in the north, though it was divided among two Slavic nationalities and included many Germans in the Sudetenland, as well as Polish and Hungarian minorities.

Rumania, one of the Allied nations, was given a large share of territory inhabited by Hungarians.

EFFECTS OF WWI

In Russia, the war led to the Russian Revolution and a civil war which continued the conflict for three years beyond World War I. The civil war involved foreign intervention, almost total disintegration of the economy and, by 1921, massive famine.

The revolution came earlier than it otherwise would have, under circumstances of war, and before a middle class leadership were prepared to establish a stable, liberal alternative to the old regime.

In other words, the war accelerated the process of change driven by industrialization, and created circumstances in Germany, in the Balkans, and in Russia which people were not prepared for. As previously indicated, it also thrust the United States into a position of world leadership before the American people were ready to accept that responsibility.

The problems, the instability, the uncertainties, and the economic collapse created by the war were far more difficult to deal with than any situation that existed prior to the war.

The greatest uncertainty was, however, in the areas inhabited by Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, where the different ethnic groups could not be separated from one another and were included together in the new multi-national state of Yugoslavia.

In the former European portion of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish people mingled with Bulgars in Bulgaria, while Albanians mingled with Greeks in Greece and with Serbs in Yugoslavia.

Both the Austrian and the Ottoman Empires had been destroyed without there being any stable alternative.

EFFECTS OF WWI

The United States, removed by an ocean from the center of the war and joining late in the war, did not suffer the catastrophic losses of the major belligerents. U.S. losses in life were great, more than 100,000, but this was small in comparison to the millions lost by the other major powers.

Furthermore, the United States was a great continental power, with great population and resources. The war stimulated the U.S. economy, increased employment and wages, and brought great profit to industry. The United States emerged from the war as clearly the greatest power in the world as well as the creditor nation of the world.

These circumstances thrust the United States into a position as world leaders, while the American people still assumed that Europe had little to do with America. President Wilson had a vision that would have involved the United States extensively in world affairs through the League of Nations, but he was unable to find popular support.

EFFECTS OF WWII

WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF WORLD WAR II UPON THE MAJOR WORLD POWERS; UPON GERMANY, JAPAN, ENGLAND, FRANCE, THE SOVIET UNION, AND THE UNITED STATES? Germany was totally defeated, and the Nazi regime brought down. Its leaders were tried for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg, the former site of Nazi propaganda triumphs. Hitler escaped trial and execution by committing suicide in his Berlin bunker at the end of the war. German cities were in ruins from a massive bombing campaign.

Germany was divided into 4 zones of occupation by the victorious powers, pending a more permanent political settlement.

Japan also was in ruins from extensive bombing. Prominent military leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes, but the emperor was allowed to retain his position. Japan was temporarily placed under U.S. military rule.

England was devastated by the war, having experienced extensive bombing during the 1940 blitz by the Germans. The economy depended for recovery upon aid from the United States. England rapidly phased out most of its remaining imperial holdings in the years immediately following the war.

EFFECTS OF WWII

France had not experienced the enormous human losses sustained in the First World War, but would have to recover from the effects of Nazi occupation. Retribution was taken upon collaborators. Like England, France would be compelled to dismantle its colonial empire in the years following the war. This was a particularly traumatic and drawn out process for the French, in Algeria and in Vietnam where they fought prolonged and bitter wars in an attempt to maintain their colonial control.

England and France no longer held a status of power comparable either to the United States or the Soviet Union.

The Russian people had suffered immeasurably during the war, and western Russia was devastated by the land warfare which was primarily on Russian territory. But, in the process of defeating the Germans, the Russians had built a large and powerful army, which occupied most of Eastern Europe at the end of the war. The great resources and population of Russia assured that the Soviet Union would be, along with the United States, one of two super-powers.

The United States economy was greatly stimulated by the war, even more so than in World War I. The depression was brought decisively to an end, and new industrial complexes were built all over the United States. Spared the physical destruction of war, the U.S. economy dominated the world economy. After 4 years of military buildup, the U.S. had also become the leading military power. The position of the United States as world leader was now more obvious than ever.

EFFECTS OF WWII

WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR UPON THE NON-EUROPEAN WORLD?

The struggle for national independence of non-European

peoples was greatly enhanced and stimulated by the war. The weakness of England and France, the two major European imperial powers, provided opportunities. The stage was set for the collapse of European empires in the 3 decades following the war. New technology, developed during the war to fight disease, would, when applied to the non-European world, result in sharply lower mortality rates and soaring population growth.

WHAT EFFECTS DID THE WAR HAVE UPON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY?

Enormous technological progress was made during the war. The

English developed radar which would be the forerunner of television. Progress in electronics and computers, made during the war, provided a foundation for further development which fundamentally transformed the postwar world. The development of the atomic bomb by European and American scientists during the war, not only transformed the nature of potential future wars, it marked the beginning of the nuclear power industry.

EFFECTS OF WWII

WHAT POLITICAL CHANGES OCCURRED IN REGARD TO THE PROSPECT OF FUTURE WARS?

World War II had appeared to pose an unprecedented threat to human

civilization and gave impetus to the renewal of Wilson's vision of an international organization to keep the peace. Organizing efforts were begun even while the war was on. In June, 1945, 51 nations were represented at the founding conference in San Francisco. In October, 1945, the United Nations was officially established. Unlike the League of Nations, the UN had the full support and leadership of the United States. The Soviet Union and all the most significant nations of the world were members. In 1944, representatives of the major economic powers met to create an International Monetary Fund and to agree upon a regime of international tariff regulation known as GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). There was a determination to avoid the mistakes of the interwar years which had exacerbated the Great Depression. The world community was thought to be entering a new era of international cooperation.

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF WWI AND WWII

World War I left an everlasting impact yet to come for many other wars, revolutions and events.

Women were soon gaining more rights; such as voting and sexual equality.

The male dominance lost its flavor and patriarchal ideas weren't so strong anymore.

Also, much more down the line it caused the Cold War and World War II.

The war cost millions of lives and billions of dollars. many of the countries were in major debt and owed a lot of money. The men who returned after that war had no career because they had joined at such a early stage in their life.

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF WWI AND WWII

It reinforced the American strain of isolationism which contributed to the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. It was the longest, most widespread, and deepest depression of the 20th century.

A multipolar world was replaced by a bipolar one dominated by the two most powerful victors, the United States and Soviet Union, which became known as the superpowers.

Another after effect of World War 2 was the Cold War. The world lived with the threat of nuclear warfare between the two most powerful nations, the United States and the Soviet Union.

1914-1918 WWI FASHION LIFESTYLE

The First World War (1914-1918) had a pronounced effect on women's fashion in the Western world. Several trends that had roots in the decades prior to the war, were rapidly accelerated by wartime conditions.

The most lasting change happened to women's hemlines. Hems which had risen from floor length to ankle length prior to the war, rose to mid calf length by 1916, and have stayed that high, or higher, ever since.

Hobble skirts were instantly jettisoned in favor of slightly wider more practical skirts.

Several avant-garde fashions, like women's trousers, and short hair, decried before the war as sinful and ugly, were promoted as practical fashions for war work. Short hair was considered a safety measure for certain factory workers, and practical for women working near the front lines.


The tendency for female office workers to wear feminized versions of men's suits and shirts (common since 1900) became virtually standard by this time.

Soft V-necklines, considered racy in 1912-14, during a time of high boned necklines, became normal daywear after 1915.

Large numbers of women were recruited into military organizations on all sides, and put into a variety of uniforms, which also influenced the shape of fashionable dress.

Ladies wore these shorter styles with sexy heeled shoes and flesh toned silk stockings, not high button boots. The Mary

Jane ankle strap button shoe was the style of the twenties.

Young and daring women dumped the corset in favor of brasseries.

WOMEN’S SUITS 1915-1916 BRASSERIE


Young men wore the more casual "Tuxedo" jacket to formal evening occasions, not just to men's only club functions.

Army officers wore Wristwatches instead of pocket watches, and soft "lingerie" shirts with soft collars attached to them.

Tail coats and frock coats began only to be worn on highly formal occasions, to be almost fully replaced by the modern sack suit.

The effect of war on fashion styles was that military braiding, belts with buckles and shorter skirts were seen everywhere.

TAIL COAT

FROCK COAT


During the war, a dye shortage, and fabric shortages encouraged a certain utilitarian drabness in dress, but the most noticeable change engendered by the war was a relaxation of the formal rules of attire which had bound men and women's dress since early in the Victorian era.

Changes in dress during World War I were dictated more by necessity than fashion. Bright colors faded from sight and only sober colors were worn as the war dragged on.

Rayon began to be commonly available in the 1920's, and was a staple fabric for stockings and women's dresses by the end of the decade.

EVERYDAY FASHIONS 1909-1920 AS PITURED BY THE SEARS CATALOG

1918-1929 FASHION LIFESTYLE

The "College Man" and "The Flapper" became the new icons of all that was young Flapper fashion embraced all things and styles modern.

A fashionable flapper had short sleek hair, a shorter than average shapeless shift dress, a chest as flat as a board, wore make up and applied it in public, smoked with a long cigarette holder, exposed her limbs and epitomised the spirit of a reckless rebel who danced the nights away in the Jazz Age.

Orientalist fashions continued to be popular, and were eventually stylized into a form which came to be know as Art Deco, the dominant style for fabric decoration and interior design until WWII.

The Brassiere, in breast flattening styles, replaced corsets almost completely.

ART DECO HAIR: HAIRSTYLES OF 1920s AND 30sFLAPPER LOOK


Early versions of "permanent wave" hair curling also spawned a new industry of "Beauty Shops" where women could meet in groups while having hair cut and curled.

Western women began growing their nails long, and even painting them with colored enamels, an idea that would have seemed indescribably foreign, decadent and erotic to the previous generation.

COSMETICS AND HAIRSTYLES OF 1929

Shorter hair styles necessitated hat shapes that held to the head without benefit of hatpins, so the head hugging cloche was popular. Cloche Hats Women wore cloche hats throughout the twenties. A cloche hat told everyone that you had short hair.

CLOCHE HAT

1928 APPAREL SALE CATALOG


Sex too, became a non-taboo subject. During the war the government & military had set on campaigns to deter soldiers from contracting venereal disease. Rubber condoms (previously hard to find and illegal in most places) were sporadically issued to soldiers along with primitive sex education lessons. In 1920, Trojan brand condoms, began to be made and sold to the civilian population. Advances in the treatment of Syphilis also made extramarital sex less lethal than before. The result was that returning soldiers and nurses were better informed, and better armed, for sex without consequences than before the war. Many married couples now regularly limited family size through birth control, and young unmarried people were more likely to engage in sex before marriage.


Women's hemlines dipped back down to mid calf length for day wear, and full length for evening wear.

Waistlines moved back to the waist and adult female curves again became fashionable.

"White tie" full dress with a tailcoat popped back into men's evening fashion.

Men's suits became sharper edged, with more shoulder padding, looking less youthful and more masculine, a style trend that continued through the 1940's.

1930-31LATE 1930s SUIT


The long frock coat was re-cut and re-invented as the "Zoot suit".

Women's Hairstyles got longer, and fuller, due to the increased popularity and availability of permanent Marcel Waves.

Women's hats grew less substantial and more feminine and impractical throughout the 1930's.

HATS HAIRSTYLES OF 40s

Ruffles, banished from female fashion in the mid 1920's, returned with a vengeance, and were combined with Bias cut gowns (first made popular in the late 1920's by Madeleine Vionnet) to make clinging ultra feminine frocks.

1939-1945(WWII) FASHION LIFESTYLE

War broke out in Europe in 1939, the same year the first true artificial fiber, Nylon, was introduced at the World's Fair in New York.

Shortages directly created the innovations: Men's suits bought before the war typically came with jacket, vest and two pairs of matching trousers. During the war this dropped to just a jacket and one pair of trousers, where it has stayed ever since.

Leather and rubber shortages caused shoe makers to experiment with wood and cork soled, stylishly elevated, Platform shoes.


Women's clothing went through the greatest changes in this era, both due to shortages, and due to large numbers of women engaging in work outside the home during the war. Bias cutting was promptly dropped as a waste of fabric, and "Make Do And Mend", wartime advice centered on sewing old clothes in to new ones.

Men's suits were re-cut into women's suits, complete with the tailored details and shoulder padding previously found in the garments.

Shoulder pads quickly became stylish in all women's garments, not only suits, and stayed in fashion until 1949.

WOMEN’S SUIT MADE FROM AN OLD MAN‘S SUIT

1945 PATTERN


Most governments issued either construction guidelines, or rationing to curtail fabric use, yet even in Europe men and women managed ways to stay fashionable during the conflict.

Fashion that was not rationed, like hats, and hairstyles, grew creatively elaborate.

Women and girls were actively encouraged to wear pants, both for war work and warmth.

WAR PRODUCTION BOARD GUIDELINES FOR GARMENT MANUFACTURE 1942


Men's clothing, when out of uniform, was increasingly casual.

In addition to dropping vests from suits, ties became wildly festive in pattern, color and style.

Aloha Shirts for casual wear came to the mainland with servicemen returning from the Pacific theatre.

Suit wearing increasingly was confined to work in offices, going to church, and formal occasions.

"The Little Black Dress" was a popular method suggested by style magazines: Having a simple, short (knee length) black dress, which one varied each day and evening with sets of color-matched accessories.

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