I'm sure this must have been asked before but does anyone have any good reference links for civilian fashions during the war ? I'm looking for male and female, home front, European and American.
I know there was a resistance thread here a while ago, but any other links would be great.
I was at a wartime live action roleplaying event last weekend - not Airsoft, more clandestine spies, SOE and a bit of Indiana jones thrown in for good measure, but it was the first of a number of events and there are a whole bunch of folks looking for good civilian reference material.
Cheers.
The WW2 Reenacting forum has a good civilian section.
I also took some photos of an old Sears catalogue I found in Canada:
Nice. Very cool scans. Ta.
La Columna is a SCW re-enactment society that has some tips for 1930s civvy looks, although not the "austerity" clothing of the later war years
For british civilian references, try searching for 'CC41 clothing'.
CC41 was a government mandated clothing design and supply system, where clothes had to conform to certain styles and contain limited amounts of fabric, due to shortages of supply.
It meant things like no turn ups on trousers as it was a waste of fabric, and fewer, or no pleats on womens clothing.
a google/ebay search for 'CC41 suit' will give you some nice examples of the sort of thing you're looking for.
Useful site for suppliers though it tends to be focused on style and what would at the time be upper middle and high class modes of dress. http://www.thefedoralounge.com/index.php
Always a good source are pictures of the real people of the period? Here they are, and they move... http://www.britishpathe.com/index.php
Handy site for some books on the subject, worth a browse around the rest of the site too. http://www.1940.co.uk/acatalog/shop.html
aka Stigroadie
AFRA
better by design
"Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. "
Just found this, which is a very nice resource that starts in the early 30's but gets into the early war years.
