Fashion on the Ration: 1940s Street Style

To mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1945, IWM London is launching a major new exhibition Fashion on the Ration, exploring how fashion survived and even flourished during wartime. During the Second World War British men and women had to find new ways to dress as austerity measures and the rationing of clothes took hold. They demonstrated amazing adaptability and ingenuity by adopting more casual styles and by renovating, recycling and creating their own clothes. Bringing together 300 exhibits including clothing, accessories, photographs and film, official documents and publications, artworks, wartime letters, interviews and ephemera, some of which have never been on display before, Fashion on the Ration presents a sense of what life was like on the home front for men and women during wartime Britain. Divided into six sections, Fashion on the Ration will reveal the reality of living in Second World War austerity Britain, by focusing on what people wore, their sense of identity and how they coped with the demands and deprivations of wartime restrictions and shortages.