During World War II, manufacturing for civilians across the globe nearly
stopped when outfitting the troops took precedence over nonmilitary
production and raw materials and workers were shifted to war work.
Consumers, especially women, responded to the scarcity of goods by
using ingenuity and creativity to “make do.” Mosquito nets became
wedding veils, face makeup turned into leg makeup, bed sheets
into wedding dresses and military blankets turned into girl’s coats.
These are just a few of the stories of creativity in Clothing Goes To War,
where Nan Turner offers a critical look at some of the resourceful
results of this period as necessity paved the way for fashionable invention.