Fashion, War & Femininity

Bande à part

We discuss two 1940s films - The Gentle Sex (1943) and It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) - and the fascinating ways they portray wartime and post-war femininities. See links below. Rebecca Arnold, ‘Fashion in Ruins: Photography, Luxury and Dereliction in 1940s London’, Fashion Theory, Vol. 21, Issue 4 (2007): https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2016.1254426 Claire McCardell, Popover Dress (1942): https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/C.I.45.71.2ab/ Vera Maxwell, Jumpsuit (1945): https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/155844 Leslie Howard (director), The Gentle Sex (1943): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035931/ Robert Hamer (director), Anthony Mendleson (wardrobe supervisor), It Always Rains on Sunday (1947): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040481/ Arthur La Bern, writer of the novel It Always Rains on Sunday (1945): http://www.london-books.co.uk/authors/arthurlabern.html London Locations of It Always rains on Sunday: https://www.reelstreets.com/films/it-always-rains-on-sunday/ BFI, Introduction to It Always rains on Sunday (2013): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b4Pkl1JgFM Imperial War Museum, Anderson Shelters in London (1940): https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205070170