Make do & mend - research

The make do and mend movement played an important part in the daily life during world war two.  The war caused a shortage of supplies which was down to the sinking of ships trying to bring supplies across the channel to England. Another reason for a shortage of clothes was that „clothing manufacturers were commissioned to manufacture uniforms as a priority instead of civilian fashion and the introduction of “clothes rationing“ in 1941. Everybody was given ration books which had coupons inside them which had to be used in order to buy clothes or food. “Everybody had the same number of tokens so people could not buy more than their fair share. Everyone was given 66 coupons a year – which was later reduced due to intensified shortages. A women’s blouse was 12 coupons for example and head wear such as hats were coupon free.
Because of this shortage of clothes and through publications/campaigns like „Make Do and Mend“ by the Ministry of Information in 1943, which intended to help women to get the last possible ounce of wear out of all their and their families clothes . People started making new clothes from old ones and from all other household linen. During the world wars women became masterminds of make do and mend, so resourceful they fashioned up sexy knickers out of parachutes" Clothes now had to last longer in order to save precious coupons , they needed to be washed and ironed more carefully, were turned out & renovated, and even unpicked and knitted again in order to save materials. Nothing was thrown away, especially if it could be made into something else.Making stuff was a way of life because daily necessities like clothes were not so readily available to buy.

I found the above information at http://make-do-and-mend.org/make_do_mend.html its a great website and i have found a lot of my research from it.

I am fascinated as to how much society has changed since the Make do and Mend era, now if something gets a hole in we will throw it in the bin and if something goes out of fashion we will send it to the charity shop. I find it so surreal how little they had but made the most out of everything. My personal research of the Make do and Mend is linking brilliantly to the community couture, this is exactly the message i want to come across in my work, i want to show that clothes can be remade weather its mending a hole or combining garments together to make a completely new piece.

'Waste not, Want not'