Imagine, you are a woman living in the 1930's. Life is very tough and gone are the days when you could buy some material for a new dress. You can hardly even remember what wearing new clothes felt like. Now you mend and make do and use whatever you can lay your hands on. You are very proud of your 'newest' top - you worked hard on making the lace and used material from an old dress for the front. Nobody need know that it's back is made of a flour sack!
When I showed these two pieces of depression era clothing to the children they were quite shocked. Most of the old clothing they have seen so far has been beautifully made with beautiful fabrics. They had never encountered such a mend and made do mentality in clothing from the past and many had assumed that 'old' clothing was always top quality. They still thought the pieces were lovely and beautifully made, but were amazed at just how they were made. The camisole has been altered with pieces of netting and dress lace and the back of the dolly front blouse is made from a flour sack, methods of clothes making which were well beyond their experience in todays era, where even socks are rarely darned! They were very impressed though with the resilience which people living in the depression showed by making beautiful clothing out of whatever was at hand. I think they now have a new respect for the people who lived through those hard times.
The 1930s was a time of great social change and fashion reflected this. According to a 1930's Sears Catalogue 'reckless spending is a thing of the past' and indeed, many women could no longer afford to buy clothing 'off the shelf' and instead made their own clothes, and those of their children and husbands, at home. They made do with whatever was to hand, whether it be the material from old dresses or sacks which had once held flour or chicken feed. Clothing, socks and underwear was worn as long as possible, mended when it tore and hand-me-downs were common. Adult dresses, when they wore out, were salvaged for childrens clothes or salvageable material was reworked into dolly-front blouses (often with a flour sack back, as the one I showed the children is) or even underwear. Sacks were a common material used in clothing, used for everything from little girls dresses and boys shirts to underwear! In America, there is actually a project which records some of the experiences of Depression women and men, and there are interviews you can listen to about sack clothing, one from the point of view of a teacher and another by a farm woman. If you would like to read about or hear these oral histories, visit the Living History Farm Website by clicking here.
Life was so very tough during the depression that escapism became very important. Board games were very popular and when the game Monopoly was released in 1933 it was hugely successful. Movies were also very popular and it became vitally important that Hollywood reflect the glitz and glamour which was gone from everyday life. In fact, in the 1930s glamour in clothing was in many ways more important than any time before or since! Although people could no longer afford glamour in their own clothing, they could still experience it in magazines, on film stars and in movies.
