I read this book in what I can only describe as Baz Luhrman Glorious Technicolour: a heady mix of olfactory and visual feasts, the boozy ‘prohibition’ 1920s, the sophisticated inhibited 1950s, I was transported through a story of extraordinary.
A story of Nazi occupation, of etiquette and propriety, survival, abandonment, inheritance and a hidden past – what a wonderful transformative book. It did make me wonder about how during the 1950s we were on the other side of the war by a mere margin, a whisker even, and we even still had items that were rationed. We had wonderful new materials for clothes that we were unsure of ourselves enough to wear. Why had women returned to the home? – it was our duty. And certainly in the 1920s women had less authority, less self-esteem, less empowerment and it made us so dependent. Theme of the book:
The art of keeping your chin up when there’s no milk to put in your tea, of having some gumption in the face of office hot desking, and remaining soft yet stoical when you’ve just dropped your only red lipstick under the bus…
What would you do if it was wartime?
Think about it for a moment.
Tea in wartime was rationed. In fact it remained rationed right through to the 1950s. And rationing was a method the Government used to make sure that valuable commodities remained available to all during this desperate economic period. With Lyons tea at your local shop, there wasn’t variety like there is today, and I don’t just mean brand – we have innumerable varieties to choose from including black tea and caffeine free.
Milk was powdered. Each person got one tin of milk powder (equivalent to 8 imperial pints or 4.5 litres) every eight weeks.
Women had various jobs but once married they usually all revolved around the home. Womens jobs were essentially retail, nursing or clerical. It was during the war that we had a spike in the influence of women in the workplace which although shot down post war in the 1950s, had planted a seed of rights and equality.
Red lipstick. I’ve lost a few of those, namely to my daughter but I know I can go and choose from a never ending selection of shades and brands. During the war lipstick supplies were lost to factories making war items. Women turned to natural colorants such as beetroot once their much loved and coveted red lipstickwas gone.
So girls, when it’s hard to sleep because it’s too hot, think about trying to sleep in a air raid shelter with bombs crashing down around you. When the commute gets you down, think about how difficult it would be if we had no transport links. And when you’ve just laddered your tights, imagine having to draw on stocking linesevery time you wanted to dress for the day.
1. Red lipstick A total must! If you are feeling the slightest bit under par, the amazing uplifting power of red lipstickwill astound you. It will make you smile and in return, you will get lots of smiles back!
2. Seamed stockings If you are in need of the lift that only heels can give, then seamed stockings are the way forward. For longing gazes, and the sense that you are the epitome of Old Hollywood glamour, these stockings in nude or black are for you!
3. Strong tea A good ‘nice’ cup of strong tea is the very fuel of bad or low days. As tea was rationed during the war, it was often stronger and armed with sugar. How do you like your tea? ‘Wartime issue’ of course!
4. Knitting/Crochet Nothing makes the soul feel more nourished than creating/making something of use. During the war, due to the shortage of new materials to make clothes, women were shown how to re-use old items to ‘make do and mend’. Grab your needles or crochet hookand get making!
5. Being creative with Rations Lastly, what better way to make you feel uplifted, comforted and creative, than cooking ‘austerity style.’ Think of your Sunday roast as part of your Rations and make sure it can make another 2 family meals during the week – you will soon get creative and inventive! What better way to make you smile than cooking for the family.
Just a few ideas to see you through those not so sunny days sweeties, and remember…
Keep your pecker up! xx
* Please donate to appletreenails@gmail.com to help me make this blog a 1940s Directory here. Thank you sweeties!
Are you feeling a little small time? How about slipping into some sequins and singing a little number? Find some inspiration from this lounge-singing, long-legged, red-lipped brunette from ‘Little Rock’…er Minnesota.
Source – alifeofstyle.com
‘Publicity can be terrible, but only if you don’t have any.’
Source – bustnlace.com
Russells most famous and first role in The Outlaw 1943, won her pin up status with serviceman during WW2 – despite the movie not going on general release until 1946, the promotional media was enough to keep her busy and propel her to fame. Russell was now seen as one of Hollywood’s leading sex symbols in the 1940s, and this continued into the 1950s.
‘They held up “The Outlaw” for five years. And Howard Hughes had me doing publicity for it every day, five days a week for five years’.
Source – mygen.com
Jane performed a plethora of movie roles. She played Calamity Jane opposite Bob Hope in The Paleface (1948) on loan out to Paramount, and Mike “the Torch” Delroy opposite Hope in another western comedy, Son of Paleface (1952), again at Paramount. Russell played Dorothy Shaw in the hit film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) opposite Marilyn Monroe for 20th Century Fox. Vivacious, sassy, sultry and seductive, she continued to be a star of the Silver-screen throughout the 50s. In the 60s her next movie appearance came in Fate Is the Hunter (1964), in which she was seen as herself performing for the USO in a flashback sequence. She made only four more movies after that, playing character parts in the final two. In 1995, she co-starred with Charlton Heston, Peter Graves, Mickey Rooney and Deborah Winters in the Warren Chaney docudrama, America: A Call to Greatness.
‘Why did I quit movies? Because I was getting too old! You couldn’t go on acting in those years if you were an actress over 30.’
Jane Russell starred in more than 20 films throughout her career. When you start reading about this sultry tongued startlet, and reading things that she has written, you can tell what a forthright, moralistic, sassy, smart, pertinent woman she was. Glamorous to the end, a songstress, dancer and performer – an amazing inspiration for gumption and fortitude.
She wrote an autobiography in 1985, Jane Russell: My Path and My Detours. In 1989, she received the Women’s International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award, amongst other Hollywood accolades.
Source – astrodreamer.squarespace.com
Russell’s hand and foot prints are immortalized at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6850 Hollywood Boulevard.
Source – blog.everlasting-star.net
Russell married three times, adopted three children, and in 1955 founded the World Adoption International Fund.
‘I really think the 1940s were the best generation for Hollywood. Everybody was patriotic then.’
Source – whoknewtheykneweachother.blogspot.com
Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011).
Star of the Silver-screen, siren extraordinaire.
Contact me or donate to the blog at appletreenails@gmail.com I would appreciate your help in developing into a 1940s directory resource…
Iconic nail shapes and manicures have an enduring quality and allure that new shapes such as squaoval and the claw tip, and new nail art such as 3D designs, cannot reach. In the 1930s when Revlon introduced its classic red nail polish, the crescent tip manicure was in fashion. Pictures of the manicure in a variety of colours appeared in a 1936 edition of Vogue.
Vogue presents crescent tip nails
source – Refinery 29
By the 1940s Revlon were marketing their iconic Fire and Ice campaign – matching lipstick and nail polish, and the almond shaped nails were copied across other manufacturers such as Cutex.
Cutex almond shape nails
source – Spring Teen
In the 1950s, Hollywood blockbusting movies with starlets such as Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe featured red half moon manicured nails, and this classic style of manicure has endured.
Dita Von Teese wears Half Moon Manicure
source – Purse Forum
Iconic vintage nail styles incorporates nail shapes, nail polish colour and nail art or manicures, however, these are the significant trends that have persisted for decades and crossed into a new century. For an iconic, best of the classics, vintage manicure, be sure to wear your crescent tips, almond shapes or half moons!
Keep your pecker up! xx
Contact me or donate to the blog at appletreenails@gmail.com
Do you wonder if the 1940s revival is one big fancy dress party? Do you wonder why people would want to remember the austerity and danger of wartime and glamourize it?
1940s enthusiasts are people who are essentially paying their respects to individuals who lived during wartime, to honour their life and lifestyle and to experience as much as possible the modus vivendi of the period.
At Home Front History, they explain a little more and give you good guidelines towards preparing your 1940s character.
‘It’s one thing to ‘dress the part’ and another to be able to ‘re-enact’ the person convincingly in front the public. So a good starting point for every portrayal is research and the internet is probably the quickest and easiest way forward….However more and more, groups are diversifying and have members portraying a mix of civilian and service personnel as well as a mix of Allied and Axis forces. Welcome additions to the re-enacting community in recent years include Postmen, Vicars, Farmers and shopkeepers, so there is always the opportunity to portray a character other than those portrayed in larger numbers.’
Re-enactors usually build a character using period photographs, ephemera and personal items such as a ration book, bus ticket and paper money to create a real authentic feel. These can be easily recreated and reproductions are widely available.
Of course not all enthusiasts are re-enactors. Some people like to glam it up a bit and stray from rigid historical fact. For example clothing and clothing styles and periods can be mixed (40s and 50s), and adding a touch of 21st century or cheesecake pin up can be fun too.
Ever wondered if women in the 1940s really did bother with rolling their hair and painting on stocking seams during wartime?
The reason that women bothered to do this was austerity, something some people may be all too familiar with. Obviously during wartime there was a sense of community or ‘Blitz’ spirit- a common enemy, we were all in it together, all ready to ‘do our bit for the war effort’. For women, this meant finding another way to be feminine when they were working the land or in munitions, when they’d replaced skirts for dungarees, when dresses became utility dresses with no trimmings or frills, when clothes were made from your Dads old trouser suits or curtains. Remember that with life, there had become a sense of immediacy, living for the moment. All ‘girly girls’ today will understand that having your femininity whipped away from you is upsetting, it creates an imbalance, that it leaves a deficit. And so the women of the 1940s found other ways to create glamour where there was none. A stroke of red lipstick, browned legs, rolled hair, some red nail polish if you’d made it last and a cup of tea at a Lyons tea shop with a girlfriend – who could ask for more. Of course a twirl on the dance floor at the local Palais with a man in uniform was just the ticket!
So here’s a few pictures of how the common people (as opposed to Hollywood icons) did it!
Have you tried taking a glimpse into what it would have been like to be a woman in different decades? Click on the links below to read about some experiences in time travel lifestyles.
1930s
In the 1930s a womans role was very different to what it is now.
The role of women in the 1930’s was essentially homemaker and mother. The Great Depression caused a number of people to lose work, but women were still discouraged from being able to work to support their family during such a difficult time. However, during this period many women started to step outside of the typical role of women and gained employment although they didn’t have very good jobs. Most of the women who had jobs were working in factories or other low paying jobs. They also had to get a full education just to be equal with a man. Women could do the same job as a man and work just as hard but would still only get about half as much pay. Women and men were not treated equally in the workplace.
If women were working during this period, they also had to make sure that the house was clean. Women had many responsibilities at home, and they had to make sure they looked presentable for their husband even after a long day at work.
1940s
In the 1940s, women came into their own. Emerging from an era of being treated as delicate, and clever enough only to be housemakers and mothers, women rose to the challenge, and went into the factories and onto the land to pull the country through wartime whilst the men were at the Front.
Although they were still denied equality in pay or status, and even more poignant was their dismissal on the return of men from war, women showed their stoicism and formidable side, and as a result, have been attributed the victors on the Homefront. Even more impressively, they did it with a lick of lipstick and a drawn on stocking seam!
1950s
Sadly, the 1950s saw a return to male dominance at home as well as in the workplace. Some women were glad to return to the role of homemaker and mother, and revelled in the end of rationing and a return to cooking good meals and preparing the house for when their husband returned from work.
Of course now, we see it as rather patronising, but again, some women, now empowered by our rights and freedom, see it aslifestyle choice, and prefer to live the simple 1950s lifestyle.
So sweeties, make your choice – are you ready to time travel?
I had never considered this particular question of regular women wearing nail polish during wartime before, only that movie icons, and brand adverts depict a range of colours that would match any professional lacquer today. So I decided to do a bit of reading! (Of course!)
In 1937, Revlon started selling nail polish in department stores. By 1940, Revlon offered an entire manicure line, and added lipstick to the collection, being the first brand to introduce matching nail polish and lipstick colours to consumers. During World War II, Revlon created makeup and related products for the US Army, which was honored in 1944 with an award for excellence. During wartime, some cosmetic companies manufactured for the war effort e.g. Revlon factories made first-aid kits and dye markers for the US Navy.
Generally, nails would be painted to match lips in various shades of red and pink although clear varnish, often used as a top coat could also be found. Other colours such as gold became more available after the war when the pressure of rationing started to ease.
So did women wear nail polish during wartime?
From the reading I have done, it seemed to depend on your ‘situation’ before the war. Girls who worked behind the make up counter in department stores continued to ‘find’ nail polish to wear, but it would be saved for special occasions. Women who were billeted to work in munitions and on the land – well it just wouldn’t have been appropriate or worth while. Nail polish did become increasingly hard to come by, as less and less polish was manufactured as glycerin was a main component used in vital munitions, and generally, items that were imported became increasingly hard to obtain where supply ships were bombed and lost at sea . A lot of reading points to how nails were manicured, rounded tips and half moon manicures. Again I think this depended on your ‘situation’. I very much doubt that women had the time or the inclination to worry about obtaining a half moon manicure, which is actually quite difficult and time consuming to achieve successfully! I think a lot of the notion of what nails looked like came from the movie industry of the day, and without a doubt I would imagine the likes of Jane Russell, Ann Sheridan and Rita Hayworth to be sporting a blood red rounded tip (half moon) manicure!
This question of wartime, women and cosmetics is an enduring one. There are endless blog posts about it (including mine) as well as specialist 1940s Beauty teams for 1940s events and vintage fairs. This may be because Churchill engendered a notion of fighting the enemy by keeping our morale up and looking our best. Magazines and newspapers had an endless flow of hints and tips for scrimping and making your powders and lipsticks last longer. Glamour was propagated as a way of lifting the wearer from the awful reality of war, not just for herself, but for her soldier too.
How much we take for granted the availability of our cosmetics and other sundry feminine items.
In the midst of so much hardship, and threat to life, how did the girls of the ’40s manage to ‘keep their pecker up’? A little bit of motivation from Churchill, to show Hitler that we could still carry on, work hard, look beautiful, fall in love, and show strong moral fibre!
Goldwyn Girls in the UK, 1946
1940s fashion
Drawing on 'stockings'
Sometimes, I think women of that generation are formidable, stoic creatures. They endured. Life was more immediate, and it was also at times towards the end of the war, a lot about making do and getting on with it. We have the beauty of hindsight, but they didn’t know in 1939 how long they would have to persevere. When I’m feeling a little blue, I reach for the red lipstick or some glitter nail polish. What did women of the ’40s used to reach for?
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it and think how different its course would have been. Pause, you who read this, and think for a long moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on that memorable day.
Appletree Days 