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Nan Turner 1 Chapter 5 – Wartime Weddings Falling in Love During Wartime Austerity, Rationing, and Shortages Made Wartime We

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Nan Turner 1 Chapter 5 – Wartime Weddings Falling in Love During Wartime Austerity, Rationing, and Shortages Made Wartime We Nan Turner Chapter 5 – Wartime Weddings Figure 5.1: Francesca Stewart’s Wedding, Napoli, Italy, July 7, 1945. Courtesy Francesca Stewart. Falling in Love During Wartime Austerity, rationing, and shortages made wartime wedding planning in Napoli, Italy extremely difficult for Francesca Sorvillo Stewart. Stores in post-war Italy were empty, hard hit by shortages. Even if Francesca had the coupons or money, wedding party necessities were impossible to buy. She turned to friends and family to find creative solutions to make her wedding with her American soldier fiancée memorable. Francesca explained the situation: Now we concentrated on our wedding: • How about a wedding dress? Forget buying one, none available. • How about material to make one? No luck. So, my mother decided to use a brand-new linen bed sheet. A bed sheet? I didn’t like the idea period. A lady friend of the family came to the rescue, “We can dye it any color you want!” Her family owned the plant where they dyed material in bulk. She suggested for me to pick a color, which I did– Sky Blue. The plant was closed for the war, but her husband opened it and called a worker to come in and dye the material. This was her wedding present to me. 1 Nan Turner How about announcements and invitations? Again, another present from a family friend who was a director of a newspaper. • How about the veil? We had a piece of tulle left over from a curtain, and we made a veil.1 The hardship of living through the Second World War caused many traditional customs of social life to be put on hold for the duration. Sometimes, however, feelings of anxiety, fear, excitement, and urgency intensified the desire to live life in the moment.2 Falling in love was a wonderful escape from the stress and worries of the unknown future. Romance often developed quickly as young men stationed all over the world met young women who they never would have had the opportunity to encounter in peacetime.3 Authors Tobin, Pepper and Willes noted the differences between wartime and peacetime weddings: In peacetime, weddings could be planned for months ahead, and the dress, trousseau and flowers carefully chosen. Wartime weddings were often arranged on the spur of the moment, when the long-awaited telegram announcing the bridegroom’s arrival on forty- eight-hour leave spurred a rush to obtain a license.4 The American edition of Vogue featured a fashion spread on wartime weddings with the following advice: Furlough wedding – if he’s in the ranks. Leave wedding – if he’s an officer. War wedding, anyway – and that means quick wedding, nine times out of ten. It means setting the date at the drop of a telegram; making arrangements practically overnight; shopping for a wedding-dress while the champagne cools for the reception.5 Symbolism and Creativity 1 Francesca Stewart (born 192 , Naples, Italy) email communication to the author, June 28, 2014. 2 Christine Probert, Brides in Vogue since 1910 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 40. 3 Elfrieda Berthiaume Shukert and Barbara Smith Scibetta, War Brides of World War II (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988), 7, 8,10, 123-4, 63-7. 4 Shelley Tobin, Sarah Pepper, and Margaret Willes, Marriage À La Mode: Three Centuries of Wedding Dresses (The National Trust, 2003), 106. 5 "Furlough Wedding," Vogue, October 15, 1942, 8, https://search.proquest.com/docview/879215203?accountid=14505. 40. 2 Nan Turner In Western culture, wedding attire often reflected social codes, status, privilege or scarcity.6 During wartime, wedding dresses also symbolized faith in a peaceful future. The emotional poignancy of a wartime wedding imbued the clothing with special value, so that often the dress was treasured for the rest of the bride’s life. Many women interviewed still have their dresses, now part of the lore of a very distant and romanticized past.7 Fashion historian and author Lou Taylor made the following comment about treasured clothing kept forever: From time to time clothes are kept long after their owners stop wearing them because they become repositories of deeply valued personal memories. A deep, joyful, emotional attachment rests within certain types of personal clothing such as wedding, party and christening robes, which survive in large numbers, whereas mourning dress and indeed maternity clothes do not.8 Dressing a wedding party was especially problematic due to apparel and fabric shortages, especially silk. Creativity in outfitting the event was a common theme that transcended culture, social class and nationality. Repurposing, borrowing, and sewing all came into play. Old drapery, mosquito netting, tablecloths, and old clothes were dyed, ruffled, embroidered and embellished to create dresses. Friends or future in-laws volunteered to lend the bride previously worn dresses, hoping their packages would arrive in time. Silk or nylon parachutes were saved by soldiers or found by friends, then given to the bride-to-be to fashion into a wedding dress. Shortages and austerity affected people across all socio-economic classes. However, wedding couples belonging to minority groups, who experienced discrimination ranging from suspicion of collaboration with the enemy to imprisonment in concentration camps, had even greater hardship planning a wedding. 6 Fred Davis, Fashion, Culture, and Identity (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 12-13. 7 Carolyn Wagner, "Material Memories: The Parachute Wedding Gowns of American Brides, 1945-1949" (Masters of Art, University of Cincinnati, 2015), 109, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ucin1428065407&disposition=inline. 8 Lou Taylor, The Study of Dress History (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002), 5. 3 Nan Turner This chapter will discuss the symbolism and creativity embedded in wedding attire during the Second World War. These stories of wartime weddings are drawn from interviews of women from a cross section of both Allied and Axis countries who all turned to creativity to outfit their special day. Women interviewed for this research showed great pride in reporting how they resolved the issues of scarcity by improvising fabrics and dresses. Many of the women who shared their stories are members of the Northern California Bay Area War Brides Association. The group organized an exhibit at the Dr. Martin Luther King Library in San Jose, CA: War Brides Past and Present.9 The exhibit featured a display of the wedding dresses that the women had carefully saved as treasured memories. Choosing a Dress Wedding dresses have historically followed fashion and cultural trends. During the decades preceding the Second World War, wedding dresses also reflected fluctuating global economics. The 1920s experienced global prosperity, while the 1930s experienced economic depression. During the 1920s, the fashionable, lean dropped waist silhouette, with elaborate beading and detail, was reflected in wedding dresses.10 After the economic crash of 1929, excessive embellishment gave way to more simple lines and austere details. The silhouette of the 1930s transitioned to a feminine shape with a wasp waist and padded shoulders, also reflected in wedding dress design.11 Before Germany invaded in 1940, France had been the global fashion leader. German occupation cut it off from the free world and created a void in the fashion 9 "Bay Area WWII War Brides Past & Present Exhibit," (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library: 150 E. San Fernando St. San Jose, California, Jan - June 2013). 10 Marnie Fogg, Fashion: The Whole Story (New York: Prestel Publishing, a member of Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH, 2013), 238-41. 11 James Laver, The Concise History of Costume and Fashion (New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1969), 240. 4 Nan Turner world.12 Hollywood movie style, already popular, filled the void as the global fashion leader, influencing wedding style as well. Luxurious white silk satin wedding dresses, often seen in black and white Hollywood movies in the 1930s and 1940s, became a major fashion trend that continued throughout the war years.13 Helen, born in Greece in the 1950s, moved to the USA for a career in engineering and education. She remembered that her mother and mother-in-law, both married in Greece in the 1940s, each selected a Hollywood style white satin dress, markedly different from the traditional wedding style of pre-war Greece based on classical heritage.14 Helen felt that American movies were the major influence on her relatives’ wedding dress selection. Figure 5:2: It Happened One Night, Claudette Colbert, 1934. Courtesy The Meaning of Color 12 Valerie Steele, Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, 2nd ed. Rev. ed. (Oxford, UK, New York: Berg Publishers, 1998), 266. See also: Robert Gustafson, "The Power of the Screen: The Influence of Edith Head's Film Designs on the Retail Fashion Market,” The Velvet Light Trap: A Critical Journal of Film & Television, no. 19 (January 1, 1982): 12, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/31391822/power-screen-influence-edith-heads-film-designs- retail-fashion-market. 13 Probert, Brides in Vogue since 1910, 28. See also: Julie Summers, Fashion on the Ration: Style in the Second World War (London, UK: Profile Books, 2016), 143. 14 Helen (born 1954, Greece) in discussion with the author, Davis, CA 2014 5 Nan Turner During the Second World War, the color of a wedding dress could represent different values. A sensible suit or day dress worn for the wedding could reflect the need for practicality during a time of scarcity.15 A traditional white gown, a cultural icon of hope and faith,
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