The Second World Struggle was a time of garments rationing. We maintain the Jenners Archive within the museum’s library which paperwork the garments that had been accessible. Library Assistant Linden Williamson delves into the archive to information us by the style developments of the day by the eyes of a housewife in 1940’s Edinburgh.
Who does the lady within the image under appear like to you? A glamourous Hollywood icon? Maybe somebody from a type of classic comedy greetings playing cards, the type with humorous captions about consuming an excessive amount of or rising outdated disgracefully?
Allow us to play a recreation. Let’s think about you’re her for a second. To assist, I’ll paint you an image. You’re a housewife in Second World Struggle Edinburgh (and fortunately for you, a comfortably off one). Let’s name you Muriel.
It’s a Friday morning and also you, Muriel, are slumped over the pitiful excuse for a breakfast (as a result of rationing) you’ve tried to make (after your servant deserted you to hitch the Ladies’s Land Military). Nibbling a nook of your charred, eggless, butterless toast, you sip your powdered milk tea and pour over a (a lot decreased as a result of paper rationing) newspaper. Turning the pages, your eye catches the stunning embarrassment of your work-worn palms. They appear as shabby and drained as the remainder of you does.
You’d like to cheer your self up with some doeskin gloves, possibly even a costume, however with out ration the tokens, that simply appears unimaginable. Why, even your stockings are rationed!
And that’s once you see it. Staring straight up from the newsprint is a Jenner’s commercial. Now, Jenners, doesn’t that deliver again reminiscences? ‘Essentially the most modern division retailer in Scotland,’ ‘the Harrods of the North’. It’s the place the place your father’s sister from Morningside, the aunt your Mom snidely known as ‘all fur coat and no knickers,’ truly introduced her fur coats. (And was fairly happy with this dyed squirrel quantity, as you possibly can see!)
It’s the place your mom used to purchase her charming hats (no, that isn’t a mop connected to her head, however a lavish show of ostrich feathers).
And it’s the place your mother and father would deliver you each Christmas, to be terrified by this early model of Mickey Mouse (generally you continue to have nightmares).
Getting again to the newspaper commercial, Jenners spells out in a sublime font:
Her garments rationed, the good girl will develop her strategy of stylish with unrationed equipment. Most essential of those is hats.
Jenners Newspaper commercial.
Hats! They’re unrationed!
Now why hadn’t you considered this earlier than?
‘Purses too are unrationed, and with few exceptions made to hold a fuel masks neatly and with out bulk.’
Huh. Now that’s fascinating…
A crumb out of your parched toast will get caught in your throat in your pleasure. After a minor coughing match, you abandon your depressing breakfast and march off to Jenners, as fast as your scuffed Oxfords will carry you. Not having had the necessity to go to for a while, you discover that even this lovely haven of luxurious has not remained unmarred by battle.
The gents’s space, helpfully labelled The MAN’S SHOP (dare any girl to contemplate coming into it), has now been largely turned over to promoting officers uniforms.
Jenners Restricted commercial for The Man’s Store from the British Legion Yearbook, 1945. Jenners Archive (‘Miscellaneous Promoting’ scrapbook, pg.82)
And craning up from the central atrium, you see that a part of the second ground the place furnishings was displayed has been turned over to an enemy plane identification exhibition.
Nonetheless, you skip down the steps two at a time and upon reaching the basement’s leather-based division, are relieved to search out all of it trying gloriously acquainted.
An unidentifiable period of time later, you allow the shop, able to tackle the world.
You discover the clouds have parted and a ray of solar shines by, proper down onto you and the darling new purse you’re clutching (a pleasant beaver-brown quantity with a pocket for a mirror and lipstick, oh sure and room for that fuel masks in fact). You are feeling an exhilarating rush you haven’t felt in such a very long time, that sugar buzz; the intoxication of a brand new buy.
Your smile is so broad, your jaw is beginning to ache. Individuals are looking at you, however why must you care? You surprise how lengthy this sense will final, earlier than deciding it doesn’t matter. On this second, the sky seems much less gray than it did this morning, the buildings appear much less dilapidated, your garments much less drained and the shadows of battle appear ever so barely, simply that little bit, much less darkish.
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OK, so why have you ever been informed some story a couple of Second World Struggle housewife? You thought this was a weblog about what workers stand up to on the museum. No, Muriel doesn’t actually exist. She’s made up. Nevertheless, the scene setting isn’t. Some particulars, similar to paper being rationed throughout World Struggle II, I didn’t know till I found our Museum Library’s Jenners Archive. So, what’s the Jenners Archive?
If you happen to’ve ever seemed up at Edinburgh’s Scott Monument from Princes Avenue Gardens, you’ll have seen the grand Jenners constructing behind it. Jenners, the oldest unbiased division retailer in Scotland, is at present closed for refurbishment. Our Museum Library cares for an archive containing Jenners associated materials, primarily commercials, from the late nineteenth century onwards.
It’s packed filled with actually magnificent trend inspiration…
I additionally discover that when shopping the yellowed commercials, I glean snippets of knowledge on the goings on, each throughout the division retailer and wider world outdoors. These particulars construct up, like layers of paint on a canvas, till I’m transported again to the numerous Jenners which have existed earlier than this one. To when the rustle of petticoats frequented the corridors or when Apple Blossom Perfume wafted over perfumery counters and sweetness therapies got here packaged in bakelite bins. The commercials converse of the hopes and fears of the largely feminine prospects, which like right this moment advertisers knew full effectively learn how to manipulate.
The archive demonstrates how seismic shifts within the cloth of historical past, such because the Second World Struggle, filtered all the way down to affect the on a regular basis lives of residents. It provides us the chance to step into the footwear of a Edinburgh housewife of the time.
If you happen to’d like one other procuring journey again in time, you possibly can discover our Jenners Archive right here and/or e mail us at library@nms.ac.uk. You may as well be taught extra about our Library Assortment right here. Our Analysis Library, on Degree 3 of the Nationwide Museum of Scotland, fortunately receives guests Tuesday to Friday between 10:30 to 12:30 and 13:30 to fifteen:30.
A lot materials is saved elsewhere, so please give us a working days’ discover to fetch gadgets you’d prefer to see. (Every of our Jenners Scrapbooks, for instance, should weigh the scale of a small youngster!)
