Merchandising Case

During war many items are rationed from food, metals, rubber to even clothing and fabric. As a fashion merchandising major it's interesting to hear that in wartime things like fabric are rationed because even though right now we are at war and have been for ten years you never hear or have had to cut back on buying everyday clothing or fabric items. This was not the case at all during the first world war in fact many clothing and fabric companies stop making civilian clothing altogether and only started making soldiers uniforms. This impact also changed what men and women wore. Before their clothing was big and voluminous but after the war started the government put regulations on how long women's skirts could be or the amount of fabric they could use to make an outfit because fabric was as important as food, they needed as much fabric as possible to make uniforms. This impacted on rationing fabric during wartime also affected many designers, no longer were the days that they could create large ball gowns or have oversized clothing, in fact when designers did break the ration limit on clothing many people felt that their actions were not only rude to the soldier fitting in the war but was seen as being unpatriotic to their country same went for those men and women that wore the clothes. Wartime also affected the roles of women, who were already dressing more masculine because of rations, they were now entering the work force because so many men were out fighting, and this is where Rosie the Riveter comes in. Though she was just an ad for women to help join the work force, it helped show women's changing roles from housewife to full time worker, which was not common at all during this time but was widely accepted because they needed workers. This change in roles also helped bring to light that during times of peace women should be able to work how they would like too, which developed getting women more rights even after the war was over. During the war more women were accepted into the workforce, which is completely different from today because women and men alike are accepted openly into the work force. Also during this time of rationing and women working technology changed as well with demand at an all time high many technologies changed to meet it.

In conclusion though wartime today differs vastly from what many men and women went through during the first and second world wars, war has an impact on many things other than fighting