The 1940s in Western fashion were profoundly shaped by World War II (1939–1945), dividing the decade into two distinct phases: a wartime first half defined by scarce resources and minimal change in styles, and a post-war second half marked by a cautious revival, though the war's shadow lingered throughout into the 1950s. Most studies of 1940s fashion have mainly focused on the post-war years, sidelining wartime trends and reducing them to simple, practical designs like slacks, while overlooking diverse national experiences. This reluctance partly arises from viewing fashion as trivial amid the war's immense toll, yet it played a vital role—bolstering economies, aiding the war effort with uniforms, and providing civilians, especially women, a mental escape. Defining "fashion" during this era is complex, as wartime limits—shortages, rationing, and a reduced workforce—stifled rapid style shifts, favoring function over flair. Still, as fashion historians Emmanuelle Dirix and Charlotte Fiell pointed out: "However because the cycle slowed down and changes were often to be found only in the detail rather than the silhouette, doesn't mean that we cannot speak of fashion. Clothing may have become more functional but its decorative qualities were far from lost and even though it became understated and functional, it was still closely linked to the expression of personal and social identity."
By 1940, France had already solidified its reputation as the epicenter of women's fashion design. Yet, within the first six months of 1940, German forces seized Paris, initiating an occupation that persisted until late 1944. With many couturiers fleeing and France isolated from the United States and the United Kingdom, French fashion became an internal affair, evolving in stark contrast to global trends. Beyond France, wartime fashion was shaped by rationing, giving rise to utility clothing and uniforms as the prevailing styles. The womenswear aesthetic of this era was understated yet elegant compared to the elaborate glamour of the late 1930s, defined by clean proportions and lines—featuring square, padded shoulders, a belted or tailored waist, and hemlines grazing just below the knee, giving women an overall structured, "mannish" feel. Tweeds and plaids, already popular in the 1930s, remained staples in utility wear, while vibrant colors and bold patterns injected life into these otherwise pragmatic garments. In the United States, rationing was less stringent than in the United Kingdom, and with French designs absent from the scene, American ready-to-wear flourished, propelled by innovators like Norman Norell and Claire McCardell, marking a pivotal shift in the industry.
Women's fashion 1940–1945: Fashion during World War II The wartime silhouette
Although the summer 1939 collections of Parisian haute couture were "some of the decade's most glamorous", with "puffed sleeves, bustled evening gowns, sweeping skirts and corseted waists", by 1940 there was a dramatic change towards a "much more practical, understated look". Following the onset of World War II, the luxurious bias-cut satins and chiffons of 1930s fashion were replaced by practical, resource-efficient clothing due to wartime demands for silk and artificial silk. The dominant silhouette of the early 1940s featured square, padded shoulders, a belted or tailored waist, and an overall mannish feel; where angular shoulders had been often whimsical in the 1930s, they became utilitarian and boxy in the new decade.
Woolen skirt suits became a staple, characterized by their menswear-inspired, sharp tailoring, slim silhouettes, and minimal waste. These suits featured narrow shoulders, slightly nipped waists, and military-inspired details like belts and breast pockets. The look became so ubiquitous that Vogue announced the "Tailored Suit" as the "Uniform of 1942" in its 15 January 1942 issue, describing it as a "suit to work in, serve in, live in, all through the busy daylight hours of your new double-duty life". Another iconic wartime style was the knee-length shirtwaist dress, with its contrasting collar and capped sleeves—offering a simple yet polished A-line skirt silhouette that was endorsed by American and British authorities as a wartime-appropriate look.
Practicality shaped fabric choices throughout the wartime period. Tweeds and plaid remained popular; dirndl-style dresses with gathered or pleated fullness offered a fuller silhouette; and separates—jackets paired with skirts—became increasingly common, giving multiple uses to individual pieces. Overt exoticism declined, with any reference to Japanese style avoided; instead, the public was encouraged to embrace styles from America's "friends"—China, South America, Mexico, and Greece—reflected in colorful dress prints featuring tropical motifs of llamas, palm trees, and bananas, dubbed "Good Neighbor" prints.
Germany and Italy
The Nazi regime had since the mid-1930s sought to forge a distinctly German approach to fashion as part of its broader cultural agenda. Hitler detested the influence of Paris in any sphere, declaring Parisian fashions part of an "International Jewish Conspiracy" and un-German; the regime even replaced French vocabulary, so that "haute couture" became "Hauptmode" and "chic" became "schick." The feminine ideal promoted by the party—dismissively dubbed "Gretchen" by opponents—was youthful, healthy, fit, and natural, rejecting the slender, languid silhouette promoted by Parisian couture in favor of what Nazi propaganda described as "large women with big hips, the perfect birth machines." Traditional regional dress, particularly the dirndl from Munich—the birthplace of the Nazi Party—was extensively promoted as the proper mode of dress. The German Fashion Institute was established to oversee German fashion, with Magda Goebbels, wife of the propaganda minister, appointed its first director; Goebbels herself, however, publicly declared misgivings about the Gretchen archetype the party was so eager to impose. The regime's ideological obsession with the dirndl was complicated by the garment's simultaneous popularity abroad: designers including Robert Piguet and Mainbocher showed dirndl-inspired creations in their Spring 1939 collections, and Marlene Dietrich—an outspoken opponent of Nazism—inadvertently fueled international enthusiasm for the style when she was outfitted in traditional Tracht by a New York shop in 1937.
By 1943, few fashion garments were being produced in Germany at all, yet magazines continued to publish features on fashions that were unavailable and in many cases imaginary. By 1944, conditions in some areas had become so extreme that safes opened by Allied troops were found to contain not money or jewelry, but clothing—indicating just how precious a commodity it had become.
Mussolini's Italy had similarly pursued a nationalist fashion agenda, replacing French terminology with Italian equivalents and urging consumers to purchase only Italian-made clothing. Material shortages—especially severe in the prestigious accessories market—forced designers such as Salvatore Ferragamo and Guccio Gucci to experiment with alternative materials including cork, plastics, and fabric. Despite these constraints, the three Fontana sisters—Zoe, Micol, and Giovanna—established their Roman fashion house in 1943, one of the most important Italian fashion enterprises to emerge from the period.
France under occupation
World War II began within days of the 1939 Parisian Autumn Haute Couture collections, with Paris still the undisputed epicenter of international fashion. Couturiers responded immediately to the threat: at the Autumn 1939 collections, Piguet showed a reversible wool "air-raid" outfit whose cape doubled as a blanket; Schiaparelli featured a one-piece zippered jumpsuit in shocking pink; Molyneux showed chic pyjamas for home and bomb shelter use; and at Lanvin there were practical day dresses with large kangaroo pockets. Colors with a patriotic or military flavor appeared—"Aeroplane Grey" and "French Soil Beige"—alongside scarves printed with French regimental flags. As Harper's Bazaar summarized the mood: "The French have decreed that fashion shall go on (…) everyone makes an effort to be as elegant as possible." The spring 1940 collection became known as "La Collection des Permissionaires," named after the special permission granted to couturiers who had been called up for military service to return home and complete their silhouettes—a sign of how economically and culturally essential the couture trade was considered.
On June 14, 1940, German troops entered Paris wearing uniforms designed by Hugo Boss. With France's borders closed, the rest of the world assumed the Paris fashion industry had come to a standstill; the last Parisian issue of international Vogue featured an editorial shoot of models sitting on packing crates at a railway station, waiting to leave. In reality, nearly 100 couture salons remained open throughout the occupation, though the period proved a constant struggle for survival. Lucien Lelong, president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, became the key figure in preserving the industry. When Hitler demanded that the entire couture enterprise be relocated to Berlin or Vienna, Lelong negotiated with German authorities to keep the houses in Paris, arguing that without the skilled seamstresses, pattern cutters, milliners, and embroiderers—workers with few transferable skills—couture would be impossible. He would attend fourteen meetings with Nazi officials over the course of the occupation; it was ultimately only the advance of Allied troops that saved the industry from total closure in 1944. Through his negotiations, Lelong ensured that only 3 per cent—rather than the 80 per cent initially demanded—of couture employees were redeployed to war industries, leaving 12,000 workers in the couture trade for the duration.
The occupation forced significant changes in clientele. International socialites who had previously constituted a third of Paris fashion's buyers could no longer visit; many wealthy Jewish couture patrons had fled the city. Two new and "problematic" groups took their place: the collaborating industrial elite, and the so-called BOFs (from Beurre, Oeufs, Fromage—butter, eggs and cheese), the black marketeers whose new-found wealth allowed them to purchase luxury goods while their fellow Frenchmen suffered. Christian Dior, then working as a designer at Lucien Lelong, later remarked that after the war this new vulgar clientele would be shot "in their little black dresses." The moral complexities of the period were considerable: while Jacques Fath and Nina Ricci were often seen mixing with the German military, and Marcel Rochas was openly antisemitic, Madame Grès deliberately taunted the occupiers by presenting collections in patriotic red, white, and blue—for which she was closed down on several occasions for exceeding yardage restrictions or for offensive designs. Jacques Heim, himself Jewish, kept his salon running while hiding in Monte Carlo.