Wearing Propaganda Book Review

Wearing Propaganda

A Book Review by Patricia Cummings
and An Exhibit Review by Lucinda Cawley

When I ordered the book, Wearing Propaganda: 1931-1945: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain, and the United States, edited by Jacqueline M. Atkins, I suspected that I was in for a treat. I was not disappointed. The inch and a half thick, hard cover book is full of background information, timelines, maps, written information, and many full color photos of textiles that were created to express emotions.

For example, there is a baby kimono that has round Chinese babies holding flags with swastikas. These motifs are superimposed on a background of red and white squares, upon which origami style birds have been appliquéd at intervals. Other equally intriguing kimono are featured.

There are scarves, pieces of feedsack cloth, fabrics with airplanes, written messages, maps, flags, soldiers, and much, much more. One would think that a book this large would have large print. That is not the case. All of the print, while readable is small. A tremendous amount of information is shared in this volume.

If you love textiles and their history, and if you would like to see how "propaganda" was spread through the use of fabrics that conveyed pointed messages, you will definitely want to acquire this book.

"Wearing Propaganda": An Exhibit Review
a guest feature provided by Lucinda Cawley

The Allentown Art Museum is a bit off the beaten path, but well worth a trip on the Northeast extension of the PA Turnpike for anybody in the Philadelphia area. The exhbit features garments and textiles made in the second quarter of the twentieth century in Japan, Great Britain, Australia, and the United States. The itmes from the Allied Countries were made during the war years. Those from Japan range from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s.

The men's haori (the jackets worn with traditional clothing) are exhibited inside out because the more decorative fabrics were used as linings. The first thing one sees in the gallery is an haori with a lining that shows bi-planes against a backdrop of skyscrapers. I cannot tell you how distubing that image is. The very earliest Japanese examples stressed modernity, not militarism with images of planes and trains.

As Japanese expansionism progressed through the 1930s, the textile designs became more overtly political and jingoistic. There was an exquisite obi with an airplane and a parachute against a traditional landscape. Many children's garments showed scenes of Japanese children, in western dress, stressing the progress of Japan and the backwkardness of the client Manchukuo state.

One of the most chilling examples is a child's kimono made of a fabric called "Nanking Occupied." Other examples showed puppy dogs and tanks, child soldiers armed with rifles, bayonets, the whole arsenal and "Italy in Ethiopia." The use of violent scenes for children's clothing was very disturbing, as was an exquisite summer kimono woven in silk gauze with Nazi and Japanese flags in alternating stripes of red and cream, both beautiful and repulsive, at the same time.

The textiles produced by the Allies most often featured words rather than the symbols preferred by the Japanese (rising sun, chrysanthemums, and Mount Fuji). Many from Britain used quotes from Churchill arranged to form the design: one such was called "London Wall" and showed quotes as graffiti. Dress fabrics often used the V for Victory symbol in various forms. A British dress fabric was called "66 coupons" and showed pictures of items that were rationed. "Scrambled Eggs" was printed with an officer's dress hat.

Many scarves were printed with patriotic themes. An English example says again and again, "England expects every man to do his duty." An American scarf printed with the Declaration of Independence is displayed next to it. The PAX scarf shows images of Stalin, FDR, Churchill, Chiang Kai Shek, and (surprisingly) Madame Chiang, shows just how important she was considered to be.

An American scarf was printed with ration books and a British one tieh the words, "Salvage Rubber." The signage points out that American textiles focus on victory while those printed in England stress the allied effort. However, there was a feedsack printed with the flags of the Allied nations.

Unique is an often over-used word, but I think that it can be applied to this exhibit. I found it fascinating, disturbing, moving, and frightening. There is an accompanying book which includes a catalogue. The information is below.

Wearing Propaganda: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain, and the United States (published in association with the Bard Graduate Center of for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture), Jacqueline Atkins, editor.

Editor's Note: Thanks so much, Lucinda, for a great overview of the exhibit! For information about the Allentown Art Museum, please see: http://www.allentownartmuseum.org/visit/home.html

Quilter's Muse Publications, Concord, NH. pat@quiltersmuse.com