This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
Women have returned from service in HM Forces and war factories with 'war-work bulges', suggests the Daily Mirror. The physical labour of military and industrial life has left the average young British woman taller and bulkier than she was before the war. A typical girl of 5 feet five inches in height would have weighed about 120 lb with measurements of 34-26-36 in 1939; that same girl now has two inches more overall, and sometimes considerably more than that on the hips. New dresses are having to be made with well-padded and balanced shoulders to slim the expanding bustline, and flared and gathered skirts are required to hide widened hips. Shoes, which averaged size 4 - 4 ½ in 1939, are now typically 5 ½ - 6.
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