---
title: Britain's Wartime Wardrobe
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/britains-wartime-wardrobe-uk-1939/
description: A pictogram sheet shows the average number of dresses, blouses and jumpers, footwear, stockings, and aprons and overalls bought per person per year.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Britain's Wartime Wardrobe

[![Britain's Wartime Wardrobe, 1939 UK poster: A pictogram sheet shows the average number of dresses, blouses and jumpers](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/britains-wartime-wardrobe-uk-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/britains-wartime-wardrobe-uk-1939.jpg)

# Britain's Wartime Wardrobe

A pictogram sheet shows the average number of dresses, blouses and jumpers, footwear, stockings, and aprons and overalls bought per person per year, 'Pre-war' against 'Now', with fewer icons in each 'Now' panel. The tell is card-stacking: only the reduction is charted, and the sheet gives no figures, source or dates.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Britain's Wartime Wardrobe

Examples of how Clothes Rationing has affected the purchasing power of the women of Britain

Average number of articles bought per person per year
PRE-WAR  NOW  PRE-WAR  NOW
Dresses  Dresses  Stockings  Stockings
Blouses & Jumpers  Blouses & Jumpers
Footwear  Footwear  Aprons & Overalls  Aprons & Overalls

G.P.G./AM./4
PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY CHROMOWORKS LTD., LONDON  51-2968.
```

[← Britain's Shock Troops Raid the Enemy Coast](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/britains-shock-troops-raid-enemy-coast-uk-1939/) [British Aircraft Carriers Guard the Seas →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/british-aircraft-carriers-guard-seas-uk-1939/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Behistun (Bisotun) rock relief and trilingual inscription of Darius I: the king, two attendants and the bound rebel leaders beneath the winged figure of Ahuramazda](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/behistun-relief-darius-and-rebels-521bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Shows bound captives before the king, and the inscription records the mutilation and public execution of rebel leaders, as the king's own account.
- [Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam: the king in relief beside his inscription DNa, c. 490 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dna-inscription-darius-i-naqsh-e-rustam-490bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Testimonial, Card stacking)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Persepolis, Apadana staircase relief: a figure with an animal from a procession of delegations, early fifth century BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/persepolis-apadana-delegate-relief-500bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Manufactured consensus)
- [Alabaster relief, Assyrian troops storming a citadel, from Nineveh (reign of Sennacherib)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/relief-sennacherib-storming-citadel-nineveh-704bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Card stacking). Content note: An Assyrian palace relief of troops storming a fortified city, with a file of figures below; Assyrian royal reliefs and texts record killing, mutilation and deportation, shown as carved, with the historical context and scholarly dispute on the regime page.
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Silver denarius of Vespasian, reverse IVDAEA with a trophy of arms and a seated mourning woman](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/denarius-vespasian-judaea-capta-0070/) (Roman Empire · 0070 · Card stacking). Content note: A Roman victory coin showing a mourning female figure as the personification of the conquered province of Judaea after the Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt; shown as struck, with the historical context on the regime page.