Jenny Turner writes:

There are, of course, excellent reasons to encourage a make do and mend revival. The slogans are great, and the typography, and those slender, sweetly smiling housewives: they look so different from the scowling, slouch-shouldered harridans you see in queues in photos of the period. I wonder why? The spot colour is mostly teal and Penguin orange, toning nicely with the Aga and the Smeg fridge. And the advice, for the most part, is sound and clear, as useful now as it ever was, with the exception of the emphasis on solid fuel, and perhaps ‘Mrs Sew-and-Sew’s’ stuff about alterations – patching, reinforcing, letting out a dress with extra side-panels, a bigger yoke or waist. Does anyone even know what a yoke is these days, or a placket? Can’t you just buy a mezzo-boho Hotchpotch Dress from the Boden catalogue?

(LRB 14 May 2009)

Michael O'Mara | hardback 160 pp. |ISBN: 9781843172659