Heroines: Fashion and Hope in World War II

Back in October I went to see the exhibition 'Heroines: Fashion and Hope in World War II' at the Design Museum Holon. The exhibition, which closes in April, looks at design as a symbol of hope during World War II.
The exhibition opens with the story of Hedy Strand, a Czech fashion designer who, together with her husband, perished in the Holocaust. For many years, evidence of Hedy's talent lay hidden in a forgotten envelope kept by relatives in the United States, until her sketches and designs were finally brought to life in an exhibition by the Jewish Museum Milwaukee. The Design Museum Holon has borrowed elements of that exhibition and recreated eight of Strand's design ensembles in Israel, presenting them alongside her personal story. Her design atelier is also reconstructed, complete with a rotating stage that displays her garments as if in a haute couture studio.

The exhibition continues with 'Unarmed Warriors' which follows the women on the American and British home fronts coping with WWII through fashion. Among the items on display are handbags made from telephone wires, original US Air Force makeup compacts, hats, earrings and Forget-Me-Not bracelets worn by women to remember their men fighting abroad. There is a contraption created to draw seams on women's stockings when silk wasn't available, glow-in-the-dark accessories made to light the way during blackouts, and victory pins worn to support the war effort, including diamond versions designed by Cartier.
The accessories in the exhibition are accompanied by the magazine and newspaper advertisements from the 1940s that promoted the items.

A side gallery of the museum includes a selection of items from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, such as a sweater knitted by a concentration camp victim, made from improvised knitting needles and yarn unravelled from a German soldier's socks, a pendant sculpted from bread, a belt made from electrical wires, and a bra created and sewn from stolen fabric. Each item tells a story of how people maintained their grooming and dignity during dark times.

The upper galleries of the 'Heroines' exhibition looks at life after the war. The longing for new beginnings clashed with shortages on the home front and ongoing rehabilitation processes, but thanks to boundless creativity, various raw materials were transformed into new designs. The first section, 'If There Is Flour, There Is Fashion', displays dresses sewn from patterned flour sackcloth, above, a kind of upcycling effort designed out of necessity.

Following that, 'Around the World' explores how the waterproof, durable escape maps once used by Allied pilots and soldiers were transformed into striking couture dresses after the war. The display features six reproduction dresses made from silk-printed maps, inspired by 1940s designs. In the same space, 'Make Love Not War' presents six reproduction wedding gowns crafted from white parachute silk of the same era, set against the dramatic backdrop of a billowing white parachute, above.

The final section of the 'Heroines' exhibition displays the Gottex bathing suits of designer Lea Gottlieb, the Holocaust survivor who created her swimsuit empire in Israel after the war. From arriving in Israel with nothing, she rose to international fame and became a pillar of Israeli fashion.
The gallery is designed to mimic a massive, empty swimming pool surrounded by women in colourful swimsuits. Gottlieb's iconic collections, drawing on art history, flowers, and traditional handicrafts, have graced the covers of world-famous magazines and were worn by supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer. The exhibition also features the swimsuits adored by Princess Diana.

Gottlieb often used daisies in her swimsuit designs, alluding to how she carried a large bouquet of daisies in her native Hungary whenever she went to visit her husband in a forced labour camp, to hide the yellow Jewish star pinned to her clothing and draw less notice from the Nazi soldiers. The daisies appeared over and over again in Gottlieb's designs, on bodices and bottoms of her bikinis and one-piece suits, a personal testament to the designer's intense desire to survive and continue to live and thrive.

At the end, the museum's Lab Space features a special section titled 'Iron Swords Heroines', below, highlighting the stories of women whose actions during the 7th October 2023 attack made a profound impact. The display honours women who fought off terrorists, rescued others, and intervened at critical moments to prevent further violence and save lives. Together, these narratives provide a powerful and moving conclusion to the exhibition.

* This post has been shared on Mosaic Monday