Changes in Behaviour, Even in the Home

This advertisement targeted women, calling on them to collect and save any non-essential objects or materials that could be re-used for the war effort. 

Excerpts of an interview with Noëlla Bisson (N.B.), conducted by historian Serge Durflinger. 

Translated from French to English:

N.B.: Us girls and our stockings, we couldn’t buy stockings. Buying a pair of stockings, that was expensive. We had so little, but we couldn’t. You know what we did?

N.B.: We drew on our legs, we put, like, makeup on our legs.

N.B.: Like we had stockings on, and, back then, there was a line at the back of the stockings, so we took a brown eyeliner and we drew a line on. So when we’d go out, the guys [would] laugh, our stockings were beautiful. That’s how it was. I remember, my sister was going out with a guy and he gave her a pair of Phantom stockings. Wow, they were expensive, what a gift…

N.B.: She had to be really careful with them, gently scrub them and ring them out, and she only wore them on special occasions. There was lots of stuff like that. And, for us, there weren’t any elastics, no zippers, that was steel. 

N.B.: So like, for our undies, there weren’t any elastic bands, just a little hem.

N.B.: We attached them with buttons. So, you better not lose the button, you know?

N.B.: I remember once, I was on Wellington Street, and they almost fell down.

N.B.: The button fell off.

N.B.: It was held with buttons. There were other things like that that we couldn’t have. You know, when we got married we couldn’t even find a stove.