Friday, March 11, 2011

Rosie the Riveter - Superstud

Today we had a slightly late celebration of International Women's Day at school, which involved some of us in the human rights group coming to school dressed as inspirational women, and other students guessing who we were. It was very last minute (i.e. I found out yesterday), luckily though I just happened to have a blue jumpsuit and red and white scarf lying around home begging to be worn. I found the jumpsuit in an op-shop which is mainly filled with overpriced chainstore clothing from the '80s, and had a small heart attack, realising immediately that there was a giant 40s-style-blue-jumpsuit hole in my wardrobe, and my heart, which needed to be filled. On trying it on I found it fit perfectly, except for the fact it was roughly 4 inches too short, creating a disturbingly 'disco' effect (Images of Sam's 'Parisian night suit'  came flooding). In an observant mood for once though, my friend pointed out it had in fact been taken up a great deal, and thanks to the magic of my Mother's sewing skills it is now a perfect fit. I debated briefly how often I would in fact be able to wear a disco-infused-women-working-on-the-planes-all-in-one-number, and the answer was - as often as possible. No more than a week later was the perfect opposrtunity.As you can (hopefully) tell, I went as Rosie the Riveter -


-never once have I doubted the general knowledge of my 'peers' more. A few girls got that I was 'the woman on that poster', and a number thought I was Amelia Earhart. Although, this is quite good considering that someone at school once thought that Princess Diana was alive and living in Hamilton. Most of them just sort of looked me up and down in disbelief (my friends and some teachers did appreciate the ensemble though). I'm used to getting funny looks for what I wear to school normally (I'm going to do a post about some of those outfits soon), but today's were golden. Weird stares sort of make my day. Not as much as the lovely women who leaned out of their cars, and told me how much they loved what I was wearing while I was walking home from school though.
These photos were all taken at about 8 this morning, just before I left for school, hence the not really awake expressions. Also, please excuse the tiny bit of hair not tucked into my scarf, which I didn't notice until after I'd left.
Jumpsuit - Secondhand store
Shoes - Vintage market
Suitcase - Secondhand store (although I've had it since I was little)
Scarf - Borrowed (it's actually rather small, so my hair is in pincurls in an attempt to make it as flat as possible)

Finally, some pictures from this amazing set, of real women who worked on the planes:

Drilling on a Liberator Bomber, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas (LOC)


Bowen, a riveter, and Olsen, her supervisor, in the Assembly and Repair Dept. at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas (LOC)


Operating a hand drill at Vultee-Nashville, woman is working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber, Tennessee (LOC)


Women workers install fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage section of a B-17 bomber at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant, Long Beach, Calif. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-17F is a later model of the B-17, which distinguished itself i


Lunchtime brings a few minutes of rest for these women workers of the assembly line at Douglas Aircraft Company's plant, Long Beach, Calif. Sand bags for protection against air raid form the background. Most important of the many types of aircraft made at

4 comments:

  1. What a fabulous post Isabella, my grandmother was a land girl in the war....really enjoyed your photographs. x

    ReplyDelete
  2. I adore this outfit, so accurate too! I can believe that people didn't know who you were. Once for a Cantamath competition (do you guys do that up North?!) I crudely appropriated Rosie's image, and NOBODY got it. Including teachers. I was so dismayed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you both!
    No, I've never heard of Cantamath, what is it? Gosh, I am completely bewildered by people's lack of general/pop culture knowledge in this country sometimes.

    ReplyDelete