Dresses from the sky: WW2 wedding gowns made from silk and nylon parachutes

[Miigwech]

Parachute Wedding Dress, 1947

This wedding dress was made from a nylon parachute that saved Maj. Claude Hensinger during World War II.

In August 1944, Hensinger, a B-29 pilot, and his crew were returning from a bombing raid over Yowata, Japan, when their engine caught fire. The crew was forced to bail out. Suffering from only minor injuries, Hensinger used the parachute as a pillow and blanket as he waited to be rescued. He kept the parachute that had saved his life. He later proposed to his girlfriend Ruth in 1947, offering her the material for a gown.

Ruth wanted to create a dress similar to one in the movie Gone with the Wind. She hired a local seamstress, Hilda Buck, to make the bodice and veil. Ruth made the skirt herself; she pulled up the strings on the parachute so that the dress would be shorter in the front and have a train in the back. The couple married July 19, 1947. The dress was also worn by the their daughter and by their son’s bride before being gifted to the Smithsonian.

https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/snapshot/parachute-wedding-dress

World War II created challenges not only for the ones fighting on the front lines but also for those who stayed at home. One of the biggest was limited resources, meaning people had to do without many things for the sake of victory.

Once the war was over, returning to a normal life was not an easy task, especially when one considers how devastating the war years were. Rationing was still in place in the years that followed the war, and people had to be careful to use their money wisely, because the cost of almost everything had risen.

Fabric was so expensive that a great number of women simply weren’t able to afford a decent wedding dress, and many of them had to improvise with materials. In many cases, their inventiveness went beyond expectations and such is the case with the beautiful wedding gowns made out of parachute silk.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/06/16/dresses-from-the-sky-ww2-wedding-gowns-made-from-silk-and-nylon-parachutes/

[Harker]

1. That's a really nice way

to hit the silk.

[Miigwech]

2. Nice double entendre

I had to look up, "hitting the silk" and learned it means bailing out of an air plane on fire. Thanks.

[Harker]

4. My pleasure.

Thank you!

[joanbarnes]

3. Mom told of making curtains from a Nazi flag that Dad 'liberated.'

[Raine]

5. Very interesting ... THANKS

so much for posting this!

[Miigwech]

6. So much of history is lost due to focus on

war and the battles fought. History of women is not often a part of the history books.