'Altogether Abnormal': Consumer-Citizens, Outsizes, and Clothes Rationing, 1941–9.

This article examines the British government's clothes rationing policy during and after the Second World War, focusing on its failure to adequately serve large-bodied consumers. While rationing aimed to ensure equal access to essential clothing under the principle of "fair shares," assumptions about average body sizes led to shortages of ready-made large garments and placed disproportionate burdens on outsized individuals, who often had to rely on more costly, coupon-intensive bespoke tailoring. The interplay between state welfare objectives and market-driven mass production normalized average body sizes, marginalizing those deemed "abnormal" and limiting their access to clothing despite supplementary coupon schemes that were poorly publicized and difficult to obtain. The article highlights how these dynamics reveal tensions between notions of fairness, normality, and consumer rights within wartime welfare policies, and how large-bodied citizens used their status as consumers and citizens to challenge government and trade practices that failed to meet their needs.