As this detail of dress fabric shows, textile design during the early 1940s drew on the experiences of wartime Britain for inspiration. These cartoons are taken from a campaign by the Ministry of Information, which was set up by the government to encourage and inform the public on war issues. The drawings are by Fougasse, which was the psuedonym used by Cyril Kenneth Bird (1887-1965), a cartoonist for the satirical magazine Punch. The campaign included posters entitled 'Careless Talk Costs Lives', which were distributed to offices, shops and pubs around the country, featuring enemy figures, including Hitler and Goering, overhearing members of the British public discussing the war. They aimed to dissuade people from gossiping and inadvertently giving away secrets to the enemy about the British war effort. This print was produced around 1943, a few years after the publication of the posters in 1940.