BOSTON, MA.- Set against the backdrop of war-torn Britain—besieged by bombings and deprivations during World War II—a patriotic sense of style flourished, encouraged by the creation of visually striking textiles and fashions for women. Beauty as Duty: Textiles on the Home Front in WWII Britain, an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), explores this trend by looking at the restriction and regulation of “non-essential” items on the one hand, and the drive to express style and beauty in the midst of wartime on the other. The exhibition, on view from October 8, 2011, through May 28, 2012, in the MFA’s Rosemary Merrill Loring and Caleb Loring, Jr. Gallery of Textiles, features propaganda scarves from the collection of Museum benefactors Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf, as well as gifts from the Sharfs now in the MFA’s collection,