happy memories of clothes

[sunflower]

The other day,I was talking with my friend at work about clothes we remembered in our childhood and teenage years. We were surprised to find that both of us had an angora bolero knitted for us when we were toddlers in an identical pattern!! We also seemed to remember details of what clothes we wore.We came to the conclusion that, in our days(we are over 50) buying a new dress or pair of shoes was an 'event' not like now where, a top or a pair of jeans will be in the same trolley as the food! and that a complete outfit can be bought for £20 or even under nowadays.
Did you have a special dress as a child? Do you remember your first shoes that had a heel? Mine were fake crocadile shoes with a heel. Howabout the 'shift dresses' of the sixties? Did you make your own? From the age of 13, I could make a shift in one evening and wear it the next! I could make one from one and half yards of material if I skimped on the seams and usually cost me about 14s.6d Lovely memories. What are yours?

[keepersdaughter]

Sunflower, when I was young, pre-teen years, I remember always getting a special birthday dress, with lots of net underneath to pouff it out. New shoes too. Always had a new outfit to wear for Christmas. I too used to make many of my own clothes. We had an old Singer treadle sewing machine that had belonged to my grandmother. (I loved that old machine). It was kept out in the hall, which wasn't heated, nor was the rest of the house for that matter until just before we moved, and my fingers used to get cold. (stone floors) Only a coal fire in the living room. We had needlework classes at school where I learned the basics, then I used to babsit on a Friday night, then off to the market early saturday morning to look for material and a pattern. I used to knock a shift dress out over the weeked. Usually had a chain belt slung around my hips which was popular at the time. We didn't have much so having a new outfit made it even more special, even if it was homemade.

When my daughter was little I sometimes made her little dresses, usually a special one for church at Easter. I just bought myself a new sewing machine, not too fancy it does the basic stitches, so I'm looking forward to doing some craft type projects over the winter.

[sunflower]

Oh, thanks for reminding me Keepersdaughter, I'd forgot about the chain belts. My Gran made my cousin and I a dress each out of material that looked like bubbly black leather, and I used to wear a chain belt with that. Most of my clothes I made by hand, although Gran had an electric sewing machine. I was too scared of it because it was always going seriously wrong like......blue lights coming out of it and smoke! and yet my Gran still used it. In fact she made my beautiful hippy type wedding dress and my five bridesmaids dresses on that scary machine.!!!

[Oola]

My mum used to occasionally make me clothes, although because I was a child of the 80s, clothes shopping even then was different. I am quite keen to learn to make my own clothes, I've got a weekly knitting night lined up with my grandmother when I can find a pattern, and I'm thinking about maybe attending dressmaking classes.

I think the classiness of everyday wear has gone out the window now, it's all about comfort. I mean, I do like to wear my jeans and a top and jumper, or wear a skirt, flip flops and vest top in the summer (I love 'surf wear' too), but I feel like my generation is really missing out. It's all a bit tarty now, the class and elegance seems to have vanished really. Some of the 60s-inspired fashions that have come back in are nice (although I'm not a stick and can't wear them all), but the cuts and femininity of the 40s and 50s would be welcome in my book too! Thank goodness I was a child of the 80s and essentially didn't have control over the GHASTLY outfits I used to wear. I had an aqua, pink and white shellsuit that made me look like a tube of toothpaste.

As for clothes and memories, well I still have a cat t-shirt that I had when I was under 10, I still keep the top I wore the day I met Rich, as well as a few items in my wardrobe that I refuse to part with because of the era from my life they represent. In particular when I was at my very slimmest (due to A-Levels stress, so not much fun) I got into a really nice pair of Levi jeans which I've kept in the vain hope that one day I'll be able to fit into them again. They've been hanging there since I was 18 and as I approach my 25th birthday I still can't get into them.... ah well!

[franbee]

My Auntie, a dressmaker, made most of my clothes when I was young, school uniform, gaberdine coats, the lot, but not lots of 'casual' wear. I always wanted a dress with a flouncy skirt and stiff petticoats like my cousin wore, but never got one and then they disappeared. I remember Mum taking me to a ladies outfitters when I was about 10 and buying me a dress, cotton sleeveless patterned with a dropped waistline, and a high collar in a pale orange colour. How I loved that dress, I bet it was quite expensive and they could probably ill afford it. Once I was 11 or 12 I started making clothes in needlework classes at school, then there was no stopping me, skirts, shift dresses, getting shorter and shorter as the minis were in then. Made my wedding dress and bridesmaid's dress, and many things since, jackets, a duffle coat, trousers and so on. Nowadays I seldom make garments from scratch, they are so cheap to buy, but usually have to alter hems and sleeve lengths, and often customise clothes with trims, or add ribbon belts. Fran.

[Sparrow]

My mum trained as a seamstress before WWII and could copy the latest fashions at the drop of a hat. This came in handy, as I was always tall and regular kids clothes were always half mast on me. Mum loved velvet, and every Christmas she would make me a new velvet dress "for best". I had an adorable bottle green one when I was about 8, but it had a hideously scratchy lace colour on it. Mum didn't believe me until I showed her my red skin the first time I wore it.

She also made me crimplene (yikes) hotpants in turquoise blue and floaty long dresses for Christmas parties. I was the total envy of my friends. Unfortunately I hate sewing clothes, and still battle with being tall and nothing fitting.

[SummerSkye]

My ex husband made all my clothes for me in the 60's and 70's. I couldn't sew, still can't! My clothes were very trendy and I was the envy of all my friends. He even made my wedding outfit which was a very short pale blue suit; he even made my ear rings hand painted from ping pong balls!! I had long floaty dresses too, micro minis and hotpants. I just had to show him an outfit in a store window or magazine and he could copy it with no pattern. Truly amazing. He is still turning out amazing things but never makes clothes these days.

[eleanor2]

and a bright pink poncho.i never had a new dress.4 older sisters.i even had my mums brown school slip i think they were called.with a brown girdle belt.my mum always made sure we were clean and tidy though.cus we never had posh clothes we were allowed to run riot in play.so you can't have everything.i remember buying my daughter a beautiful hand made dress.i paid for it weekly.times have changed hav'nt they.

[gothfairy]

The part in Franbee's thread re being taken to a 'ladies outfitters' reminded me of such a shop I used to be taken into as a young teenager, for my first bra, for stockings, my mother for her Playtex girdles. It was a shop where the two lady owners seemed to speak in whispers when discussing 'items of underclothing'. Now I don't know if this was for my benefit or if they always spoke of them like that, but the look of the place and the smell, have been brought back by those words of Franbee's.
As for clothes, my mother used to make a lot of mine when I was a child, and her own also, the latter into her fifties. If not sewing, then she had knitting on the go. I have made skirts for myself, the occasional pair of baggy trousers, little pyjamas for my boys when they were toddlers. At school in the early sixties we were taught the basics of sewing and my mother taught me knitting when I was younger in the fifties. But I remember the treat of being taken for a new dress or pair of shoes, now, as someone else has already said, it's just pick it up in passing, shove it in trolley, what's special about that?

[sheddie]

I wore hot pants too and do I happen to have mentioned my 1960's Noddy Dress?

[Crocus]

Good old hot pants - also wore that at one stage loooong time ago. My mum used to make me and sister's clothes and later on even her own. Each year before we would go on our long summer holiday break, I would get 4 of 5 new dresses. I had one or 2 dresses for sunday school and church, and you didn't dare to ware it any place else! I remember my mum also made me a real tartan skirt! I also had a Romeo and Juliet dress, long flowing sleeves, princess style dress with braids. I had long hare at the time and sometimes I really felt like Juliet! Do you remember pinafores? I made my dress when we got engaged (about a hundred years ago?) but my wedding dress a relative aunt made - which I only realised much later was in the medieval style! Lots of small buttons at the back, from the top right down to the bottom. Covered in the same material as the dress.

[jazzactivist]

Mums used to be so handy with a needle and treadle didn't they? I remember my mum making my younger sister and I identical outfits in the 60s - Yurk! They tended to be short, pleated, tartan skirts with straps and white knitted jumpers underneath. Later on shift dresses, and in the 70s she made me a denim trouser suit that I was really proud of - all on her Singer treadle. I also had a white angora bolero which was unbearably tickly! Then my mum got a knitting machine and churned out flourescent sweaters by the 100...

When I was a teenager, in the mid-late 70s, I made a lot of my own clothes - by then we had an electric sewing machine and clothes were quite unstructured. I loved maxi dresses and cheesecloth tops, and then customised my own punk outfits. I also managed to knit a particularly useful purple fluffy halter top and stuffed the front with socks to pad it out! One of my best hauls was when my mum opened an old suitcase and let me have some of the clothes that she had worn in the 1940s and 50s. They were so elegant, and I loved wearing the evening dresses with thick trainers and a balaclava or trilby hat. I thought that I looked so punky and trendy.

When I was young I was very interested in fashion, but couldn't afford to buy an awful lot so it was a case of making and adapting what I could. Now I don't make any of my clothes, but every now and again I do get a wee yearning. There is nothing like being complimented on an outfit that you have made yourself.

[dinger]

memories of skirts with layers of frilly petticoats pretty suspender belts holding up stockings and pointed high heeled stilettos .very girlie and feminine.

[sunflower]

Oh I remember the socks and hankies stuffed down my front when I was eleven.