With New Zealand Fashion Week in full swing last week, I started to think about all the weird and wonderful clothing I have worn over the years. I was born in the 40s so I have seen many changes in fashion, hairstyles and accessories.
I was lucky to have a mother who was quite a dab hand on the sewing machine. She really enjoyed whipping up something new for me to wear to different occasions.
Those days of glamourous balls were so exciting. My friends and I would spend literally hours doing our hair and getting ready. All the glitter and chiffon looked so pretty. Along with the beautiful dresses came the stiletto heels and the heavy makeup. Oh, and the backcombed hair, which would be adorned with a sparkly little hair piece or clasp or two. The music was great and it was something you could dance to. As I type this, I can just imagine the pretty ladies waltzing around with their beautiful dresses sweeping the polished floor. The men always looked smart in their tuxedos and their slicked back Brill-creamed hairstyles. Sometimes the ‘Old Spice’ they borrowed off their fathers was a bit overwhelming though!
I know that after I got home it was a total nightmare getting off all my makeup and the lacquer out of my hair. Often the next morning, I would have ‘panda eyes’ and find traces of mascara on the pillowslip. The petal hairdos were a total nightmare to sort out the next day. I am not sure if the young man who took me out the night before would have been very impressed by my ‘unglamourous’ state if he saw me the next morning. Over the years, I tried various hair colours as well. I recall being dared by one of the boys in the office to go blonde. I did. I then had dark brown hair and so after a long week and a very sore head, I finally reached blonde. I looked dreadful and quickly reverted back to being a brunette. I just about ruined my hair in the process. The things I did to impress a boy…
In the early sixties, I wore stiff petticoats so my skirts would stick out. My poor mother was forever starching them as I insisted they were not stiff enough. They must have been though because they certainly scratched my legs. How I managed to sit down wearing those petticoats, let alone ride my bike, is beyond me.
With the 60s came the 45 records. I used play them on our new radiogram (the one I coerced my father into buying). All my spare money went on records. On any given weekend, you would hear the sounds of Bobby Darin or Andy Williams floating out from our front room and you would find me and my friends dancing the night away. Often my Dad would join in, as he loved to dance. I think he was trying to recapture his ‘lost youth’. He had a weird and wonderful way of dancing which seemed to consist of hopping from one foot to another.
My brother was seven years older than I was and he thought himself pretty switched on with his white sports coat and slicked back hair. All my girlfriends had quite a crush on him. He would drive around most weekends in his little Ford Prefect trying to impress the girls.
My next fashion recollection is of tight, tight skirts that I would have worn in the late 60s. I recall trying to climb the steps to get on the bus and the bus driver often laughing at me, as I had to get up sideways. The things we put up with, just to be in fashion.
I liked to keep up with the shoe fashions as well and sometimes I wore winkle picker shoes. In order to stop the ends of the shoes turning up I had to stuff them with cotton wool. Unfortunately, the ends often got little holes in them, so they were very unpractical. High heels – how my father disliked them. They really did cause a lot of damage with the little metal caps denting our polished wooden floors at home. As I tottered around in them, I thought I looked so fashionable but honestly they were so uncomfortable and my feet have never been the same since. I used to scrunch my toes up, just to get enough grip to hold them on. I am certainly paying the price for that now. I guess you cannot always have fashion and comfort in the same box.
How times and fashion have changed. We do not travel overseas in our best clothes anymore; we do not backcomb our hair until its standing up on end. Generally, the shoes seem to be better made and more comfortable and clothes seem to be so much more versatile. Makeup is softer and I think much more feminine nowadays. In the days when some of us women wore loads of makeup we did think we looked great and I guess to be in fashion we had to follow the trends. Its all part of that thing called ‘progress’. Sometimes it is for the better and occasionally for the worse.
I loved the 50s to the 80s. The music and the fashions. There seemed to be less stress, and life was not quite as hectic as it is now.
Now we are in 2012, I have ‘nana naps’, I colour my hair to hide the ever-increasing whites, I suck on pain pills for my arthritis, and I am overweight. I am not as fit as I should be, I indulge in a little glass of wine with dinner (and chocolate), but hey I am happy.
Changes in life are inevitable, whether they are fashion or just within us, it is all part of moving forward. We cannot stay stagnant.
These days, the thought of buying a new lounge suite excites me. I love our old one that is around fifteen years old. It still looks good but it is time for a change and a bit of a lounge ‘spruce up’.
I remember going into my parents and grandparents houses and they had this sort of smell of something old about them. I do not want my house to smell like that. I want it to look fresh, clean, bright, and inviting. I am not saying my parents and grandparents homes were not inviting but they just seemed so old fashioned somehow.
I love modern clean lines, lots of white with added dashes of colour.
I also definitely need to de-clutter. I am a bit of a hoarder and a lot of the junk has made it to our garage. According to my husband, this has to go, garages are for cars, not junk. He is so right and we seem to have inherited a lot of our kids stuff. Actually, I seem to recall when I left home doing the same thing to my poor parents.
Anyway, it is spring. Time for spring-cleaning, time for freshening up the house and time for going through my wardrobe and cleaning out all the clothes I have been hanging on to in the hope I am going to be a size 14 again
Remembering who and what we once were is fun, but I am also quite happy to be here, being me.
By Kay Rayner
joyo76437 - 12 years ago
I love this story so true, i also was born in the 40’s and can relate to all of this. Yes the de-clutter especially.