I Remember Those Skirts! Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph features a young girl c.1920s wearing a short pleated skirt with straps. 

This  immediately  brought back memories of my childhood clothes in the 1950s.  My mother, Kathleen Weston, nee Danson  was a dressmaker, apprenticed to a tailor at the age of 14, so my Sunday coats  always had velvet collars, embroidered with flowers and a matching bonnet, and my "best" dresses usually had smocking.  

The uniform at my High school  for the first two years was such a skirt with straps, made by a local firm called  "Windsor Woolies"  I could not see any respecting modern  twelve year  old putting up with that style today.   I was about 13 before I "graduated" to a grown up skirt.

My brother and I  in 1948.  See the Peter Pan collars, smocking on his baby top and the cross stitching on my blouse   - all my mother's handiwork.   

I grew up in north west England where winters were relatively mild, but this was the days before tights and girls then did not wear trousers. Boys were stuck in short trousers until the milestone of their voices breaking. I have no winter photographs of my childhood - the camera must have been reserved for summer only.

But the ritual dress for going out in winter in my early 1950's was  - A Liberty bodice  (a fleeced form of underwear) over my vest, a pleated skirt with straps, worn with short socks, home knitted jumpers and a pixie hood, Wellington boots, gloves kept safe on a string through my coat sleeves, plus a long scarf criss-crossed over my chest and tied at the back.  I hated Liberty bodices - the rubber buttons were difficult to fasten and undo, and if the day got warmer, you ended up all sticky inside them.

Both my mother and aunt kept me in hand knitted jumpers and cardigans, though I remember being less than pleased around the age of 8 to open a Christmas present and realise it was a jumper - not a toy. A winter occupation was to help my mother unravel old knitwear and wind up  the balls of wool for re-knitting.  This was still the postwar era of "make do and mend". 

Party dresses were often taffeta with puff sleeves and a sash.  I longed to have a touch of luxury with  an angora fluffy wool bolero to wear over it in chilly weather - no central heating in those days.  But I never had one!  

Summer c.1950

Mum always made me a new sundress for holidays, with a matching little bolero jacket.  The one in the picture (right) was green and white - she was very fond of putting me in green and it still features a lot in my wardrobe today. Dresses were often gingham, with white Peter Pan collars and the standard footwear was a pair of brown Clark's sandals with the cut-out flower.  

In my teens in the late 1950's, the big fashion statement was to have a "puffy out skirt" - the more petticoats and the more puffed out the better, to wear with a waspie black belt. It was a disaster when the petticoats went all floppy after too many washes.  I also recollect  a lilac and white gingham dress trimmed with broderie anglais - made popular by a young Bridget Bardot. 

Other memories into the 60's were of shirt waister dresses, pinafore dresses,  plastic macs, awful plastic hoods called rainmates,  baby doll pyjamas -  and summer duster coats.  Why  were they so called, as  I could not see women dusting the furniture in them.  Apparently they originated from loose garments worn  to protect clothes when driving  in early open-topped motor cars.     

When I started university, the first thing I bought from my grant was a hooded duffle  coat to dress the part of a 1960's student.  
 

Then mini skirts came in and I joined in the fun!

I liked wearing pinafore dresses and had a variety of colours in my wardrobe - here photographed against Inverary Castle, ancestral home of the Campbell clan in west Scotland, 1971. 

 

Another favrouite  green dress, photographed in St. James' Park, London, 1971. 

 

 

I was still wearing a pleated skirt in the 1980s but in this case  as a kilt,  when I worked in the local tourist information centre network.   It  helped that kilts happened to  be fashion items at the time,  with black watch tartan all the rage. This tartan was Douglas. 

 

Uniform  fashions have changed so much  and the trend now is very casual - purple polo shirts and grey fleeces - with no sign of tartan.  Whoever chose grey must have been colour blind  - to think  that it provides a good welcoming first impression to visitors,  when so much of Scotland is often sitting  under grey skies!   I am glad I worked  in earlier times in a uniform that made me feel smart and professional.  

 

 

 

But little pleated skirts with straps remained popular  for my daughter - straps unfortunately  hidden here, but she remained on 1970's trend   with her colourful tank top, knitted by my aunt.

 

 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  

  to share their family history and memories through photographs

 

 

   

Click HERE  to see how other Sepia Saturday blogger 

have related their family stories this week.

 

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