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A small fashion report

rachylou

Veteran

1.
I wore a silky blouse today. I was starting to wonder if they were a waste of space... but apparently it has just been a matter of weather. No pic ... I'm having hat hair, hehe. And my hat has seen its last days...

2.
I saw an 'old lady' in stompy boots, skinnies with rolled cuffs, a tee, and multiple earrings. This is how my work children dress. She looked seriously good, albeit she also seemed symptomatic of having done too much speed in days gone by. So... proof that age doesn't matter, but perhaps identity does. OR... Perhaps this is an Everyman look, and identity doesn't matter either.

3.
My mother says rolled cuffs were not stylish in the 50s. That this was a sign of poverty and that people didn't 'do style' - this is a modern thing. I am rethinking James Dean. Like I've missed some details about how deeply he upended things.

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18 replies

Latest reply was from rachylou

chirico (Chiara)

(website)

Veteran

Interesting reflections. The "silk blouse" thing happens to me with a lot of items. At least when I realize it is like finding a long lost love again!
No real comments on the other two points. I have to think about these.

Carla

Veteran

Maybe rolled cuffs (and possibly white undershirts worn as T's ?) in the 50's is like purposefully distressed fabrics today? Perhaps that is why so many of our mothers resisted our desire to wear jeans? They worked hard to get away from 'working class' clothing, and here we were wanting to co-opt the look? Is army surplus still in fashions? Remember the shoulder bags? My first purse.

I don't know about 'not doing style' but I think your mom is on to something, Rachylou.

1

rachylou

Veteran

Oh, yes. I think that is very insightful, Carla. That would make a lot of sense with regard to jeans.

Good question about army surplus. I know in my town the surplus is still there with the same cast of characters, just different people. But I don't know if the people there know their place in fashion history.

Ginger

Veteran

Yes, jeans were definitely working class. My mother and I just had a similar conversation last week. Her granddaddy owned a farm in Kansas, and he wore denim overalls all the time. His son, my grandad, grew up on the farm, but by the time my mother knew him he never wore overalls or jeans. When he worked with his hands (woodworking, yardwork, etc) he wore some other kind of slacks. But not denim.

Jules

Veteran

Runcarla, I saw someone (a peer doing the school run, actually) wearing a World Famous canvas army surplus bag the other day. I was a bit surprised. Also my first purse btw
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listin.....mous-purse

My mom, 72, just started wearing jeans. She's always had a personal aversion, not very well articulated. My dad, on the other hand talks about getting his first job so he could pay for the good jeans he had to have to fit in at high school vs. the lower-end ones his mother could afford... this was late 50s/early 60s suburban & working class Atlanta.

1

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

*chuckle*

Yay for warmer weather and blouses! Yay for being stylish at any age. And yay for our Mother's uncensored opinions about fashion and style that we can take or leave.

Adelfa

Veteran

Those silky blouses. For me they are too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. Perfect for transitional wear, in fact I'm wearing one today. How long is your Spring? Where I lived up north it was two weeks. Here it's longer but intermittent so I have to be careful to catch the right days.

milehighstyle (Linda)

Veteran

I don't think I've ever seen either of my parents in jeans. I remember when I was around 11 my school started having day trips when we didn't have to wear our uniforms and my Mom bought me red jeans because she didn't like blue jeans. My teacher felt sorry for me because I wasn't allowed to wear what all the other kids were wearing, but I liked my red jeans (though I also wanted blue jeans). Flash forward to today and I enjoy being the one wearing something different from everyone else, so thanks Mom, I guess.

Anonymous

My mother (born in 1918) and older sisters (born in the early '40s) never wore jeans, so you may be on to something. My youngest sister (now 70) always hemmed her pants too short, something that really bothered my mother, who was a stickler for PPL. I'm almost 55, and have embraced some looks that none of them would never have worn.

RoseandJoan

Veteran

Perhaps this comment by Jess Cartner Morley at the Guardian taps into your Mum's way of thinking

"The white tie and starched pinnies of Downton Abbey might have been a bind, but at least everyone knew where they stood. Dress codes have now been ditched for a kind of rampant individualism, in which dressing for any occasion – work, a party, lunch, the gym – is a contest with no rules, an every-man-for-himself brawl.

We have switched from a simple model of compliance to a likes-based fashion economy. We have ditched a system of dressing that offered security for all in favour of one that offers mobility for the talented and ambitious, but that allows others to fail quite spectacularly. There are no rules, and the struggle is real, man."
http://www.theguardian.com/fas.....ner-morley

rachylou

Veteran

Lol. Now that, Angie, is my mom to a T: unfettered opinion. Lol.

So interesting about jeans. That others have memories about them being...not ok. I myself didn't like them - or even pants in general - as a child, was much more conservative than my own mother. Lol.

And yes to that quote, Jules. I was raised Edwardian, as I say. Decorum was an anchor stone. What's interesting to me, in my Gen-x cohort in my home town - where all sorts of things were in full swing that are only now coming into their own in the US - I had and have many friends who've enjoyed my Edwardian knowledge rather a lot. Free falling can be...difficult.

Laura

It is very interesting that you brought up the rolled cuffs issue. I am seeing rolled cuffs at sooooooooo many stores this spring, for both men and women. Is rolled cuffs making a major comeback?

Gaylene

Veteran

*laughing* Oh, yes, women with unfettered opinions--a family tradition, which I'm destined to continue...

Several years ago, I read an article which posited the idea of a one generation gap in attitudes--kids rebel against their parents, but often find commonality with the personalities and ideas of their grandparents. It's the "I don't want to be/act/dress like my parents, but my grandparents are cool" syndrome.

I remember the author's advice to think of your child as though he or she was a younger version of your mother or father instead of yourself or your partner. An interesting, and even scary, thought!

Anonymous

Votre réponYes to everything I want to see your picture in your beautiful gown to give my opinionse

Liz

Veteran

I was reading a book last night, that mentioned a young who was in high school in the late 1930s. The anecdote noted that he was poor, couldn't begin to think of affording college, and "had only working clothes . . . he didn't even have a suit of clothes." So at that point, there was a very clear distinction between "working clothes" and a "suit of clothes" (whatever that was ...what we'd call a suit?) Everyone, apparently, except the very poor, had "real" clothes.

Today, there just isn't a distinction between what you'd wear for physical labor and what you'd wear to work in a cubicle or go out to dinner.

rachylou

Veteran

For some reason, all this talk of jeans reminds me of this one 'work day' we had at church in the 90s. I can't remember, maybe a fixit and gardening day. All the nuns and priests came out in jeans with rolled cuffs... it was so weird. Very, well, 1950s...

Jenn

(website)

Veteran

1. I just had the same experience with a silky blouse. Weird.

2. I want to be that woman, for reals.

3. I was looking at photos of James Dean and Elvis, shirtless in their jeans, and realized they look quite pasty and doughy for what we expect out of our male sex symbols now. The warping of realistic body image is real for guys too.

rachylou

Veteran

Oh, I that's very true IMO. The boys are infantilized just as much not to mention.