In the 1960s, women’s clothing was often characterized by dresses, skirts, and high heels. The ideal female body image was the hourglass figure, and women’s clothing often accentuated this shape. However, as women began to gain more freedom and independence, their attitudes about dressing started to change.
Today, the emphasis is on comfort and personal expression, and women are no longer confined to wearing traditionally feminine clothing. Many women choose to wear pants, sneakers, and other casual clothing, and there is a growing movement towards gender-neutral fashion.
And as we see today, most women do not try to conform to a single idealized body image. This has led to a wider range of fashion options for women, including plus-size clothing and clothing designed for women with different body shapes.
When I was a little girl, the major source of my clothing was via my cousin. If she grew that season then I would come to visit and see folded nicely on a chair the latest new clothes for me. Of course they were technically hand me downs but my aunt took such good care of my cousin’s things that they were as close to new as possible. without a stain on them, even though worn by a little girl, starched when they had to be, and folded carefully.
I loved those hand me downs. One reason was that I thought my cousin, who was two years old than I, was beautiful, much prettier than I. She had straight almost black hair that shone in the right light and I had medium brown hair that wanted to be messy and curly but was only messy. I had had my tonsils out when I was two and my mom said the ether had taken away my beautiful soft curls and left me with basically a mess of hair, never quite right.
Let me mention at this point in my essay on clothing that already I’m talking about a different world than you and I live in now. For one thing, washing clothes was in and of itself difficult. When we lived in an apartment my mother had a washing machine. Oh no, it was nothing like you know now. It was a container into which water was taken from the sink in a hose hookup, as hot as possible and then one stirred that mess of laundry round and round until you were exhausted. Then you emptied the water and did more rounds of turning and turning the water that was now cold, as you had to rinse the clothes still full of soap. Finally in exhaustion you emptied the tub and now began the adventure of hanging out the wash.
Every apartment had access to a rope line. Some lines were hanging from one tree to another. Others were hanging from fire escapes, so you had to take your clothes pins and yourself and your wet laundry in a basket and stand on a metal fire escape where you wouldn’ want to look done as it was designed to run down stairs in a fire, made out of iron and you could look down through all the openings.
That’s the way it was when I was little, at our apartment. My aunt had a house and more money than us and so she had to stand in her back yard with a rope that went around tree trunks.
Most mattresses had lurking bed bugs waiting to attack. My mother had to actually drag their mattress out on the fire escape often to air out. I’m sure my dad tried to help. But it was still WWar11 and he worked as a teacher during the day and worked a shift in a factory at night as his part in the war effort, so I’m not sure he had much strength to help my mom. I’m sure my mom appreciated those hand me downs for other reasons also. It meant she had a bit more money for food. Everyone had ration books for food, so if you got some extra money then maybe you could buy some ice cream or a new slip or a bra or nylon stockings.
When I was about 10, I no longer lived in the shadow of my cousin’s clothes. That stopped because my cousin stopped growing. I was sad when the piles of clothes disappeared. But the world of clothes had changed amazingly in just a few years. The 50s were just around the corner and real washing machines had appeared.
We had a washing machine and had moved to a house. The washing machine cleaned and rinsed the clothes and all that was left was to hang them out to dry. It was kind of a miracle but not so good for us kids as we often got the chore of hanging out the wash and folding it later. But even worse was the fact that school clothes, unless you had a uniform, were made mostly out of cotton that got wrinkled very easily and most of the pretty dresses that we wore even through high school were hard to keep looking nice. Many of them required being starched and then ironing them.
You could easily spend 3 or 4 hours a week on keeping your clothes nice. Most of us girls took on keeping our own clothes starched and ironed I would say by 9 years old unless there was a maid. Even a stay at home mother needed help with the ironing and starching and careful washing of clothes, the polishing of shoes every night, the sewing on of buttons that fell off and of often the making of clothes with a Singer sewing machine and patterns. Clothes were too expensive to not keep nice .
Dresses were mandatory, or a skirt and blouse. Shoes were leather and easily got dirty. The book bag you carried 6 books in at night from school was made out of leather and had to be polished at least weekly.
The materials we rely on in dressing did not exist yet and the code of dressing was clear as a bell: your school clothes had to be in excellent condition. You changed into play clothes at home. Clothes had to last until you grew out of them. Kids had to help with all this upkeep. Mom was busy cooking from scratch, feeding a baby or keeping the vegetable garden. No excuses please!
Sometimes I miss the ‘Good old days’ as most of us do. In terms of my clothes as a woman I miss, but with a chuckle, the skirts all of us girls wore in the sixth grade, made out of felt with a felt animal on the front. And I laugh even harder remembering that those skirts were replaced by crinolines to go under your good dresses. Once I was wearing three crinolines under my dress for the school dance, I had had it. I was done washing and starching extra underwear that just made me look fat.Thankfully, Soon that fashion was gone. But on the other hand I miss the fine materials that women’s clothes were made out of. Of course there was cotton, but there was also lots of velvet and cashmere and chiffon and linen and crepe and canvas and gingham and jersey and hand made lace and satin and silk andTaffeta and I could go on. And these fabrics were not just for the rich. They were used by all if they were the fabric of choice for that clothing garment. My little skirt when I was six and took ballet was made out of the most lovely soft purple taffeta. My best blouse when I was 4 was made out of purple velvet that was amazing to touch and and trimmed with hand made lace.
There were no cheap replacements. On the other hand, by the seventh grade my wool sweater was trimmed with real fur. Was that necessary or was that the underside of fashion?
Again, in my book ‘The Girls Down the Hall’, in 1960 cotton was still mostly for bed linens. My characters dressed in fine fabrics as that was the only option. Ginger, one of my characters, loved her trench coat that was made out of a fine canvas that you could move in. It came down to her ankles and had a million pockets, a stunning brass belt, and made her feel like she had been a spy saving the western world in the last romantic movie she had seen.
I hope you have enjoyed this adventure into our wardrobes with me. One last difference, most of us have a ton of clothes. In the past closet space was limited and women had less clothes that lasted longer and were made out of finer material . Which way of dressing would you pick if you had a choice?
