Remembering Poodle Skirts
What We Used to Wear
Are you old enough to remember when women wearing slacks in public was not good fashion sense? I remember Katherine Hepburn was one of the daring women who could pull it off. Once I became a teenager, we wore slacks outside. Then, it quickly became the fashion for young women my age to wear Levis. That would have been in the 1970s I guess.
I was ten years old when miniskirts became popular in the early 1960s. Many of the schools I went to insisted that our dresses be worn no higher than knee length and that slacks were not allowed for girls to wear.
Also, the dress codes at school said that we could not wear stockings. In those days, pantyhose had not been invented, and the stockings we wore at school dances still had the seam running down the back. We used garter belts to keep them up.
I also remember my father having something to say about those “bra burners.” Women who resisted wearing brassieres. It might have been fashionable, but in my house, it was not done. I can remember it wasn’t until I was a teenager that my mother stopped wearing dresses daily and switched to shorts and slacks.
I also never understood when she got dressed in her best Sunday clothes to go to the doctor, even if it was one of us kids who needed to be seen. That just never made sense to me.
It was my mother who told me about penny loafers. Did you ever wear them and put pennies in them? She also wore poodle skirts as a young woman. I never did have one, but I did love how they would swirl when you turned in circles like a ballerina.
My grandmother wore spectator shoes. These are shoes that are black and white or brown and white. I can’t remember if I had a pair of them, though as a young girl, I might have worn black and white oxfords. I can’t remember for sure about them.
These days, when I do get dressed, I choose to wear pants. On really hot days I switch to long skirts or caftans. That is a definite advantage of being retired. In my own eyes, I am busier than I ever was when I worked a 40-hour workweek. Now, I write all the time.
The advice I have for younger women? Don’t throw away any of your clothes if you can help it, no matter who is nagging you about it. I can remember stuff I wore that I wish I had kept if not to wear again 30 or 40 years later, then just for the material I could have used to make other things out of it. In fact, that’s what crazy quilts were made out of: your old clothes.
