2019 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

CapricornLass

I too have found my mind-set has changed. Partly this is because I retired last year, so I don't need to think about clothes for work, but I still have so many clothes in my wardrobe. I think I will have to have another cull.


I have been looking at clothes catalogues too, and the internal dialogue has gone something like this:
Oh wow - look at that! I really like that. I think I will get that.

Yes - but when would you wear it?


Still, its fun looking!

PollyWollyDoodle

Yep, I know that conversation CapricornLass! I've mentioned it before, but one of my 'rules' before buying something new has always been 'think of three places you'll wear it and three things you own that it will go with'. It's surprising how many things don't make it out of the shop after that.

Got myself some new (to me) jeans yesterday, amazingly I only had to try on two pairs to find some that fitted. £4.99 from a charity shop, so they are coupon free and guilt-free - I'm sticking to my resolution never to buy brand-new jeans again.

Laura_Elsewhere

We went out tonight for the first time in months, and I wore clothes I already owned, but put together with more thought than usual - dark green skirt, bright green short-sleeved blouse, smoky-blue little fitted cardigan half-buttoned - and I felt that i looked really nice. Normally I feel fairly shapeless and sacklike but sort of hope to do the best with what I'm stuck with, but tonight I really felt that I looked nice, and I felt pretty and well-dressed - without spending any new coupons!

Also, it was kind of a road-test of the sort of outfit I plan to actively work towards, of blouses and skirts with little cardigans, so I'm pleased it felt so nice and trim and neat!

Hurrah for no coupon-spending!

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

We went out tonight for the first time in months, and I wore clothes I already owned, but put together with more thought than usual - dark green skirt, bright green short-sleeved blouse, smoky-blue little fitted cardigan half-buttoned - and I felt that i looked really nice. Normally I feel fairly shapeless and sacklike but sort of hope to do the best with what I'm stuck with, but tonight I really felt that I looked nice, and I felt pretty and well-dressed - without spending any new coupons!

Also, it was kind of a road-test of the sort of outfit I plan to actively work towards, of blouses and skirts with little cardigans, so I'm pleased it felt so nice and trim and neat!

Hurrah for no coupon-spending!

Sounds like a lovely outfit.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Wish me luck, folks! This afternoon I'm tackling that jacket lining...

I've got the new lining fabric - coupon-free last year as it's second-hand vintage curtain material from eBay (although I'm not convinced it is curtains; I think it is really good old lining material that someone maybe used as hanging screens, flat, maybe over cupboard shelves or suchlike - there's no sign of its ever having been gathered in any way).
I've got the threads to match the blue-grey tweed, and the copper-rose and dark-green of the geometric-woven lining - and those are all second-hand or were Gran's, so no new buying there either!
I've got my good shears for cutting out.
I've got tailor's chalk for marking, and pins for pinning (!).
And I reckon there's pretty much enough shredded lining surviving for me to un-pick it out and use it as a pattern to cut the new pieces. I may have to deduce a bit at the sleeve-head but it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm hoping to get enough to do all the lining, but if there isn't quite enough, then I have some modern rust-coloured lining fabric which would do, I suppose, for the sleeves, although I'd much rather be able to use up all the gorgeous copper-rose-and-dark-green lining!

Now to get all the baking and housework and laundry done by about 3pm, so I can crack on and get it all cut out, and then spend the evening hand-sewing!

PipneyJane

Ever since I binge-watched Father Brown a couple of months ago, I have been thinking a lot about how to define that classic "British" look: the artfully "effortless", quietly elegant, twinset-and-pearls look that was associated with the Sloane Ranger back in the 1980's but has been around for much, much longer. I think it dates back to Hollywood and the 1930's, possibly even earlier (Coco Chanel and the 1920's). Some people do the look without thinking but, I've had to work it out from scratch. Stupidly, it's taken me a long time to nail down the components and I think there are three main "looks".

The essential components are:-

1. A hip-length tweed jacket
2. Matching skirt and/or trousers
3. The twin-set: a crew-necked cashmere cardigan with matching short-sleeved jumper
4. Chinos and/or well-fitted jeans
5. A crisp white shirt

(The tweed jacket is long enough to cover your tummy but short enough to rest flat on your body when you are sitting down.)

The first look is the twin-set* and a tweed/plaid skirt or trousers, possibly with the tweed jacket instead of or supplementary to the cardigan. (When I first came to London, I saw a lot of women wearing cardigans under their jackets, on colder mornings.) The knitwear is chosen to either contrast with the tweed or to pick out a colour from it. Either way, the jumper is always the same colour as the cardigan.

The second is a variant on the "horsey look", i.e. based on a riding jacket and jodhpurs, and may be labelled "preppy" instead. The jacket can be single-breasted tweed or double-breasted navy blue flannel. The trousers can be Jodhpurs, chinos or jeans. (You may be able to get away with fitted, linen trousers, so long as they are in a shade from the tweed jacket.) Shoes are almost inevitably boots or loafers. The top is either a crisply ironed, white shirt worn with the jacket or a plain white t-shirt. If wearing jeans, an alternative would be to wear a blue chambray shirt instead of a white one. Naturally, a twinset can be worn instead.

The third look is the cardigan from the twin-set worn over a summer dress. This is a classic look from the 1950's. The dress is made from printed cotton fabric, often floral. The cardigan is often worn with a single button done up at the neck and should be in one of the colours from the print of the dress.

Jewellery for all three looks is subtle, which is where the string of pearls nestling on the collar bone comes into its own. It never looks bling.

What do you think? Have I got it right?

- Pip




* Remember, I'm an Australian, although I've lived more than half my life in the UK. The entire concept of a "twin set" was weird to me, growing up. I couldn't understand why anyone would wear a short sleeved jumper in spring/summer; surely, they would get too hot?

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Wish me luck, folks! This afternoon I'm tackling that jacket lining...

I've got the new lining fabric - coupon-free last year as it's second-hand vintage curtain material from eBay (although I'm not convinced it is curtains; I think it is really good old lining material that someone maybe used as hanging screens, flat, maybe over cupboard shelves or suchlike - there's no sign of its ever having been gathered in any way).
I've got the threads to match the blue-grey tweed, and the copper-rose and dark-green of the geometric-woven lining - and those are all second-hand or were Gran's, so no new buying there either!
I've got my good shears for cutting out.
I've got tailor's chalk for marking, and pins for pinning (!).
And I reckon there's pretty much enough shredded lining surviving for me to un-pick it out and use it as a pattern to cut the new pieces. I may have to deduce a bit at the sleeve-head but it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm hoping to get enough to do all the lining, but if there isn't quite enough, then I have some modern rust-coloured lining fabric which would do, I suppose, for the sleeves, although I'd much rather be able to use up all the gorgeous copper-rose-and-dark-green lining!

Now to get all the baking and housework and laundry done by about 3pm, so I can crack on and get it all cut out, and then spend the evening hand-sewing!

Good luck, Laura! I can't wait to see the results.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

PipneyJane wrote: »

Ever since I binge-watched Father Brown a couple of months ago, I have been thinking a lot about how to define that classic "British" look: the artfully "effortless", quietly elegant, twinset-and-pearls look that was associated with the Sloane Ranger back in the 1980's but has been around for much, much longer. I think it dates back to Hollywood and the 1930's, possibly even earlier (Coco Chanel and the 1920's). Some people do the look without thinking but, I've had to work it out from scratch. Stupidly, it's taken me a long time to nail down the components and I think there are three main "looks".

The essential components are:-

1. A hip-length tweed jacket
2. Matching skirt and/or trousers
3. The twin-set: a crew-necked cashmere cardigan with matching short-sleeved jumper
4. Chinos and/or well-fitted jeans
5. A crisp white shirt

(The tweed jacket is long enough to cover your tummy but short enough to rest flat on your body when you are sitting down.)

The first look is the twin-set* and a tweed/plaid skirt or trousers, possibly with the tweed jacket instead of or supplementary to the cardigan. (When I first came to London, I saw a lot of women wearing cardigans under their jackets, on colder mornings.) The knitwear is chosen to either contrast with the tweed or to pick out a colour from it. Either way, the jumper is always the same colour as the cardigan.

The second is a variant on the "horsey look", i.e. based on a riding jacket and jodhpurs, and may be labelled "preppy" instead. The jacket can be single-breasted tweed or double-breasted navy blue flannel. The trousers can be Jodhpurs, chinos or jeans. (You may be able to get away with fitted, linen trousers, so long as they are in a shade from the tweed jacket.) Shoes are almost inevitably boots or loafers. The top is either a crisply ironed, white shirt worn with the jacket or a plain white t-shirt. If wearing jeans, an alternative would be to wear a blue chambray shirt instead of a white one. Naturally, a twinset can be worn instead.

The third look is the cardigan from the twin-set worn over a summer dress. This is a classic look from the 1950's. The dress is made from printed cotton fabric, often floral. The cardigan is often worn with a single button done up at the neck and should be in one of the colours from the print of the dress.

Jewellery for all three looks is subtle, which is where the string of pearls nestling on the collar bone comes into its own. It never looks bling.

What do you think? Have I got it right?

- Pip




* Remember, I'm an Australian, although I've lived more than half my life in the UK. The entire concept of a "twin set" was weird to me, growing up. I couldn't understand why anyone would wear a short sleeved jumper in spring/summer; surely, they would get too hot?

(EDIT: this is one of the worst posts I've ever written, totally rambling, but I'll leave it up in case bits are helpful. Some of it I've written w/ref to accurate 1950s looks, and other parts w/ref to 1980s looks, argh... you probably wanted to think about 21st century looks...! Sorry...)


I'd say you've got it right if you want to look like you're doing a rather stagey kind of play, and are walking round town in costume, a bit over-done, handing out flyers for it...!


I think, and it is only my opinion, so it isn't necessarily any more right than yours! But I think that you maybe want to look at what went before, because the 1950s looks you're talking about are partially derived from being able to afford the new styles from designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Dior, but also partially derived from being the sort of people brought up to spend vast amounts of time and money to look that effortlessly well-groomed, and part of that goes to the inter-war years which are possibly the most inexplicable bit of British history to anyone unfamiliar with it all, because it's when the class structure implodes to an extent.

OK, are you sitting comfortably?

You have two world wars, the 1914-18 and the 1939-45. Before the first war, the middle class is only medium-sized, and the working class is huge, and the upper class is small and largely based around old-money ie land and status.
After the first war, instead of an actual revolution, we had a very British revolution in social terms. From the outside, much stayed the same, but in reality... for a start, two millions "surplus women" whose potential husbands had died in the war - and because junior officers were disproportionately killed (in part, due to the principle of leading your men 'going over the top' so being most likely to be killed), there were more middle-class women in these surplus women - and they had been brought up to marry, and so had no idea how to earn a living... suddenly, they have to.
Working class women had their own drastic changes - during the 1914-18 war they had quietly got on and done many men's jobs including dangerous and heavy work, largely ignored by modern people because the outfits aren't as sexy as Rosie the Riveter. They fought fires - in long skirts - and all kinds of things... but then come 1918, they were instantly booted out of their jobs in order for men to come back into their old jobs, even if the woman had done it better. The men who came back maimed were often very badly disturbed, of course. So many working class women were pretty frustrated, being back at home after enjoying working, and with the company of a damaged and untreated shell-shocked husband.
Meanwhile, the upper classes... well, on the one hand many had lost most of their income, as their investments had been in Russia or France or Germany before 1914, and other estates went bankrupt because of multiple death duties - the father died in battle, so the estate paid Death Duties and it passed to the heir, who then died six months later, so pay more DD and it goes to the second son, who then dies of fever in a battlefield hospital, more DD and on to some cousin or other who then shoots himself from shellshock... some estates were paying Death Duties three or four or six times in the war years. Very little left for anyone to inherit in the end - and some entailed estates were broken up after all male heirs were killed.
BUT... apart from losing their stately homes or living on smaller incomes, by and large the elite were much less effected by the first world war - they continued to travel to the South of France, to America... think Jeeves & Wooster! In addition, the young officers who survived adopted a reckless way of living, and their fast set in London was the Bright Young Things who lived every day as if it were their last and behaved in ways that make the 1960s stories of the Rolling Stones look like a Sunday School... sex and drugs, long before rock and roll...

so there was a huge amount of resentment simmering. The Depression hit middle and working classes hard - it did hit the upper class but in the way that equated to, "well, only the three trips to New York this year, darling".

That's part of what lies behind the British tendency to sneer at the upper classes and deride them - and it's why the Sloan Ranger look you mention was never, ever, ever, ever a style anyone wanted to look like, ime! I'm very amused that you even mention Sloan Rangers, as even at the time the name was derogatory and mocking, and certainly not anything copied by anyone except those who wanted to look like Lady Di - which, to be fair, was probably a bit of the fashion magazines, thinking back, but only briefly during the engagement and wedding, so 1980-81, really.

I hope that's not too negative, but...

I dunno - it's certainly much more complicated - the twin-set was widely worn by virtually all middle-class women, partly because of dreadful heating - and you wore them in winter, because of course you were layering - nowadays people think one thick jumper is warm, but they knew about warmth in those days and would probably have worn a fine wool vest next the skin, then the short-sleeved jumper, then the long-sleeved cardigan, effectively turning it into a long-sleeved top with two vests under it! Layering without bulk.

The tweed jacket - well, more usually that would be worn with a tweed skirt. The "coat and skirt" was an outfit in itself, and the jacket usually kept on indoors - and you'd probably, if well-off, have finer tweeds for the city in different colours, and rougher tweeds for the country. That';s totally separate from the horsey look, which would only really be worn when going riding - much like you wouldn't have worn a tracksuit in the 1950s unless you were going running!

I'm being horribly rambling in this post - I do apologise, it's been a long day!

The cardigan over a floral cotton frock - well, working class women were wearing that between the wars, and it almost certainly wouldn't be the cardigan from a twin-set, because the kind of woman who wore light cotton floral frocks wouldn't wear twin-sets, and vice versa!

Twin-sets by the 1950s are for married women, especially older ones. Light floral cotton frocks are very much a young woman's dress, an unmarried one especially, almost like a teenage fashion. You see photos of woman with young babies, and the women are wearing the big-skirted 50s summer frocks, but once the children get to school age, the skirt and jumper takes over, really. I'm racking my brains, and no doubt someone will find a hoard of online photos to prove me wrong! But I can't think of any adult women, as opposed to younger women, in those frocks, or younegr women in twin-sets in that way...

I think one of the problems is that Father Brown has fun with the costumes - and bear in mind that Bunty, especially, is dressed in flamboyant and nearly shocking styles. Some of the later episodes get a bit tiresome with the shoe-horning of modern behaviour or tropes into the 1950s, and I think they're having a lot of fun with Bunty's clothes.

But for any woman over about 25 or 30, I'd say they'd be more likely to wear a dress and cardigan like Mrs McCarthy, and in fact also like Lady Felicia - difference being in details, hats, gloves, shoes esp heel height, and so on.
And for the majority of women on lower incomes, middle class especially, skirt and jumper/cardigan over blouse...

Laura_Elsewhere

I think i need an editor...

Laura_Elsewhere

PipneyJane wrote: »

Ever since I binge-watched Father Brown a couple of months ago, I have been thinking a lot about how to define that classic "British" look: the artfully "effortless", quietly elegant, twinset-and-pearls look that was associated with the Sloane Ranger back in the 1980's but has been around for much, much longer. I think it dates back to Hollywood and the 1930's, possibly even earlier (Coco Chanel and the 1920's). Some people do the look without thinking but, I've had to work it out from scratch. Stupidly, it's taken me a long time to nail down the components and I think there are three main "looks".

The second is a variant on the "horsey look", i.e. based on a riding jacket and jodhpurs, and may be labelled "preppy" instead. The jacket can be single-breasted tweed or double-breasted navy blue flannel. The trousers can be Jodhpurs, chinos or jeans. (You may be able to get away with fitted, linen trousers, so long as they are in a shade from the tweed jacket.) Shoes are almost inevitably boots or loafers. The top is either a crisply ironed, white shirt worn with the jacket or a plain white t-shirt. If wearing jeans, an alternative would be to wear a blue chambray shirt instead of a white one. Naturally, a twinset can be worn instead.


Jewellery for all three looks is subtle, which is where the string of pearls nestling on the collar bone comes into its own. It never looks bling.

I think what you're describing here is more an Americanised look - certainly something I think of as what very wealthy Americans in the early 80s wore, which was then copied by the UK fashion magazines... Christie Brinkley, people like that. Probably traced directly back to the tailored style of American stars like Katharine Hepburn.

The blue jacket I would call a blazer, I think.

Like this, you mean? Princess Diana and Kate Middleton...