2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

florianatwobob

Cherryfudge said:

My Mum had a similar wartime story: she hated the National Loaf so much she would never even try brown bread as an adult which I think is a shame as she missed some marvellous tastes and textures.

My dad was similar over brown bread. He’d only eat white bread as he (and I quote) “wasn’t a navvy”. One of the few things he was snooty about! 

I’m glad your mum had pretty dresses later in life, there are times when only a dress will do!

Cherryfudge

florianatwobob said:

I’m glad your mum had pretty dresses later in life, there are times when only a dress will do!

I'm sure she felt strongly about that! She wouldn't even let me wear trousers till I was well into my teens!

She did know how to dress to suit her and she never lacked something nice to wear while I knew her.

Liverpool_Anne

It does explain a lot about our parents attitude to clothes I suppose. My Mum had lots of clothes when she died, many I can remember from my childhood. I can't remember her ever getting rid of any clothes. Although my parents weren't wealthy both always looked smart and Mum always looked after her clothes. She loved a nice dress and her winter coat was wool, she actually had 2, 1 for every day going to the shop etc and 1for best, both were hung up properly on a hanger. She also loved a colourful silk, (polyester), scarf and had several of those she rotated. Both of my parents had desperate childhoods so it does make me happy that they were able to have some nice things when they were grown up. This was undoubtedly due to my Mum's ability to make a penny stretch to a pound as 1 of my aunt's told me in admiration .

Laura_Elsewhere

Cherryfudge said:

She also told me she only had one dress through the war (I got the impression her Mum was in control of the coupons and as I remember Grandma was a tiny woman, bird-like: perhaps she had the use of the coupons intended for Mum?) I think Mum had skirts and blouses but later in life she had a lot of dresses, mostly pretty. flowery things. I'm as sure as I can be that she was making up for that one wartime dress.

To be fair to your Grandma, making a late-30s/40s-style dress for a girl needs a lot more fabric than a skirt and blouse does, and typically the dress fabric would be flimsier, last much less well, fade and so on. Also, remember the child's 76 coupons had to cover school clothes as well. Skirts and blouses can be much more easily adjusted for growth as well - buy a blouse too large, put tucks in the sleeves and tuck it in with a long blouse-tail inside the skirt and the blouse can keep going for several years; get the skirt too big, turn the hem up, stitch a few pleats in the waist, and you can get an extra year out of it - very tricky to do that kind of thing with a dress without its looking odd. 

So if you're managing on coupons, and you're having to buy everything new each year at least once if not twice because the child keeps growing, then managing one dress and letting it out and down as she grows is probably about the best you could manage! 
School skirt, ordinary skirt, five blouses (three school, two ordinary), school shoes, ordinary shoes, sandals, five vests, knickers, socks if young, wool or lisle stockings if teen, possibly PE kit of gym-knickers and Aertex blouse, two or three cardigans or jumpers, a raincoat, a winter coat, school hat (possibly felt and straw ones, depending)...  gloves or mitts and hats and scarves
Trying to squeeze all that out of 76 coupons, some of it possibly twice... unless your Grandma was known to be a selfish greedy woman, vain of her appearance, then I'd be inclined to acquit her of coupon-pinching and applaud her managing a dress in there!!
I can readily believe your Mum made up for it in later life, but I think it may have been a more widespread thing...

And re foods - my Dad in his 80s still won' touch rabbit because he had too much of it in childhood, as it was unrationed (also, quite often, free, ahem, oops...)

TwibbleDee

Laura_Elsewhere said:

And re foods - my Dad in his 80s still won' touch rabbit because he had too much of it in childhood, as it was unrationed (also, quite often, free, ahem, oops...)

My grandmother refused to eat peanut butter or American cheese, as those were 2 of the most abundant foods provided to the reservation they lived near and her family traded with the Native Americans on the reservation to keep all the kids fed.

Liverpool_Anne

My Dad hated brawn as he said his Mum used to make her own and they had it far too often. He wouldn't have it in the house, or tripe either. He did love pigs trotters though, I remember Mum cooking some for the dog and Dad saying they were too good for the dog and he wolfed them down for his tea

CAFCGirl

No coupon spending for me to report, but I did have a thought that I thank the heavens I am not couponed for houseplants!
Otherwise I'd have spent mine, my husbands, my neighbours' and probably everyone on the threads.

I went back to check out the winterish coat I spotted a while back, in case it was still there, but alas gone.
I am learning I need to stop dithering. That's two items I've missed out on since moving here. 

PipneyJane

CAFCGirl said:

No coupon spending for me to report, but I did have a thought that I thank the heavens I am not couponed for houseplants!
Otherwise I'd have spent mine, my husbands, my neighbours' and probably everyone on the threads.

I went back to check out the winterish coat I spotted a while back, in case it was still there, but alas gone.
I am learning I need to stop dithering. That's two items I've missed out on since moving here. 

Sadly, that’s the first law of charity shop shopping:  if you like something, buy it then and there because it won’t be there when you go back.

Sorry.

- Pip

diminua

No coupons spent but I bought a secondhand blanket in pink and blue check - really pleased as it's big, coupon free, and goes with both my pink and my blue and white bedding. It's still got the label too -  'Swando, British Made'. It's definitely getting to the stage now where I need extra layers on the bed - did anyone else notice that it was lovely and warm in the sun today, but quickly dropping as soon as it went down? 

Laura_Elsewhere

@diminua, the blanket sounds lovely - and very useful that it goes with everything!

And yes, we have that same weather at present, albeit without sun - mild until you stop moving about doing stuff and then suddenly you realise you feel quite chilly!

My knickers are all starting to get very tatty- last time round it took me aaaages to find ones that were comfortable and didn't, in my gigantic size, make me feel like a frump or remind me of Bridget Jones! After only about 4 years, even though they were 6 quid a bloomin' pair, they're just wearing through. Stupid women's undies, made from over-thin cotton jersey, bah humbug. 

Soo.... 

instead of buying more, I have finally gone back to various half-done drafts of knicker-patterns and am planning to make myself French knickers, with a few pairs in stretch velvet, but those latter I'll have to sew by hand which is a bit of a pain as my 1903 Singer only does straight-stitch. I got a French knicker pattern 3/4-drafted today...