50s question

London_1

weenancyinAmerica said:

Since every female not in heavy-duty work on construction or something similar wore dresses in the 40s and 50s, it would have been a dress for shopping, going to church, visiting the neighbors, etc. Even little young ladies wore only dresses everywhere - we weren't allowed to wear trousers in public until I was in High School (aged about 15 by then). Even in the early 60s, I was still having to wear dresses most places. Going shopping with my grandmother in the 50s when I was between 3 and 12 even involved wearing gloves, hats, and Maryjane type shoes with white ruffled socks and always a dress. We didn't have to wear the hats and gloves for school but we did wear the hats and gloves to church and often when visiting. Dresses went through several stages - the newest one for special events or going to church, then you wore it shopping and visiting, then it became a housedress (usually with an apron) for painting or gardening or cleaning (still wore dresses for those) before being cut down for the next generation or cut up to use for cleaning. You took the apron off if someone came visiting.

As someone who grew up in the 1940s/50s I well remember my late Mum wearing flowery dresses during the day to go shopping .When she was doing the housework she wore a penny over them But this was only in the morning . All housework seemed to be done in the morning including cooking cleaning and shopping after lunch she would change from her ordinary dress into something different a little better or even a costume with a blouse.
 Usually because she perhaps had a friend visiting or we were going out somewhere special.

 As an immigrant Scot she had a fixation with London and made sure all her children visited the places in London she considered educational and interesting. By the time I was 10 I knew my way around the city of my birth and how to get from one part to the other.

 Many times we went to central London from our suburb in Blackheath, and window shopped just the two of us in Oxford Street and Regent Street.
My favourite shop was Derry and Toms though, as it had the most amazing roof garden. (I think it became Biba's during the 1960s )

 You were whooshed up in the large mahogany lift serviced by a man in an ex-army grey  great coat who had a row of battle medals and strips on his coat

As a little girl I was convinced he was one of "Uncle Joe" Stalins relatives as he had the same luxuriant moustache . I thought that perhaps he had won the medals by getting everyone in the store to safety during air raid into the basement via his large lift going up and down continuously Weird thinking about it now well over 70 years later.

The rooftop restaurant was lovely with spindly legged tables and chairs and when you looked down into Kensington from the roof, the buses looked like tiny toys. 

Sunday was church, so it was Sunday best and the family service was at 10.00 am sharp and the whole family walked to church in our best clothes kept specifically for church going.

My always wore a hat and gloves and I had to wear a hat but rebelled slightly at the gloves unless it was winter time Both my brothers were scrubbed within an inch of their lives, and all shoes had to shine . I well remember 'mary jane' shoes and I have a very comfortable pair of black flat shoes upstairs today with a strap across the top I still call my 'Mary Janes ':) 

Most women wore flowery sorts or rayon or cotton dresses, and as we had rationing until 1954 in the UK it was often dresses that were worn from the previous decade. Nothing was ever wasted though as material also was sometime difficult to come by so Mum's dresses were often taken apart and made into something else for me, a skirt or a blouse. She had a box full of sewing patterns and often would loan them out to her friends or borrow one of theirs. They were made in a sort of thick tissue paper and carefully ironed flat again after use and folded and put away.

Their generation I think were excellent recyclers, as nothing was ever wasted be it food ,material or even knitting wool .Things were remade remodelled or reknitted. food was stretched out with all sorts of things .

My late Mum bless her could make the most bland beige food taste better with a few herbs and spices . many of the herbs she grew in our garden and dried. She passed on to me ways which I have passed on to my children and grandchildren .Best of all a love of herbs and spices, and my tastes are definitely for spicier food

Today the range is so much more than it was back in the 1940/50s though .Then it was somewhat limited although she always managed to find them from somewhere

Her sister lived in New Jersey and would send stuff in big brown parcels at regular intervals .Things that we only could dream of back then. I was about 6 when I first tasted tinned pineapple from the USA and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven I had never tasted anything so wonderful

Today we have a fantastic range of food from over the world that we can just walk into a shop and buy, but back then stuff was pretty limited and on the stodgy side .

But she managed even though she had 14 years of rationing to bring up her three children fairly healthily and with an appreciation of not only tasty food but a good deal of love for the city we lived in

I now live down in Kent and rarely go back to London as it sadly doesn't appeal as much to me now as it did then . But life and places change but my love of spicy food is still as strong though

JackieO xxx

Rosa_Damascena

weenancyinAmerica said:

Dresses went through several stages - the newest one for special events or going to church, then you wore it shopping and visiting, then it became a housedress (usually with an apron) for painting or gardening or cleaning (still wore dresses for those) before being cut down for the next generation or cut up to use for cleaning. You took the apron off if someone came visiting.

I like this idea but I cannot see it working universally for these times as occasion-wear rarely gets more that a few outings, and work dresses etc are very much "work" and there is little wear and tear. Casualwear - jeans, tops etc - I will wear to death and even then find it hard to part with them to rag. But your post has made me think that I should sell my eveningwear on Vinted before the party season kicks in.

@JackieO - I love the slices of times gone by you feed us. Keep them coming!

bouicca21

Come to think of it, my mum wore what she called a housecoat over her dress when cleaning/cooking - a sort of cross between a pinny and overalls, worn like a coat, buttons down the front. Not to be worn outside the house.

Brambling

I remember my mother buying her first pair of trousers in the mid 70s when she would have been in her mid 50s, even as a child I was aware it wasn't a easy decision and my elder sisters talked her into them, my aunts were shocked!  TBH i don't think she was ever that comfortable wearing them and probably only wore them for 5 or 6 years stopping once she turned 60 and never jeans.  She was of the generation (married in 1940 with my eldest sister born 11 months later) who changed at least twice a day, housework was done in a older dress which in later years was a skirt and blouse with a pinny over the top once that was completed she would change after lunch and depending on what she was doing if she was going out expecting a friend to come around it would determined what she put on after lunch.  We didn't have much money so there weren't a great deal of choice for her, some of her housework clothes would be cast off from her sisters or jumble sales, a new dress usually a gift from my elder siblings would be worn for best for years and even after she got her first washing machine a second hand twin tub it would be hand washed.  

 clothes weren't wash so frequently with no washing machines they were 'aired' which meant they would have lasted longer than todays

florianatwobob

My mum rarely wore trousers/slacks when I was growing up (she was born 1939) as my dad (born 1929) wasn’t a fan of ‘women in slacks’. The exception was the annual apple harvest when she would be up the tree in our garden with us. Tree climbing in a skirt would’ve been very impractical. As kids in the 79s and 80s we knew what the weekend heralded when the trousers appeared! 

Mum wore them more after dad died but liked a bum covering top. She and I had many debates about the appropriateness of trousers for interviews in the 90s. She was firmly in the camp that I would be expected to wear a skirt and trousers would impact my chances of success. 

Rosa_Damascena

bouicca21 said:

Come to think of it, my mum wore what she called a housecoat over her dress when cleaning/cooking - a sort of cross between a pinny and overalls, worn like a coat, buttons down the front. Not to be worn outside the house.

Yes! I remember these in my childhood (70s). I used to wear one over my nightie to look decent.

@florianatwobob - the debate about whether wearing trousers at interview would immediately write off your chances was a very real thing when I was trying to secure my first role ahead of graduation. That was 1994 and I wasn't in a position to stand on principle, I was ambitious and wanted the best job.

florianatwobob

@Rosa this was 1996/7! I ended up in a skirt despite my principles too. 

Shropshirelass

To answer your question, grouchy, if I remember right, I think rayon was a slightly heavy fabric, suitable for fairly formal wear as it draped nicely, so afternoon or evening wear. As others have said, due to shortage of fabric and clothing in early 50's, after being worn as 'best going out' it would be relegated to everyday and housework wear, worn them with an apron, pinny or overall to save on washing. I think rayon was a good quality fabric,  so good for a dress or summer suit. My mum and her sisters kept their 'best' clothes for decades, altered them, borrowed and lent, til they became dressing up clothes.

I started nursery school in 1952, and can remember grandma cutting up an old costume to make me a pinafore dress as the weather got cooler, after she despaired of finding anything in the shops.

A couple of years later I was bought a dress made of cotton fabric designed specifically for children (around the border marched little rabbits carrying placards announcing 'rabbit soap is best'). I wonder if anyone else remembers having one. It came from Lewis's in Liverpool, newly arrived from America! It was for Sunday or party wear.

DiamondLil

London girl here, grew up in the 1950s.

My mother wore cotton dresses or skirts with tops tucked in. She didn't own slacks / trousers until the 1970s when her first pair were blue "ski slacks" I think they were called - a strap at the hem which fitted under the foot.

Her dresses in the fifties were all patterned floral designs as were mine and my sisters. Mum wore aprons over her dresses when at home.

We all wore dresses or skirts, many of which were made by my aunt. I well remember a blue shirtwaister in the willow pattern design, and my sister had same but in pink. These were for "best", i.e. church, Sunday school and outings.

Our "best" skirts were kilts dad bought when on business in Scotland.

P.S. It's good to see you back up and running (so to speak) JackieO

MrsStepford

My maternal grandmother was strict Baptist and first London-born and raised generation of her Welsh family. She died in the 90s but females in the family were expected to wear dresses, especially on a Sunday. No playing in the front garden, no card games or visits to the cinema. It all fell apart when my mother started working. I was getting a bus down to E Sussex to go riding at 13 and train to London to go drinking quarter bottles of champagne in parks. I had always hated dresses and lived in jodhpurs when not at school.