2018 Fashion on the Ration challenge

monnagran wrote: »

I can relate to this. When I was growing up in the forties and fifties, the only reason for getting a new item of clothing was that the old one was very old and worn out or you had grown out of it and it was due to be passed on.

We usually had one outfit for best, you could recognise people in church by their outfit. This, when starting to wear out, was demoted to work-wear. When it was even too shabby to seen in public it would be covered with an overall and used for housework or gardening.
The only deviation from this was that you could have a winter set and a summer set.

The idea of actually having a choice of clothes didn't really start until the late fifties.

I have come back to this post three times now - thankyou for posting it!

I'm currently spending all five weeks of October travelling several hundred mils by pre-dawn train each Monday to spend three days working tutoring with small groups, and then home on the Thursday. So I have to travel light - each week I've had one skirt, one jumper or cardigan and one pair of shoes, and I've had changes of long-sleeved cotton t-shirt, changes of undies, and otherwise my outfit has stayed the same.

THIS IS WHAT MEN DO FOR WORK ALL THE TIME!!!!!

It's not even that they are the same people seeing me each day; totally different clients on each day, the Tuesday people don't know the Wed people, etc. So even if they felt I "ought" to wear different outfits for each session, I am, as I'm varying it each week!

The most difficult thing has been dealing with temperatures as we've had the stormy wet weather and the unusually hot midweek - days with a maximum of 20 degrees, days with a maximum of 9 degrees...! But layering helps a lot.

So I've been really thinking about how much I need what clothes, if that makes sense. Having several cardigans helps, and having different skirts helps - and I enjoy wearing different things, I admit.

But I am starting to think that maybe one thing to aim for is that the tops i wear *under* the cardis maybe should be more neutral so they go with all my different skirts and cardis... more greys, more creams, more navy or black even.

This is such a tangled thing, isn't it? We're taught that clothes "make" use better people, and if we feel low in our self-esteem we "need" to buy ourselves something to cheer us up... clothes are so bound up with emotions in some people - with others, they are bound up in identity, belonging to one or other social group...

I am slowly finding my way. I like full or A-line skirts, knee-length at the very shortest for summer or mid-calf for non-summer. I like fitted little cardigans and jumpers over them. I like petticoats (not the stiffened 50s-style net petticoats but old-fashioned ones I make myself with soft full 12-inch ruffles on the hem) to hold the skirts out without sticking out inconveniently. I like lace-up shoes, mid-heeled or brogues, often with ankle-socks and bare legs, but with long fine-wool stockings in cold weather. Long boots for the bitterest months.

And those are all unfashionable shapes and styles, but they suit me, I like them and feel right in them and people often seem to think I look nice in them.

So perhaps I should use my couponless 10 weeks that's left of 2018 to really work out what I do wear, what I don't wear - why I don't wear the latter and why I prefer the former - what i wear that only goes with on thing, what I wear that goes with lots of things, and then really consider what else I do or don't need.

I could even draw up a little checklist to keep with me for 2019 so that if I'm tempted to spend coupons on a whim, I can check first - what will this go with? How often will I wear it, and with how wide a range of things? What situations will I wear it for?
And then I can think about whether I already have something that fills that set of requirements, which maybe I had forgotten about, or perhaps it needs a stain or mark tackled or perhaps it's simply tired and will be fine with a bit of needlework freshening it up.

My lovely aunt gave me two grey cashmere camisoles about 15 years ago (good cashmere, so they last!) but after 15 years, mostly worn against my skin in winter under other things, they were looking a bit tired. So I crocheted some fine lace onto the V-neckline of each, one in ivory laceweight Shetland, very soft and delicate, and the other in cream Shetland and some deep rich lapis-lazuli blue laceweight - I also went over them to check and reinforce any worn patches (none) and gave them a really good handwashing and a steam-pressing to 'set' the woollen lace, and they really looked like they were new.

So maybe I need to do more of that kind of thing... some of my long-sleeved cotton tops that were cheaper ones are looking saggy round the necklines, so perhaps a very narrow simple band of crochet lace in a dark toning colour would smarten them up a bit and make them fit better... hmmm

I did read somewhere that if you were short you should wear skirts that were either very short or long. Therefore my skirts are long - to cover my tree trunk legs. I also wear trousers, although I probably shouldn't.
As I am kissing 80 my clothes are comfortable, if they are attractive as well it is more by accident than design.

This is also the reason that I am so familiar with rationing. I have experienced it first hand.
One thing has served me well, when I went to Grammar School in 1950 the Needlewok teacher, who was inspirational, had a big banner pinned across the board in her room. It said, "SIMPLICITY IS THE ESSENCE OF GOOD TASTE."
This has been my guiding star throughout my life.
Hence although I have only 2 looks, bag lady and presentable lady, they are both in the best of taste that the CS can produce.

That is how my coupons have survived almost untouched.