Women of the Lounge, could you dress up everyday like women in the 30's and 40's,

[texanwitch]

I babysit a friend's mother once a week so my friend gets a day off.

Her mother likes to watch old movies on TCM, so I have seen my share of old movies.

I could not dress up like that everyday, it would drive me crazy.

My friend's mother always dresses up, even going to the grocery store.

This has to be a generational thing.

Also I noticed that women seemed to like hats and white gloves.

I am so glad I was born when I was.

[Heidi]

1. I could

but I wouldn't. I'm too old to do a buncha stuff I don't enjoy and for which I can't invoice. Also, my cat wouldn't recognize me.

[texanwitch]

2. Helle Heidi

My idea of dressing up is my best t-shirt and blue jeans.

I have one nice pair of running shoes.


I don't know how the women could stand the heat in the summer.


:hi: :pals:

[PassingFair]

3. Remember, you are watching M-O-V-I-E-S....

Glamour and what have you....

Here's Doris Day in the 50's....and I guarantee you, my mother dressed NOTHING like this on a daily basis:

[texanwitch]

5. I knew women who did, guess they thought they had to.

Look at the hat on Doris, women wore stupid hats in the movies.

[PassingFair]

11. This is more like I remember the 40's - 50's everyday/office wear:

[Demoiselle]

35. During WWII these ladies probably wouldnt have wasted good nylon stocking at work..

Nylon was rationed, wasn't it?

[conscious evolution]

72. I think its neat how the stools

have a little place for the ladies to place their purses.
God knows that would never be on a modern stool.

[Heidi]

10. My parternal granny dressed very much like that daily in chicken-fried

northeastern Oklahoma in he 50s, 60s and 70s. I don't think she enjoyed it. It's just what women did. She's nearly 90 now, and still calls every female outside of family "Miz *last name*" regardless of the woman's age.

[texanwitch]

14. I don't think all the women like dressing like that, some did I am sure.

Think of all the hours it took for women to get ready for each day.

[ceile]

4. Sure! If somone did it for me.

I would need a dresser, a make-up artist and someone to do my hair. Just get me those 3 people and I could be a goddess everyday. :P

[texanwitch]

8. A woman on her own would have to get up three hours early just to get ready to go.

I know this because my friend's mother does this.

Won't leave the house unless she is all dress up.

[Chan790]

6. Well, I'm not a woman...

but if I could find a woman that enjoyed it and wanted to dress like that every day, I'd be a very very happy boy.

I find it arousing. Maybe its subconscious. I dunno.

[HopeHoops]

7. Hell, Disney JUST announced that female park employees are no longer required to wear pantyhose!!!

That stupid rule was put in place in like 1955!

On Edit:

It wasn't clear from the article if male park employees are still required to wear them.

[texanwitch]

9. I hate pantyhose.

I would kill anyone who even tried to make me wear them.

[tango-tee]

13. Absolutely! I feel like a frozen turkey in its airtight plastic wrapper

whenever I'm forced to wear one of these monstrosities. Last time I wore pantyhose was one year ago at my son's wedding in Beaumont. Late June, 103° heat and humid only the way SE Texas can be. I thought I was gonna jump out of my skin.

[Captain Hilts]

17. I sweat like a marathoner in them. GREAT turkey analogy. nt

[wickerwoman]

54. Grr... pantyhose

Last (and only) time I wore them was to a cousin's wedding. I broke out in *massive* incredibly painful hives and could barely walk for three days after.

[tango-tee]

59. I'm so used to wearing loose clothing,

cotton leggings or jeans and oversized t-shirts with sneakers or sandals that this "dressing up" thing makes me really, really uncomfortable. I might as well try to pretend being Marie Antoinette.

The leggings and t-shirt combo can look really pretty and stylish, while giving us women a sense of being at ease, not having to worry about our clothes wearing us, rather than vice versa.

I guess those awful hives came from your skin not being able to breathe? What did you do to get rid of them? Witch hazel? Baby powder? That must have been awful, girl.

[pitohui]

66. no leggings and t-shirt never look pretty and stylish

if that's what you like to wear for reasons for comfort, fine, but it does not look pretty and stylish, it looks sloppy and makes most women look dowdy and overweight, altho in part i suspect most women who go about in leggings and t-shirt don't have great figures to begin with, hence their choice of costume in the first place

if you have a fit, toned body, you can find comfortable clothes that breathe yet don't make you look like you forgot to take off your PJs in the morning

it is noticeable to me the progression from body flattering styles (in the 70s) to looser and sloppier styles thru this century and it ain't because a loose, sloppy style looks better or is more comfortable than a properly fitted, properly broken in pair of jeans, it's become so many more girls and women are overweight and hate their bodies, hence want to put them in hiding

[HopeHoops]

34. Yeah. I hate them too.

They make it difficult to get to the naughty bits.

:evilgrin:

[Captain Hilts]

12. No. Too much wool. Too form-fitting. Heels FAR too high. Hats and gloves, yes. nt

[PassingFair]

15. Realistically, lots of women in the 30's looked like THIS everyday.

They only fantasized about fancy clothes.

The exception in my family was CHURCH.
HAD to look good for church.

[texanwitch]

18. A lot women did sew, my mother did.

Every pictue I have seen of my mother she was always dressed up, even for picnics.

Women did dress up for church.

My Mother's family was poor but lived on a farm.

She made extra money making dresses for other people.

She had a old fashion sewing machine, foot powered.

[tango-tee]

25. My mom was a great seamstress as well.

And my dresses were sown to fit a particular bra (the darts!).

I remember in the early 1960s, even during the worst heat of summer, Mom wore a contraption combining a strapless bra (cone-shaped) with a corset extending all the way down to the waist. A dozen hooks in the back, and hard as concrete. That damn thing was a piece of engineering like the Golden Gate Bridge. When she took it off in the evenings, there were deep red marks all over her back.

Mom was always impeccable, but I have no idea how miserable this *thing* must have been to wear. I'm so glad to have come of age in the sixties, when we finally decided to not wear a bra. PERIOD.

[Kali]

39. egg-zackly!

who dresses like they do in the movies NOW?

[texanwitch]

16. I would have been that strange woman living down the street.

To me women didn't look normal, just fake.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. I'm a man and I couldn't dress up like the men used to.

Always in a suit, tie, and a hat. Even in the movies with action.

I was watching some movie the other night where a guy's car breaks down on the side of the road and he has to walk many miles in the hot sun to the nearest garage. Still in the coat and tie.

[texanwitch]

20. How many suits would a man have back then.

Maybe suits were cheaper.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. Oh, they were cheaper, sure.

But I'm talking purely about the comfort. Any physical activity in a suit, tie, and hat is ridiculous.

[texanwitch]

23. I never understood ties.

The whole suit and tie, very sweaty.

[Chan790]

29. What's to understand about ties?

It was initially a bib/napkin thing worn with a dinner jacket meant to keep you from staining your good shirt...except that it's now become ornamental and a decent one costs more than a shirt does.

[Xithras]

33. It wasn't that suits got more expensive.

While most men were expected to wear suits back then, the reality is that most wore very cheap suits. That was the norm.

When men stopped wearing suits, most of the suit manufacturers stopped making them (why make a product that nobody buys?) Modern suits are more expensive, because those are the only type people are interested nowadays. There has always been a higher end "dress to impress" segment of the suit market, with a correspondingly higher price tag. Nowadays, that segment is simply all that's left.

[Xithras]

32. I mentioned this in another thread the other day...

It was a hat thread, I think, but it brought back a memory of a conversation with my grandfather, and how he described the SMELL in the poorly ventilated, non air-conditioned office buildings that existed back then. Few people wore deodorant, and everyone was expected to wear a jacket and tie every day, even if it was 90 degrees outside.

Between the massive BO, and the fact that everyone smoked inside their office buildings back then, the air was bad enough to gag most people. A desk near a window was a perk of seniority.

[HughBeaumont]

61. Ever go to a museum, look at portraits from the 16-1700s and imagine how bad these people smelled?

Imagine bathing 2-4 times a year, at best. Wigs were worn to hide the lice. Make-up was worn to hide the massive acne scarification.

No deodorant, very infrequent bathing, no tooth brushing (dental hygiene was minimal, if any), no combing. Tons of clothing was worn in heat, and these bastards sweated like fiends and didn't bathe.

If things smelled as bad as your grandpa described in the 1940s-early 1960s, can you imagine time-traveling to an era with almost no hygiene?

How did people have sex without dry heaving?? Or were they just used to it and didn't care?

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[mikita]

71. I have always wondered the same thing....

it is just TOO funny to read your post.... especially :

How did people have sex without dry heaving??

LOLOL

[seabeyond]

21. i htought about my mom the other day. always put together. clean tshirt and shorts

work for me every time....

[BlueJazz]

24. I agree with most of the posts here but....it IS true that a decent share of the American Public ...

...looks like absolute shit when they go outside of their homes.

My foreign friends are amazed at the complete sloppiness that a share of the USA population seem to relish.

It doesn't really bother me so much but I understand their feelings about the subject... especially when I go into
a decent store (Sears/ Penny's) and see 20 people that look like they just crawled out of a sewer.

[Rabrrrrrr]

26. Ain't that the fucking truth? It's like people don't even respect themselves.

Sweat pants to go shopping.

Jeans that don't fit with shirts that don't fit to go out to eat, and the guys don't bother to take their fucking hats off.

People mostly dress like goddamned slobs, and it bugs the shit out of me.

And every time I raise this issue, some unhelpful types will spew out nonsense like "It costs too much to dress well!" or "But the clothes I buy are sooo much more comfortable!" to which I say a rousing hymn of bullshit. I have some very decent looking clothes that were stupidly inexpensive, and also very comfortable - more comfortable, in fact, than the cheap stupid looking shit that the complainers are wearing. One has to hunt around a little bit for them, but they're out there.

There is no reason not to be dressed in a way that says to people "I like myself", and also says to them, "And I care enough about etiquette and hospitality to try not to look like a fucking slob when I go out in public where you have to see me".

At least, I see dressing nicely as also being about hospitality toward others and a sign of respect for one's fellow citizens.

It's a sign of respect for performers to dress decently when you go to a concert (or let me say appropriately, since decent country-western clothes are much different from decent goth clothes; with the trick being, whatever the proper attire is, do it well and not like a fucking slob).

It's a sign of respect to dress appropriately for the doctor's office, or the dentist's, or the farm.

But America seems to have decided a few decades ago that all anyone needs is one shitty looking, illfitting, inappropriate for anything outside of family room when you're home alone, outfit to wear anywhere you want.

And the sad thing is, it isn't just among the younger folk dressing down like slobs and nitwits - I see older people, people from a time when people didn't dress like shit every waking hour, dressed like shit.

[Chan790]

31. Hats at dinner.

I can deal with a lot but if you wear a hat (or worse a baseball cap) more than say 6 feet past the inner threshold of the door of a non-fast-food restaurant, I feel an indefatigable urge to grab it from your head and fling it into the busser's cart with the dirty dishes.

[quakerboy]

49. Did ya ever wonder why?

Its been a topic of interest to me. I haven't worn a hat, literally, in at least 3 years. But on the extraordinarily rare occasion that I do wear one, I will wear it with general disregard to where I am or who I am with. I have reasons and I do it specifically, not out of any sloth or slovenlyness.

[Captain Hilts]

44. I, too, can't get over what complete slobs many people are when they leave the house. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. Amen!

At a family gathering a couple of years ago, we showed the slides of our trip to Europe in 1967.

I was in high school at the time, and my brothers were 12 and 14.

The outfits I took along were centered on a jumper and a suit (both of which could be worn with several different tops, of course.) At that time--and my high school yearbook confirms this memory--the fashions for high school girls included miniskirts with matching suit jackets.

My brothers wore khakis and buttoned shirts, with pullover sweaters for cold days.

Now I've hardly ever seen my nephews in anything but sweats (for the winter) or tank tops and basketball shorts (for the summer). Their reaction--"Why is everyone so formal?"

Only that wasn't formal in those days. Formal would have been coat and tie for my brothers, a dress made out of some fancy-looking fabric like velvet or tafetta for me.

I will admit to dressing down on hot summer days, but I still dress up to go to concerts, church, parties, or any restaurant above fast food level. And I always dress up slightly to travel, because both Europeans and Asians dress more formally than we do in public. Sometimes I'll even wear a skirt on summer days, just because I like the look.

There's nothing that shouts "American tourist!" louder than a baseball cap, a T-shirt, shorts, and athletic shoes.

You know, not caring about one's appearance is a sign of depression. I wonder if Americans are suffering from mass depression.

[wickerwoman]

57. I respect myself enough to not give a crap

about people who judge me based on what I'm wearing.

99.9% of clothing looks like absolute shit on me. That's a problem with the clothes as they are manufactured for women today, not me.

I can't afford custom tailoring. And I don't have time to haunt the Salvation Army looking for that .1% of clothes that look decent on me (and will almost certainly wear out before I can find decent looking clothes to replace them). Even if I did have the time, frankly it bores the shit out of me.

Plus, I don't have a consistent weight/figure. I've yoyoed around an 80 pound range for the last fifteen years. And I can't afford a wardrobe of decent fitting clothes in three or four different sizes.

And if you weren't raised to be fashion conscious, you can't just flip a switch and suddenly know what you're doing. Poorer parents dress their kids in sweatsuits that are 2-3 times too big because that's all they can afford and they need something the kids don't grow out of in a few months. And the kids don't hit 18 and suddenly know how to buy correct-fitting, flattering, durable clothes.

I can't wait for the day we all wear Star Trek jumpsuits and stop letting fashionistas make us feel like crap about ourselves because we can't afford/don't know/couldn't give two shits about their arcane code of acceptable personal presentation.

[Critters2]

60. I've had to be in court fairly regularly recently,

(that tends to happen after your assistant steals $100,000 from your employer) and I am AMAZED at how people dress to come to court. I don't even really respect the retributive justice system, but I'm polite enough to dress as if I do. I'm usually pretty laid back about such things, but seriously! If I were a judge, and you stood before me in cut offs and a beer advertisement t-shirt, I'd send you home to change, and give your lawyer a good reaming-out!

And don't tell me how expensive it is. I buy most of my clothes at resale shops which benefit local charities--the homeless shelter, the hospital auxiliary or just Goodwill. I find lots of nice clothes that they're practically giving away.

It's a matter of respecting those around you, and having a little self-respect as well.

[Rabrrrrrr]

70. Damn right. It's fucking embarrassing.

And you're also right - it doesn't cost much to dress decently. It costs, in fact, just as much as dressing shittily or like a fucking slob.

My annual clothing budget, outside of the probably ludicrously expensive dress clothes I prefer, it not very much, because I buy stuff on sale, preferably when stuff is marked down from an already marked down sale price.

Maybe $200 a year for shirts, jeans, pants, shorts, underwear, socks...

But I, you know, am a non-progressive liberal-hater because I'd rather buy three shirts that actually look good on me and are appropriate for wearing in public than either a) 20 pieces of shit that don't even look good wearing them in the bathroom and that will fall apart after a few washes, or b) three shirts of equal price that are just fucking inappropriate for anything.

It's funny, but once I stopped buying the shit - I actually spend less per year on clothing.

As the old adage says - you can never be OVER-dressed.

But holy shit, you can easily be under-dressed, and most of bovine lazy-ass "fuck you, I do what I want" America sure as shit is.

[name not needed]

28. Agreed. It's ridiculously easy for men to dress well, yet most can't seem to get it right.

All that's required is that your clothes fit, go well together, and the colors aren't completely out there, for the most part. Hell, look at our World Cup team as opposed to other countries.

Spain:


Italy:


England:


Ghana:


North Korea (Yes, I'm Serious):


And finally the US Team:

[Maine-ah]

64. omg men in suits

hot men...omg....

k, gotta go take care of something, be back in a few

:evilgrin:

[Captain Hilts]

67. THAT is embarrassing! nt

[JI7]

69. Spain and Italy is how all guys to dress all the time

there is no more attractive look on a man .

[Chan790]

30. I agree with you.

Americans dress like shit. I'm so so proud that my friends make fun of me for being "euro-trashy" in my dress and manners because it means they're noticing that I'm not slovenly like them.

I've never thought of Penney's or Sears as being a decent store from clothes...a bit utilitarian in the case of Sears. (It's the clothing selection of a K-Mart or Walmart. Yes, I know Sears is owned by K-Mart; I used to work there.) Penney's seems to lack a decent buyer for menswear...the kids clothes seem okay and I've never noticed the Women's wear but the menswear department is mediocre. I like Macy's.

[Captain Hilts]

68. "Slovenly," is the EXACT word. Perfect. nt

[tammywammy]

37. Agreed!

Why is it "okay" for people to wear their pajamas outside the house? People just look awful and sloppy most of the time these days. And when I do wear a nice simple dress to work people think I'm all fancied up.

And decent clothes aren't that expensive. I do a lot of shopping on ebay or at Target, and I sure as heck don't look like a slob (well, outside the house).

[BlueJazz]

40. Yep...I can understand the feeling that people have when they say...

"Well, it's what is inside the person that counts" ...and I agree with that. but Damn!..when I see men with ass crack sticking out
of their pants and their beer belly hanging beneath their T-Shirt plus Women with the...um.."Camel-Toe" thing and their stretch pants
shoved all up in their ass...I HAVE to think to myself.."Jesus Christ, are you TRYING to look like shit or is it just part of your persona"?? :) :)

[Captain Hilts]

43. I always wear a real shirt - NOT a t-shirt or jersey material. There's something

slovenly looking about the t-shirt and jersey material shirt.

[revolution breeze]

27. I love dressing up!

I love hats and gloves, dresses with full A-line skirts, vintage-looking long line bras and high waisted girdles. It is amazing how different quality undergarments make an outfit look and feel. Unfortunately I live in southern Louisiana so it is not practical to dress like that every day, but I do every chance I get! I have a group of friends who get together once a month, dress to the nines, and spend the evening at a nice restaurant drinking wine and laughing.

[noamnety]

36. You lost me at "could you dress up?"

no thanks. :)

My feet have figured out they aren't shaped like women's dress shoes, and I need pockets because I'm not hauling around a purse.

[texanwitch]

38. I love my cargo pants and shorts.

My feet are wide, I cannot find women shoes that fit.

Not all women have small, narrow feet.

My feet do not come to a point.

I do dress decent when I go out, clean nice pants and t-shirts.

[AlienGirl]

41. It isn't "dressing up"--I own a closet full of pre-1945 clothing

That's what I wear when I'm at work or want to look nice. None of it's uncomfortable. I rarely wear nylons, opting instead for socks and flat shoes or for low pumps and bare legs.

The thing I don't want to be wearing that people keep telling me to wear is pantsuits. I look bizarrely-proportioned and frowsy in them. I am currently in a pitched battle against having to put on pantsuits and "modernize" my look.

Tucker

[Flaxbee]

42. I hate pantyhose. (But I love Wolford tights in the winter)

Hate Spanx, or anything girdle-like.

But I would wear 'outfits' / dresses / suits like Doris Day in those great Pillow Talk / Lover Come Back movies (minus the silly little hats. Some hats were cool, some were absolutely absurd. And minus the gloves.)

I usually don't go out - except for my own personal yard - unless I'm dressed 'well'. I don't wear t-shirts with the exception of very very clean white v-neck t's from the Gap, and I don't wear those with jeans, only with skirts or pants. I often wear dresses, skirts, or nice pants or nice jeans (not torn or really faded or frayed) and blouses. Cute little blazers or sweaters in fall/winter.

And I'm always comfortable.

At home, I'm definitely more casual, and put my nice clothes away as soon as I come home. Sort of stupid to be cleaning the litter box in heels and a skirt. The only time I'll run out of the house in jeans / t-shirt is if I'm in the middle of a project and need paint, or more garden stuff, or whatever.

But I never, ever leave the house without having showered / fixed my hair / put on mascara. Will leave the house without other makeup, but never w/o mascara :D

[hayu_lol]

47. This was back in the late 30s...

my grandmother, then about 68, would prepare to walk the 3 blocks or so to the Safeway or the place you bought chickens and other birds. Full corset(whalebone and steel), suit jacket and skirt(long), blouse closed at the neck with a large ornament, gloves, hat with veil.

She would not have dreamed of going out in anything less.

Nylons would have been rationed during the war...but none were available. Women dyed their legs an appropriate color and then painted the seams on with a small brush.

Elastic also went into the war effort. Heard my mom tell my dad one night that she had lost her panties(elastic finally failed)on the street, and she just walked away from them. For men, socks would not stay up.

Even safety pins were scarce during the war.

Flowered simple housedresses were the order of the day at home. Ironed and starched too of course. Virtually everything in the house in those days was ironed including sheets.

People just dressed up to go out, whether to work or to go to a movie/or dinner.

[Silver Swan]

46. When I was a girl in the 1950's

My mother always wore dresses. They called them "house dresses," and they were pretty simple and washable.

After my father died, and my mother had to go to work in a factory, she wore jeans to work, but she didn't wear them anywhere else. Later she got a job as a teacher, which required her to wear dresses.

In the 1950's, kids in rural Michigan schools graduating from eighth grade took an end of school year train ride to Detroit to visit Bob-Lo Island, an amusement park. In 1959, my mother took my sister and I along with her class, but she made us wear dresses.

Who wears dresses to an amusement park? Even in the 1950's it wasn't common!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

48. Yes, I could...

[carlyhippy]

50. oh definitely

Do I get the husband who is in advertising and makes enough money so I dont have to work?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

51. It's too damned hot in Texas to wear pantyhose.

Or regular hose for that matter.

I used to go to work with no stockings on because it was too damned hot.

We're in the six months of the year where you wear tank tops/shorts/sandals whenever possible.

[AsahinaKimi]

52. If that means a kimono...

Its quite possible I could.

[Withywindle]

53. Gladly!

I own a few vintage dresses from that era, and they frankly fit me better than any modern clothes. I guess I just have that body type (medium boobs, small waist, medium hips--most clothes nowadays only look good on women with no curves at all). I buy vintage at thrift shops all the time. If you know where to look, they're a lot cheaper than modern clothes and are built to last way more.

I even own a few Victorian pieces that are still in good shape, but can't really wear most of them because people were generally shorter then. I CAN wear the shoulder cape with the jet beads, though, so I do as often as I can.

I also own a few pairs of shoes from that time, and they are really comfortable and hold up very well and have enough of a heel to be fitting for formal occasions. (I have really tiny skinny feet - I can't count on modern shoes, honestly. The old ones suit me best.)

Can't do the gloves, though. I hate to have my hands impaired.

[wickerwoman]

55. Theoretically, but it would expose some tattoos I usually cover up.

[Withywindle]

56. Oh, let your freak flag fly.

I think my best look is one of my 40s or 50s dresses, with one of my 30s low heeled-shoes, with my tats (arms, legs, shoulders) showing.

[Withywindle]

58. The shoes of that era were the BEST!

Full disclosure - I might be 5'6", but I'm so small boned I wear a size 6 shoe (narrow). I have little teeny tiny white Victorian feet that get blistered easily if shoes chafe at all, and the women's shoes of that era not only fit me extremely well for the most part, they are so relatively comfortable and built to last. I have shoes my grandmother's age (90) that fit me better and are in better shape than shoes I bought new two years ago.

[ismnotwasm]

62. Well not me

I work with a young woman though, who has an amazing sense of fashion. She'll do the hat and glove thing in the right weather, but it's all modern. Very attractive. What's different is, there is nothing binding, nothing out-sized, no uncomfortable fabrics, she can take strides if she needs too in the kind of skirts she wears. I give her a pass on her shoes. I hate most shoes inflicted on women as fashionable, she says she buys only what's comfortable. I could almost see her wearing some of the old styles. (Minus corsets, I'm sure-- God what a nightmare)

Me, I like dresses that flow and are freeing, soft natural fabrics that my body can move in.

[Arkansas Granny]

63. I grew up in the 40's and 50's and women did dress like that if they were going out,

even if it was to the grocery store. Hats, stockings and white gloves were usually reserved for church and other special occassions. Women who wore slacks were talked about. And don't forget, nearly everything had to be starched and ironed before being worn. Even if you had a clothes dryer (and very few families did), clothing seldom came out without wrinkles.

[pitohui]

65. i hope not, i think my grandma had only one dress in the 30s

pretty sure nobody had white gloves and a hat on a tobacco farm in 1935...

it was my understanding (from grandmas on both sides) that most women had at best one change of clothes in those days, what they had on and the other one

i'm pretty sure movie costumes were just that, costumes, look at news photos, there aren't too many gloves, hats, fancy dresses in most of them

answers like "i hate pantyhose" are truly silly, were pantyhose even invented until the 1960s and i'm thinking they had their heyday in the 1980s, seemed like you had basically few clothes or depression clothes until the post-war era and even then if a woman could afford the fancy 1950s clothes, she wasn't wearing pantyhose, they had those girdles and those garter belts that held up stockings on hooks...

anyway, sure i'd be happy to wear hat and gloves, it would sure save on sunscreen, but i doubt there was ever a significant period of time when the middle class dressed that way

[csziggy]

73. Absolutely not - most days I don't dress at all

Hang around in oversized T-shirts and comfy pants. No bra. No shoes. But, I am retired so I spend all day around the house or the farm.

For me, "dressing up" is wearing a T-shirt with a nice picture on it, picking out socks to match my shirt, and wearing a "good" pair of jeans. And a frigging bra and shoes - two things I seldom wear at home.

I was born right when things changed - until I was in seventh grade girls were not allowed to wear any kind of pants to school, except in phys ed class. Even then, the pants were supposed to be part of a "pants suit" and originally were supposed to be store bought, not home made. Mom raised hell about that - why were girls required to take Home Ec if we could not sew our own clothes and wear them to school. (She was already fighting Home Ec as a requirement for girls only since boys had no equivalent requirement and so girls automatically had one less college credit.)

We were supposed to wear hats and white gloves to church - something that Mom had to give up on for me by fifth grade because I have huge hands and no womens' gloves fit me after that age. Somehow hair bands got credit for being hats so that was slightly better. And heels - I hated those things! How are you supposed to wear them and actually move around?

Oh, and then there were stockings - when I first was supposed to wear them, there was no such thing as panty hose. So it was a girdle or garter belt and individual stockings. In Florida. In an un-air-conditioned school and home and church. Panty hose are only marginally better. That problem, along with the heels was easily solved - never wear dresses. Never "dress up" - always be comfortable and casual.

Without the 60s loosening up dress codes, I would have been doomed.

[Skittles]

74. no

it would have taken me too long just to fix my hair :o

[Callalily]

75. Oh I could, I simply adore

vintage clothes, and I do have a few nice pieces.

I typically wear skirts or dresses to work, other than in the winter.

Now the hair and hat? That's a different story. No hats and just wash and go hair. ;-)

http://www.revampvintage.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=reVamp&Category_Code=W30s

http://www.revampvintage.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=reVamp&Category_Code=W40s

[BuelahWitch]

76. When I was younger I could

Not now. :-(

[LeftyMom]

77. I could dress like an upper class white lady of that period, if I wasn't expected to work either,

and somebody else did the cleaning.

Women who actually had shit to do only dressed up like that for church and special occasions.

[Dancnkc]

78. Aren't I cute enough for ya?

oh alright... give me a few minutes to clean up first. Sigh..



http://www.theweeklyvice.com/2010/06/jamelia-sanders-got-little-street.html