What to wear has occupied many happy hours and years of my thinking life. So though some research has claimed that little girls and boys are conditioned to be male and female… pink versus blue etc, and that clothes have nothing to do with gender, I have to disagree.
I don’t think any little boy could have felt the bliss that I did at three when I finally got to wear a sun-suit that had been too big for me. I remember the day I was allowed to wear it, I remember what it looked like, and I remember the ecstasy of wearing it.
Not quite the same rapture over my white petticoats trimmed with broderie anglaise, and the smocked pink dress and the blue dress, made of ninon – a fine muslin type fabric with soft little dots on it, but I loved them, and I remember them still. I loved my grey flannel coat with the red collar and cuffs, and I clearly remember my utter disapproval of my mother in her new coats.
I stood and watched with some disapproval as she preened herself in the two new coats she had just bought, one a black fluffy material with gold buttons, the other a smooth jade green wool with big black buttons. When she asked me which I preferred, I couldn’t tell her which because I thought they were both so hideous. Poor mother!
School uniform was a treat then too, with beautiful quality velour hats with big brims and a wide ribbon round it for winter, and a Panama hat the same shape with another big ribbon round it for summer. Both hats had elastic to fit under the chin, and I would chew the elastic on the way home from school in a satisfying sort of way.
When my Victorian grandmother came to care for us after my mother had gone, she dressed me according to her firmly held notions. I went to school one day in an anguish of embarrassment, wearing a hideous garment which had been my aunt’s during the war. It was a beige coloured pixie hood, which had a long scarf part which you wound round your neck. I hated it, and knew all the other children would jeer at it, and they did.
Worst of all were the bright purple fluffy mittens she got hold of – warm – but hideous. It lacerated my fashion- conscious soul every time I put them on. And the boys, who had a genius for the deadly nick-name, called out ‘Mickey Mouse gloves’ whenever they saw me in them, and I burned with shame.
Bundled off to my new parents at nine and a half, they threw away all the clothes my grandmother had lovingly made me, and took us shopping in London, buying up big at the smartest children’s shop, and I felt I had died and gone to heaven, with new red coats and blue coats, tartan skirts and jerseys, red kilts and pretty dresses.
But they had to last… that was the last time we enjoyed such largesse. When I grew out of them, there were no replacements, and I had to manage on various left-overs. This was when I read ‘Little Women’ and found my kindred spirit in Meg, the eldest sister. Amy also spoke to my soul when she wrote in her diary that: ‘Meg is very kind to me and lets me wear her blue dress with the white dots’.
The scene in which Meg, also humiliated by her worn clothes, allows her frivolous friends to turn her into a fashion plate for a party, and overhears her mother’s friend describing her as ‘a doll’, was one that I read and re-read, and I felt her humiliation as though it was my own.
Oh, the lovely cut of winter clothes, the fabrics, the wool and tweed, the gabardine and mohair, the lambs-wool and cashmere, the knits and jersey, velvet and corduroy, moleskin and flannel. And for summer, the shirtwaisters and the full skirts, the pretty blouses and the cotton dresses.
And for summer, we had linens and cottons and seersuckers and silk, the muslins and tulle, taffetas and brocades for evening. We’d never heard of denim – and I still hate it. And blessedly, we’d never heard of polyester, and all those hot and horrid man-made fabrics.
When I went into the army at eighteen, we were kitted out with uniforms which were made to measure, and a great deal of thought had gone into the design. Even our shoes were beautiful hand-made leather with elegant lasts made by a famous shoemaker.
The winter uniform was a barathea skirt and jacket – a fine soft wool, and the summer uniform was a beautiful gaberdine, with beige shirts and a tie. We had khaki felt hats, and green ties for the summer. And on our shoulders and hats we wore the emblem of the Corps – Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war.
Since then, mini-skirts and maxi-skirts, hot pants and shift dresses, kaftans and flares have all come and gone. Not to mention shoulder pads, platform soles, stiletto heels, wedges, kitten heels and winkle pickers. And now – anything goes.
So the great gift of growing older, is that one can wear what one wants, be comfortable, look at fashion with detachment, and remember the fun and the pain and the pleasure of all those clothes over the years – ‘the fabric of our lives’, as the cotton advertisement says.
Food for Threadbare Gourmets
The oven was on, so I decided to bake some potatoes. When they were done I scooped out the insides, and mashed them with butter, cream, plenty of chopped chives, salt and pepper. I piled the mixture back into the potato skins, sprinkled grated cheese on top, and put them back in the oven until the cheese was melted and golden. Delicious with a green salad.
Food for Thought
The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you.
Kendall Hailey Writer
ThesoundofwaterNZ 
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