Clothing Memories

I happen to have my christening dress. It's white satin and there is also a little lacy bonnet with pink ribbons, and a matching pair of tiny white satin shoes. I also have a white knitted blanket. I suppose I could look for a doll that size to put it on...
My mom and my sisters always put dresses on me. I can remember wanting them to tie the ties in back as tight as they could. The one I wore for my 1st grade picture was navy blue rayon with white lace trim. I had dressed myself and I "borrowed" my sister's elaborate rhinestone necklace. It was proof that yes, a first-grader can be "overdressed"!
In elementary school, all the girls were required to wear dresses, even in the wintertime. But we were allowed to bring along a pair of slacks that we could put on under our dresses to keep our legs warm during recess. Once, a boy in my class needed to borrow someone's slacks either because he got his pants too wet to wear at recess, or he had a little "accident". When the teacher asked if any of us girls would lend him her slacks, I volunteered.
I loved Halloween, not so much for candy, but because I could dress up in public!!! When I was quite small, I was a twirler. I had a little red short dress with short sleeves and with a wavy white staff with musical notes on it decorating the very full skirt. I also had a little pillbox hat that matched and a little baton and my white marching boots. You see, my older sister taught twirling to a lot of girls at school. She actually had several classes that she taught. For several years, our high school band had a whole cadre of twirlers in the front led by my sister who was the majorette!
Another Halloween I had a very full black skirt with different colored trim on each layer. I carried a tambourine. I was supposed to be a Spanish senorita! The next year, my mother found some interesting material. It was white with different colored tiny fringe all over it. She made me another full skirt out of that.
I took dancing lessons for seven years starting when I was in Kindergarten. My mom always sewed my costumes. One I recall was made of hot turquoise satin trimmed with some material that had silver glitter on it. There would always be a tutu to go with it. The last year I danced I had graduated to toe shoes and was given a the solo. The music was the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker Suite. My mom had made me a lime green tutu that was very long, down to my ankles. My toe shoes were pink and I had a rhinestone tiara that I wore. My parents had a movie camera and my brother always was there at the recitals with the big light bar and the movie camera to record me for posterity! Obviously, I did not end up dancing as a career choice!
When I was in sixth grade, I had this huge crush on a TV actor, Richard Boone who starred in "Have Gun Will Travel". He dressed all in black and rode a black horse. So I wore black a good portion of that year... black slacks and a black turtleneck top. It made me feel very cool, and I could be heard singing the theme song pretty much all the time!
By the time I got to high school, I didn't have very many clothes. I was jealous of the girls who had matching sweater and skirt sets. I remember one time shopping in Mason City with my mom at Three Sisters clothing store. I hated shopping. I didn't think anything looked good on me. My poor mom was exasperated with me! She ended up buying me two wool flared skirts, one in bright yellow and one in bright blue along with matching sweaters. Each sweater had flowers on it that matched the skirt. I must not have liked them very much because I can't remember ever wearing them.
I do remember a cobalt blue sleeveless dress of some nubby material. It had a dropped waist and a flared skirt. Around the waist was a two inch trim made of plaid material... cobalt blue and bright green and yellow. I wore a yellow long-sleeved blouse with a button down collar with that. I loved that dress! Another thing that I loved to wear was a pleated wool skirt that was open near the front. It overlapped and you had to fasten it with a big gold safety pin. I loved that skirt!
I was in Brownies when I was in Kindergarten, but I don't remember anything about that. But since my Mom had been involved with 4-H since SHE was a young girl, I was a member of the Buffalo Boosterettes club first (for younger girls) and then the Buffalo Boosters (for older girls). My Mom was usually a leader and/or involved with judging gardens and helping girls with their projects. 4-H would alternate three core focuses each year. One year when the focus was Sewing, I sewed a sleeveless shift dress and won blue ribbons both for sewing the dress and for modeling the dress. I loved that fabric! It was the most beautiful paisley pattern in a cotton fabric. That, along with a simple pink cotton blouse and an apron both sewn in high school Home Economics class were the extent of my sewing career.
I remember wearing jeans, but these were not fashion jeans like girls wear today. They might even have been boy's jeans, for all I know! You rolled the bottoms of them up. And when they got holes in the knees, you cut them off and they became your favorite summertime "cut-offs".
I had a tight pencil skirt of brown wool plaid that I wore with a dark brown oversized sweater over it. Did I say it was tight? My future husband told me he liked marching band because he marched right behind me and loved to see me in that skirt! I had another cotton plaid skirt with the plaid on the bias. It was an A-line and I wore it just above the knee. Evidently I must have really liked plaids!
I almost forgot to mention the cow!!! I cannot remember what the occasion was. It probably was part of the Carnival which was put on in the fall by the music department. All the grades were involved and each class had songs to sing. Well, evidently the music teacher wanted to have two students dress up in a cow suit and tap-dance!!! So guess who volunteered herself to dance and her mother to make the cow costume!!! It was bee-yoo-tiful! I remember making the cows eyelashes out of black construction paper and getting them to curl up. One of my girlfriends agreed to do it with me, but I got to be the front half because my mother had made the costume, I think! I wish I had a picture of that cow!
In the early 60's, I had been a junior bridesmaid when my brother got married in Ames. The sleeveless dresses were floor-length with an attached train. The fabric was a beautiful shimmery shade of green that seemed to change as you looked at it. So when I was asked to the Prom when I was a Junior, I wanted to wear that dress, but I had gotten bigger on top. But, somehow, my mother was able to find some more of that fabric and have the lady down the alley remake the bodice to fit me. I wore opera-length white gloves and white shoes and John got me gardenias.
In 1963, I spent my 7th grade 2nd semester in Arizona staying with my sister to help her when she had her baby. When it was time for me to fly home, she helped me find a dress to wear home. It was a two-piece pink brocade. The dress was sleeveless and the skirt belled out. The jacket had elbow-length sleeves and kind of a cowl-neck. I loved that dress!
When I was a Senior, my band-mates voted for me to represent them at the Estherville Band Festival that fall as Miss Buffalo Center. (My three older sisters had all been voted Miss Buffalo Center, too, but for the Mason Ci
ty Band Festival). My mom took me shopping in Mason City and we found this bright kelly green knit tent dress with long sleeves to wear in the parade. She said that color would set off my red hair. I'm not sure where she bought that, but I remember going into the old Younkers store with her, through the revolving door and up the elevator to the third floor to find a hat and purse and gloves to go with it. We settled on a black hat with a turned up brim, black purse, and black gloves. (Of course I did not win.)
Another favorite of mine was a sleeveless mini A-line swing dress. It was a cotton blend and it was bright orange with huge white polka dots on it. I LOVED that dress!
When Prom time came around in 1968, I still wanted to wear that same dress that I wore to my Junior prom. We went to the lady up the alley to see if she had any ideas of how to change the look of the dress just a bit so I could wear it again. She had just finished making a wedding dress and had some of the yard lace left over. She suggested that I let her make me a lace coat to go over the dress! It had short belled sleeves and fastened at the neck with one hook. I loved it! I found silver shoes and a silver clutch purse and this time John got me another gardenia corsage (that my mother made again, of course!)
He proposed that night and we set a date for October for the wedding. I bought some Bride magazines and fell in love with a dress by Priscilla. I took the picture to the lady up the alley and asked her if she could copy that dress... and she did! It took yards and yards and yards of lace for the back. It was plain in the front with long sleeves and a round neck. I carried the white lace fan I had bought at the U.N. when my cousin and I spent a month in New York City staying with my brother in August of 1965. My mother put green orchids on it and it was so pretty! My mother had also made my headpiece. It consisted of loops of white velvet rope and pearls and stephanotis on the ends of the ropes plus loops of white lace covered ribbons. I wore that instead of a veil because my hair was so long.
The next time that I remember any piece of clothing that I had was when we were living in Yuma, Arizona. It was a mumu in a wild red psychedelic print on rayon stretch knit. It was the late 60's and lots of women weren't wearing bras anymore. So I was able to pull the neckline down on my shoulders. It was a long dress and I wore it to death. Also at that time, I got an outfit from my oldest sister. It was a chocolate brown knit bell-bottom jumper with straps and an orange gauzy blouse to wear under it with long flowing romance sleeves. I loved THAT outfit! (The picture at the top of this article shows the style of that outfit, just not the same colors as mine, plus it's not me!)
Then it was the 70's and I went through a mini-earth mother phase. I embroidered two red denim jumpers for my two oldest girls. And I wore all different colored bandanas on my head to hold my hair back from my face along with patchwork tops and bell-bottom jeans.
When the 80's came along, I had lost a lot of weight and started wearing very, very tight jeans and those ruffled close-fitting shirts that you tuck in and high-heeled cowgirl boots. I used to have to lie on my bed to get the jeans zipped all the way up! Then two more babies and there went my figure! When our oldest daughter got married in 1987, I spent many hours sewing sequins and pearls on my ivory satin mother's dress. I didn't realize that long dresses make someone who is only 5'3" (like me) look kind of dumpy! It wasn't until 1995 and the launch of my store that I started caring about how I looked again. Two more weddings with wild searches for appropriate "mother's" dresses came and went.

I gradually developed my style over the next thirty years... Now, it's jeans, some kind of top with a jacket over it... a long necklace, hoop earrings, and my beloved Dansko clogs. And I'm done!

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