Fabulous Fifties

I'm so sorry I missed them. I mean, I was there but I was wearing puffed sleeves and ankle socks. I think I had a poodle skirt. But look at the skirts in this ad. The fabric swatch on the left has a wonderful texture and gold imprinting. The swatch on the right has real glitter glued onto the fabric.

How tiny does your waist look when you're wearing a full petticoat under your skirt? I remember my mom and other grownup ladies wearing skirts like these and actually remember being envious that I couldn't wear one of them. I'm still envious.

And those rich fabrics. Satins, shantungs, polished cottons, sateens. They were so beautiful. There were disadvantages of course with all the wonderful fabrics of that era. Lots weren't washable. But White's Cleaners came to our house every week, picked up our laundry and dry cleaning and then brought them back.

And the cottons had to be ironed. My mom kept a bag of dampened clothes in the fridge until she was ready to iron them. Mom liked ironing which was a good thing. She did a lot of it. She didn't do Dad's shirts which came from the cleaners nicely starched and neatly folded with a paper band around each one. But she ironed everything else. I eventually did some of it. I started on handkerchiefs and moved up quickly to pillowcases. (Yes, we ironed all our pillowcases back then. And embroidered them too. You could only buy plain white or pastel sheets. If you wanted designs on your sheets, you had to add them yourself.) And I too liked ironing. Still do, but I pretty much iron only when I'm sewing.

I have lots of these style cards in my shop and I'll be posting more. What great mementoes of a great fashion era.