GreenishLady

Originally Blogging the Artist's Way. Thoughts, musings, experience of the 12-week course, January to March 2006. And after that?.... Life, creativity, writing. Where does it all meet? Here, perhaps.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Top ten teenage wardrobe items - List Friday

List Friday at Pomegranates and Paper suggests the topic each week. Take a look at the other lists.

My top ten Teenage Wardrobe items

When I was a teenager, what thrilled me was to buy clothes with labels – not fancy labels. Just any labels. I grew up with a grandmother and a crowd of aunts who were all dressmakers, a mother and another aunt who were whizzes with knitting needles, and an uncle with a knitting-machine, so until I reached my teens, very few items of clothing came from shops. They were made for me with love and attention to detail, but I always envied people with clothes that came off a rail somewhere. So the items I remember especially loving first were :

1 A pair of lemon crimplene bellbottom hipster trousers, worn with
2 A lemon/orange/cream floral nylon blouse (I know, I know…!!!)

Once I’d gotten over my infatuation with synthetic fibres,
3 A white broderie-anglaise short-sleeved, short smocked top that I bought in a boutique, having haunted the place every day after school until my mother relented and gave me the money for it. I called it my Altar Boy top, and wore it even when I’d ripped a hole in one sleeve.
4 A pair of brushed denim jeans with zipped pockets on the side of the legs, below the knee. Practicality? Dunno. They just felt so cool. Then – disaster – dropped a bottle of bleach, splashing one leg of my jeans. Disaster? No –oo. Wore them until they fell apart, with the huge bleached splash all down one leg. Wore them proudly, and called them my “cement trousers”. Paired with number 3, I still think I’ve never felt better in any outfit.
5 (blush, blush) in the worst stage of my hippie phase, a “kaftan” I made from a bedsheet and embroidered with flowers, smiley faces, clouds with sun peeking through, rainbows… I wore this in public. It still looked like it was made from a bedsheet.

One summer, something strange happened:
6 I borrowed a fisherman’s knit, moss-green jumper of my father’s and never gave it back. I wore it and wore it and wore it, with
7 A pair of beautiful, brown, leather men’s sandals. Also my fathers. I know! I know! (His feet are small, but the sandals were still too big for me. I didn’t mind). He had had them for years. I took just one summer to destroy them.

The summer my breasts grew:
8 A grey wool duffle coat, over an assortment of black items of clothing, to wit: One pair of black bellbottom trousers, with buttons on the side from knee to hem, a black A-line skirt, a black POLO NECK (in summer), a black cheesecloth blouse. Black tights.

And the summer I decided it was ok to have breasts:
9 An embroidered cheesecloth tunic bought on a school trip to Paris. Chic!
10 And this one is interesting. When I was thirteen, one of the hated, hated items in my wardrobe was a tweed suit – trousers and jacket, green with an orange stripe (see? Horrible!) Made by one of my hardworking aunts for Christmas. I wept when I was forced to wear it, considered it an abominable cruelty on my mother’s part to insist that I wear it to Christmas Mass, and abandoned it at the back of the wardrobe, hoping my mother would forget about it. She did. Four years later, I pulled it out, and suddenly it had acquired a certain je-ne-sais-quoi – retro chic? – I wore it and wore it and wore it.

And there are no photographs of any of those items. Honest! Really, there aren’t!

8 Comments:

At 5/5/06 10:50 am, Blogger Endment said...

I love your progression through the changing times of your life...

 
At 5/5/06 2:21 pm, Blogger Letha Sandison said...

i wish you had photos!!! you have such a good memory, im not surre i could come up with a list.

 
At 6/5/06 12:52 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My aunt was a dressmaker and often made our clothes from the remnants leftover. Unfortunately, the fabric was usually hideous and the skirts were usually elastic waisted. Sigh. Very bad memories.

But I loved your European wardrobe memoir. I think I had the same altar boy top, too.

 
At 6/5/06 4:17 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hee hee! This brought back memories of my teenage "fashion statements." Thanksfully, I have NO idea where photos of me in the early 70's are - NO IDEA whatsoever! Especially the olive khaki army-pants with an embroidered peasant-top stage.
***shudder***

 
At 6/5/06 9:24 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My mom made alot of my clothes too, and I started to hate it when I was in junior high. One peach colored, bell-bottomed pants with a short little jacket brings back horrible memories. She forced me to wear it to the family Christmas bash, and I felt so embarrassed. Now I look back on it, and know that peach is the best color for me, and I looked HOT in it.

 
At 6/5/06 11:13 pm, Blogger harmonyinline said...

Endment passed me a meme to list the ten birds I think most beautiful, I hope you don't mind my passing this meme on to you.

 
At 7/5/06 1:21 am, Blogger Cate said...

I so enjoyed this list, just kept smiling as I read through it! I think my favorite was the kaftan :D !

P.S. I had a duffle coat, too, sent to me by my Irish relatives. I hated it--spitballs were thrown on my schoolbus daily, and they stuck to the wool like magnets!

 
At 7/5/06 4:06 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A visual feast of hippiness. I only remember three items: denim bib overalls, my "shit-kicker" shoes which were men's work boots, and a blue floppy hat I wore every day until my horrible shag haircut grew back out!

 

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