Oh, I am fed up. Because just as the dress designers have at last brought out soft, flowing styles that I’m sure would do wonders for me we, like surely every other family, are having an economy drive and I can’t afford any new clothes at the moment. And with my luck, by the time cash starts to flow freely again (will it ever, I wonder?) fashions will have changed again, and not necessarily in my favour.
When mini skirts came in I looked down at my sag-bag knees and sighed. When platform soles sent girls rocketing up like runner beans I measured my already 5ft 8in and sighed again. But at least I didn’t mind making do through all these fashions – of course it’s always mum who has to make do isn’t it?
As we all know, if there is ever any spare money available for clothes, young teenage daughters ‘simply must have the latest boots/skirt/pullovers/coats, etc, because absolutely everyone is wearing them!’ Young sons aren’t so bothered about looking trendy, but they rapidly outgrow their shoes, wear out their jeans and eventually start to look like a quart-sized boy in a pint-sized anorak. Husbands too must have a reasonable turn-over of decent clothes for work although I do sometimes wonder why my husband always seems to be digging the garden in his good stuff and saving all his worn, wrinkled old gear for smarter occasions!
So that leaves mum at the back of the queue at the best of times, but it is extra hard when the shops all suddenly seem to be full of flattering feminine styles to suit all ages.
For my age group in particular, fashion seems often to have dealt us a bit of a raw deal in the past. In fact, looking back, while I agree that the pendulum swings to and fro over a period of time, for me it always seems to have been swinging in the wrong direction. In my schooldays we skipped fetchingly around in barrel-shaped garments which looked all right on the small percentage of barrel-shaped girls but did nothing for long, thin me. The year I left – naturally – they changed the uniform to comparatively smart and flattering shirt-waisters.
This wouldn’t have mattered if I could have slipped straight into the latest teenage gear, but we weren’t called teenagers then. We were called Lumpy-In-Betweens. And we had clothes rationing, which meant that we saved up our coupons to buy sensible, lasting shoes and accepted whatever other hand-me-downs came our way. I particularly remember the neighbourly gift of a coat, loose fitting and pastel striped, which made me look like an adolescent camel driver.
I also remember that, whenever I was invited to a formal dance, I had to be more than usually polite to my older cousin. This was because she owned the only long dress in the family. What luxury to feel all those yards of taffeta swooshing around my ankles. Never mind that the dress was royal blue with magenta and emerald appliquéd sprays, and that I was sallow yellow!
A friend’s mother took pity on me and ran me up a two-piece sunsuit from some pre-war check dust sheets. It says little for my wardrobe that this was definitely the smartest, most attractive outfit I’d owned until then.
When the New Look came in I was serving an apprenticeship in London and my wages just about covered my train fares. So, glad as I was to tuck my saggy knees out of sight, finances didn’t exactly permit a headlong dash to the House of Dior. The more frugal fashion magazines told us that it was quite all right to lower our hemlines by inserting deep bands of contrasting material into the skirt. I still shudder at the memory of a pink daisy print with a strip of brown crêpe-de-chine let in below the knee. One of my better achievements was an enormous black velvet evening bag gathered into drawstrings at the top. When big hats became news I managed to be fashionable right away by easing out the draw-strings and wearing this great floppy object on my head.
‘The fascinating thing about you Betty,’ said a dashing male acquaintance, ‘is that you never look the same two days running.’
I preened myself, then he added, ‘Now take today for instance. You look just like The Laughing Cavalier.’ So that hat became a cushion!
I would really rather not dwell on all the changes of fashion we’ve had since then. Suffice it to say that when bosoms were rampant I had to make do with folded handkerchiefs. As my figure blossomed, bodices flattened. At the first whisper of the sack dress I developed a willowy waistline. Later, when hipster skirts came in, I had a job finding my hips.
‘Never mind, said my mother. ‘At least you have pretty curly hair.’ No sooner were the words out of her mouth than everyone suddenly started wearing their hair long and straight.
‘Never mind,’ said my husband more recently. ‘You have the best shoulders I’ve ever seen.’ And he’s the only one who has ever seen them. Whatever happened to off-the-shoulder dresses?
And now, just as I am going through a slightly bulgy phase (back to the dieting any day now!) along come the flattering loose over-dresses and flaring skirts – just when our family budget doesn’t run beyond urgent new shoes, school gear and anoraks for the children.
Of course future fashions may turn out to be just right for me. One of these days, when my hair is white and sparse, my ancient knees as slender as gnarled orange sticks and my rheumaticky old shoulders covered in woolly shawls, the pendulum will probably zoom past once again. And this time it will be the Edwardian look. You know, piled up curly hair, long graceful skirts and the barest of bare shoulders.
So you see, that’s why I’m feeling so fed up!