by jphilo | May 20, 2016 | Reflections on the Past
Tomorrow afternoon, many of the people I love will be dancing together at a family wedding. Thinking about what to wear for the celebration made me think of the petticoats we used to wear to weddings in the 1960s. Which is why this Fantastic Friday I’m engaging in one of the bouts of the petticoat envy that have plagued me since watching the first episode of Mad Men in 2013.
Mad Men.
The show’s been hot for several years, but I didn’t start watching it until lately. It didn’t take long to get hooked, since the show’s first season is at about the time my first childhood memories kick in. We were a from a family of teetotalers, so I can’t speak for the drinking. But the hair styles, the furniture, the technology, and the unrestrained smoking are truly a blast from the past.
So are the petticoats.
And that is something I can speak about having been a bit of a petticoat connoisseur way back then. Though that may not be strong enough word to describe my preoccupation with petticoats. My heart’s desire was to have a petticoat poofy enough to make my dresses stick out like the dresses on the front of the patterns Mom bought at the dry good store.
But, to get that kind of poof required several petticoats. My sister and I each had one petticoat like the one pictured below. Rows and rows of gathered netting were stitched to the cotton outer petticoat. But to get quality poof, a second half-petticoat of almost pure netting could be slipped (hence the name slip) under the full petticoat.
Our family, like many others, couldn’t afford two petticoats per daughter. So our full skirts, along with those of most of the girls we knew, had more droop than poof. And that returns the conversation to the subject at hand. When those Mad Med actresses wear shirtwaist dresses with wide skirts, their clothes exhibit maximum poof. We’re talking not just two petticoats. But three. Maybe even four. And I covet every one of them.
Because I have petticoat envy.
And I’m not ashamed to admit it. In fact, if the show was casting extras for a crowd scene, I would audition in a heart beat. And I wouldn’t care if it was a non-speaking part. I wouldn’t care if they edited me out of any shot I was in. I wouldn’t care if the pay was lousy. Or nonexistent. As long as I walked away with a picture of me wearing a dress with enough petticoats to achieve maximum poof, I would be happy.
And resolved never to wear an under-petticoat again.
Because, if memory serves me right, those gathered layers of netting were extremely scratchy. So scratchy they went out of fashion and never made a come back. Except as an outside layer of foo-foo, a style which is way cute on a 6-year-old, but not nearly so cute on a 56-year-old.
Then again, it wouldn’t hurt to try one on…
by jphilo | Jan 23, 2014 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
- NPR did a story over the weekend about this century’s version of Victorian hair art. Instead of weaving our deceased loved ones’ hair into creepy wreathes and wall hangings, we can have their cremated remains compressed into diamonds. So when we introduce ourselves to prospective employees or clients, we can flash our jewelry and introduce dear departed Grammy and Papoo, too. That’s much less creepy.
- The dresses and play clothes worn by the adolescent character Sally in season 6 of Mad Men are dead ringers for the 4-H projects I sewed in junior high. Half of me is pleased to be able to verify the fashion accuracy of the show. The other half of me is not so happy to be old enough to verify the fashion accuracy of the show.
- Our guidance counselor wasn’t kidding when he told the students in our class that taking German in high school would come in handy for the rest of our lives. My rendition of Du Du Liegst Mir im Herzen calmed down a resident at the nursing home where I worked in college. A few years back, I wowed German house guests by counting to ten in their native tongue. More recently, while reading The Book Thief, I recognized most of German phrases sprinkled throughout the book, which must have boosted my comprehension considerably. Not a bad investment on 3 years of study!
How has your high school foreign language study come in handy over the years? Leave a comment.
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by jphilo | Jan 20, 2014 | Reflections on the Past
The Great Purgeal Vortex of 2014 continues unabated at our house. This weekend it unleashed its fury upon our unsuspecting and completely innocent kitchen. The that raged inside our kitchen cupboards and drawers revealed some unexpected treasures, mostly in the form of old cookbooks and recipe files inherited from my mother-in-law.
One file was filled with recipes found in booklets slipped inside baking products, ripped from magazines, and clipped out of cereal boxes. But the backside of a page of Christmas recipes torn from the December 1961 issue of the Ladies Home Journal contained a shopping list for Santa Clause for the Well-Equipped Home. For those of you planning a retro-themed Christmas for next December, the first half of your list is located at the top of this post. The second half is directly below.
Just so you know, my siblings and I did not grow up in a well-equipped home. At least not according to Ladies Home Journal standards. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that Mom did have an electric hand mixer, but not one that hung on the wall. She also had cookbooks. But they were published by Betty Crocker, not Ladies Home Journal.
However, as a kindergartener in 1961, I coveted, coveted, coveted the milk shake mixer. But at $14.95 it wasn’t coming to our house. Neither were the travel items, as we didn’t travel much. And the portable oven and the camera “sufficiently light in weight and small in size to fit into a woman’s purse or a man’s pocket” were way, way out of reach for a school teacher’s salary.
The ad begs a couple questions, which you can respond to in the comment box:
- Which of these items made your home well-equipped in 1961?
- Do you think Don Draper or Peggy Olson from Mad Men came up with the idea for this ad?
by jphilo | May 20, 2013 | Reflections on the Past
Mad Men.
The show’s been hot for several years, but I didn’t start watching it until lately. It didn’t take long to get hooked, since the show’s first season is at about the time my first childhood memories kick in. We were a from a family of teetotalers, so I can’t speak for the drinking. But the hair styles, the furniture, the technology, and the unrestrained smoking are truly a blast from the past.
So are the petticoats.
And that is something I can speak about having been a bit of a petticoat connoisseur way back then. Though that may not be strong enough word to describe my preoccupation with petticoats. My heart’s desire was to have a petticoat poofy enough to make my dresses stick out like the dresses on the front of the patterns Mom bought at the dry good store.
But, to get that kind of poof required several petticoats. My sister and I each had one petticoat like the one pictured below. Rows and rows of gathered netting were stitched to the cotton outer petticoat. But to get quality poof, a second half-petticoat of almost pure netting could be slipped (hence the name slip) under the full petticoat.
Our family, like many others, couldn’t afford two petticoats per daughter. So our full skirts, along with those of most of the girls we knew, had more droop than poof. And that returns the conversation to the subject at hand. When those Mad Med actresses wear shirtwaist dresses with wide skirts, their clothes exhibit maximum poof. We’re talking not just two petticoats. But three. Maybe even four. And I covet every one of them.
Because I have petticoat envy.
And I’m not ashamed to admit it. In fact, if the show was casting extras for a crowd scene, I would audition in a heart beat. And I wouldn’t care if it was a non-speaking part. I wouldn’t care if they edited me out of any shot I was in. I wouldn’t care if the pay was lousy. Or nonexistent. As long as I walked away with a picture of me wearing a dress with enough petticoats to achieve maximum poof, I would be happy.
And resolved never to wear an under-petticoat again.
Because, if memory serves me right, those gathered layers of netting were extremely scratchy. So scratchy they went out of fashion and never made a come back. Except as an outside layer of foo-foo, a style which is way cute on a 6-year-old, but not nearly so cute on a 56-year-old.
Then again, it wouldn’t hurt to try one on…
