Fashion
Without Prejudice
Fashion is my favourite subject of all time, with shoes as second, then music, and everything else after. My Mother introduced me to fashion in the fifty's and it became my delight for ever. Pretty Dresses, that twirled and always looked stylish.
She had natty little suits as well, waspish at the waist and gloves and good stockings, Chanel No 5, of course, no inferior fragrances for Mum. Hats too and light little confections of net, and witty cloches in feathers and black bugle beads. A fur, she called her "Rabbit". She had steamer trunks full of clothes.
She was delighted by Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Sabrina with her enormous pointed tits, and Jayne Mansfield, same.
There was Gina Lollobridgita, all sensual women, who knew how to dress. Even the Jayne Mansfield and Sabrina types were smart women, playing up to what the men wanted, a sex kitten and made money at it.
Mum loved an independent woman and was a feminist long before Woman's Lib happened along. She taught Jackie and I well. We're both pretty fierce, Jackie with her,
"Now, Stop, Look, Listen" speeches which are really good.
And my
"I''m sick fed up with you, Och !"
All Mum, Natalie, the "Tartar", the aristocrat with her RAAF voice for the phone, and snobby, posh, taking no shit from anyone. When I think of Mum, I think strong.
She loved a confrontation and I hate them or I used to, now I'm older, I like them as everything gets out in the open. I'm tired of silly secrets, I've kept mine for too long, for loyalty to people who don't deserve it.
Back to Mum, when went to Grammar School I used to call her Mummy, so affected, but all the other girls did too. In the old fashioned suburbs of Adelaide, she was a fashion Diva and she knew it, only wanting the best.
And in Port Augusta, we had a maid and Mum had Jackies and my clothes made by a "little woman" around the corner. Always matching, little frocks, so pretty, that we wore to Chuch, and she made us rompers and boleros of white cotton and fuzzy wuzzy angora.
We stood for hours on chairs being pinned up, not allowed to move, getting restless and being pricked by the pins. I mainly remember Mum in suits then, even though it was Adelaide, then Port Augusta, the heat incredible. And she's there in all the photo,s all classic and stylish in a suit, hat, she must have been boiling!
I don't know if we still have photos of us kids but I hope not. Jackie looks like Debbie, all plaits and pretty dress and neat, not a hair out of place and I am there looking like something the cat dragged in backwards
If I remember rightly, I have straw hair, sticking out at angles, a dreary raggy dress on, head cocked to one side with a Sqint in one eye, which makes me frown. Jackie pisses herself everytime she finds it.
Hope she's destroyed it in deference her Sister.But I had the advantage in one way, I was skinny and she was plumpish, so she couldn't hand me down any of her dresses. I wasn't a dressy girl till I reached 11 and started to develop.
Before that I was always in bathers or shorts, always grubby, hair tangled, a ratbag kid. Just running with the boys, and Jackie stayed in the house learning the domestic arts and I was outside and found out things, like
"Never let your older Brother Ian, get you to close your eyes and stick out your tongue", George and I learned that lesson the day it was cut chili.
And if you fell over keep running, not letting a scab form, and if you had a stitch, bend your knee up and kiss it. Frogs are slimy horrible creatures and no I do not want to hold it.
Petrol ignites and swooshes backwards, removing, eyebrows, eyelashes and burns you up, bad, George!
Girls can beat you at swimming, running and academically, so there, you big bully !
Head locks are very good defense mechanisms, as long as I can reach you, I nearly strangled George once and got in big trouble and couldn't do the choke hold anymore.
And then I started to get all girly and my brothers were astounded. I bought my first pair of bathers at 11, all by myself, trying them on at the store, shyly, they had a tiny underwire in them, and I was embarassed a bit, but Mum said, when I arrived home
"Hooley Dooley, they look fantastic"
She also said Hooray for goodbye, it was a NZ thing, don't ask me why.
So I wore them everywhere and then I had to be dressy dressed. Mum bought me the best dress back from Brissie once, lemon coloured, which is in my photo as Mary, from Peter Paul and Mary photo.
We went to Greenmount Beach every Sunday as a family and George and Dave tried to win all the competitions, mainly dance, The Twist, the Rock And Roll, The Limbo.
I wore my new lemon dress and easily won the limbo that week, and 2 weeks later we received an ice cream cake packed in dry ice.
And the year I was announced Top Girl, at school, a fat, only child, Julie, came up to me and said,
"Have you only got one dress"
"No, why?"
"Because you always wear the same one"
Right in front of all my friends.
"No, I have more at home"
but of course I didn't.
That hurt, so Mum put some clothes on the account at the store and I had a Tartan Pinafore, with a bit of soft yellow in it, so I teamed it with a soft yellow blouse underneath.
I had a gorgeous Purple and Green Short Dress (sounds horrible, but it wasn't) and lastly I chose a white tennis dress, pin tucked down the front, with a tiny belt and short short skirt. I was in heaven.
New clothes, 12 months before I couldn't have cared less for fashion, now I was avid for it.
I had my hair cut in a forward pinting page boy for once, by Mum hairdresser In Surfers. And for once it suited me and Dad made me brush it 1oo times a day with a Maxwell and Pearson hair brush.
And an article I wrote about the Queens visit, describing her "Soft Fairy Green" (Jesus!) hat was published in the School Newspaper. And then even better a boy asked me to the end of year movie visit.
And then a story I had sent in to the Courier Mail, childrens section, won first prize, winning me 11 shillings and sixpence, sent in a Postal Voucher. I had no idea what the letter held and shrieked when the voucher fell out.
And it was printed in the paper, my story a mystery, you had to use the topic they gave you. Mine about bank robbers stuck inside a vault, as time ticks on.
And then when we sailed to the UK, we had outfits for the Cruise, and In England it was out of control, fashion had exploded and landed in Carnaby Street, London.
There was Biba and Mary Quant, with her geometrical dresses, (Jackie had one--more about that later) there was Twiggy and Cilla Black and Lulu, there were white go go boots, earrings that twirled in Psychedelic colours, neons of orange, green, yellow.
It was like being in Alice In Wonderland, a weird world of colour, shape, cut, length, mini or midi, there was a veritable smorgasbord of fashion.
By the time I reached Thornes I was a fashion nut. Mum and Dad couldn't afford all the stuff I wanted, so I did jobs for money, Winns car washed, Dad's,
Cleaning out the stable rooms at Roseleigh, worked on the market with Steve and his Dad, learning how to spruik and put up with the cold feet, and hands anything to earn money just for the clothes.
I bought a frilly Purple Satin Blouse (Jimmy Hendrix Style), a Bo Peep dress with matching bloomers that cost a fortune from a boutique in Ossett. All I needed was the crook and the bonnet to go with it.
I bought from the market, but the quality was not good. I bought a grey flannel coat from there, God knows what I was thinking, it was 40 pounds then. I hated it when I got it home, it looked cheap and didn't fit properly.....but I didn't want to take it back but my Mother made me.
I bought boots from the Market that fell apart virtually straight away, cardboard soles, so I stopped buying at the market and looked for quality. Marks and Spencers, London Girl, Biba, Chelsea girl and I wanted so much, everything!
I wanted elegant dresses and heels, my outfit for Jackie's Engagement Party, a fitted coat dress in Teal with a zip all the way up the front, ending in a Big Ring.
Jackie was much more conservative in dress, but she did go and buy a burgundy Kilt and pin, ultra trendy but too long, as far as I was concerned.
So I cut 6 inches off it and turned it into a mini skirt with lace knee high socks, tight white shirt and Tartan tie. I really thought Jackie didn't want it as she never wore it.
Jackie thumped the shit out of me when she found at and she can hit, and she went to bed in my Purple Frilly Satin blouse and ruined it. Harsh lesson
But she stepped up in the Fashion Stakes and bought a fantastic geometric dress in squares of black and white. I loved it, lusted after it, wanted it and one day she let me wear it the Sat afternoon Mecca.
We didn't dress for the boys, we dressed for the girls. I wanted to show it off, so much.
I was standing at the top of the stairs, with Caroline and Denise and a boy strolled over, John Caine, he hugged me up into the air and said
"Don't you look good?"
And we chatted and caught up, I knew John from school and he had left, going elsewhere. We had a snog once on a Monday night Mecca, but not much, just like silly teens that we were. He left to get us a drink and from nowhere arrived this girl in front of me and she was fists raised,
"Leave my Boyfriend alone
She screamed. Spittle hitting me in the face.
"What Boyfriend?" I was really puzzled.
"John Caine"
And she launched on to me, trying to pull hair and scratch me, I just pushed her back and we rolled down the stairs, punches landing no where and then she grabbed my dress and ripped it right down the side.
Only the bit underneath the arm staying intact. So I grabbed hers and did the same and John arrived back with the drinks. He measure up the situation straight away.
"What happened?"
I told him
"This girl is saying I pinched you off her, you're her boyfriend"
He turned around and gave her a withering look,
"I'm not your boyfriend"
"But you snogged me that night"
"I snog a lot of girls,"
it was true
He told her off and demanded she pay up $10 to me for the dress and she did.
And Jackies face when I got home was beyond livid.
To Be continued
Fashion is my favourite subject of all time, with shoes as second, then music, and everything else after. My Mother introduced me to fashion in the fifty's and it became my delight for ever. Pretty Dresses, that twirled and always looked stylish.
She had natty little suits as well, waspish at the waist and gloves and good stockings, Chanel No 5, of course, no inferior fragrances for Mum. Hats too and light little confections of net, and witty cloches in feathers and black bugle beads. A fur, she called her "Rabbit". She had steamer trunks full of clothes.
She was delighted by Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Sabrina with her enormous pointed tits, and Jayne Mansfield, same.
There was Gina Lollobridgita, all sensual women, who knew how to dress. Even the Jayne Mansfield and Sabrina types were smart women, playing up to what the men wanted, a sex kitten and made money at it.
Mum loved an independent woman and was a feminist long before Woman's Lib happened along. She taught Jackie and I well. We're both pretty fierce, Jackie with her,
"Now, Stop, Look, Listen" speeches which are really good.
And my
"I''m sick fed up with you, Och !"
All Mum, Natalie, the "Tartar", the aristocrat with her RAAF voice for the phone, and snobby, posh, taking no shit from anyone. When I think of Mum, I think strong.
She loved a confrontation and I hate them or I used to, now I'm older, I like them as everything gets out in the open. I'm tired of silly secrets, I've kept mine for too long, for loyalty to people who don't deserve it.
Back to Mum, when went to Grammar School I used to call her Mummy, so affected, but all the other girls did too. In the old fashioned suburbs of Adelaide, she was a fashion Diva and she knew it, only wanting the best.
And in Port Augusta, we had a maid and Mum had Jackies and my clothes made by a "little woman" around the corner. Always matching, little frocks, so pretty, that we wore to Chuch, and she made us rompers and boleros of white cotton and fuzzy wuzzy angora.
We stood for hours on chairs being pinned up, not allowed to move, getting restless and being pricked by the pins. I mainly remember Mum in suits then, even though it was Adelaide, then Port Augusta, the heat incredible. And she's there in all the photo,s all classic and stylish in a suit, hat, she must have been boiling!
I don't know if we still have photos of us kids but I hope not. Jackie looks like Debbie, all plaits and pretty dress and neat, not a hair out of place and I am there looking like something the cat dragged in backwards
If I remember rightly, I have straw hair, sticking out at angles, a dreary raggy dress on, head cocked to one side with a Sqint in one eye, which makes me frown. Jackie pisses herself everytime she finds it.
Hope she's destroyed it in deference her Sister.But I had the advantage in one way, I was skinny and she was plumpish, so she couldn't hand me down any of her dresses. I wasn't a dressy girl till I reached 11 and started to develop.
Before that I was always in bathers or shorts, always grubby, hair tangled, a ratbag kid. Just running with the boys, and Jackie stayed in the house learning the domestic arts and I was outside and found out things, like
"Never let your older Brother Ian, get you to close your eyes and stick out your tongue", George and I learned that lesson the day it was cut chili.
And if you fell over keep running, not letting a scab form, and if you had a stitch, bend your knee up and kiss it. Frogs are slimy horrible creatures and no I do not want to hold it.
Petrol ignites and swooshes backwards, removing, eyebrows, eyelashes and burns you up, bad, George!
Girls can beat you at swimming, running and academically, so there, you big bully !
Head locks are very good defense mechanisms, as long as I can reach you, I nearly strangled George once and got in big trouble and couldn't do the choke hold anymore.
And then I started to get all girly and my brothers were astounded. I bought my first pair of bathers at 11, all by myself, trying them on at the store, shyly, they had a tiny underwire in them, and I was embarassed a bit, but Mum said, when I arrived home
"Hooley Dooley, they look fantastic"
She also said Hooray for goodbye, it was a NZ thing, don't ask me why.
So I wore them everywhere and then I had to be dressy dressed. Mum bought me the best dress back from Brissie once, lemon coloured, which is in my photo as Mary, from Peter Paul and Mary photo.
We went to Greenmount Beach every Sunday as a family and George and Dave tried to win all the competitions, mainly dance, The Twist, the Rock And Roll, The Limbo.
I wore my new lemon dress and easily won the limbo that week, and 2 weeks later we received an ice cream cake packed in dry ice.
And the year I was announced Top Girl, at school, a fat, only child, Julie, came up to me and said,
"Have you only got one dress"
"No, why?"
"Because you always wear the same one"
Right in front of all my friends.
"No, I have more at home"
but of course I didn't.
That hurt, so Mum put some clothes on the account at the store and I had a Tartan Pinafore, with a bit of soft yellow in it, so I teamed it with a soft yellow blouse underneath.
I had a gorgeous Purple and Green Short Dress (sounds horrible, but it wasn't) and lastly I chose a white tennis dress, pin tucked down the front, with a tiny belt and short short skirt. I was in heaven.
New clothes, 12 months before I couldn't have cared less for fashion, now I was avid for it.
I had my hair cut in a forward pinting page boy for once, by Mum hairdresser In Surfers. And for once it suited me and Dad made me brush it 1oo times a day with a Maxwell and Pearson hair brush.
And an article I wrote about the Queens visit, describing her "Soft Fairy Green" (Jesus!) hat was published in the School Newspaper. And then even better a boy asked me to the end of year movie visit.
And then a story I had sent in to the Courier Mail, childrens section, won first prize, winning me 11 shillings and sixpence, sent in a Postal Voucher. I had no idea what the letter held and shrieked when the voucher fell out.
And it was printed in the paper, my story a mystery, you had to use the topic they gave you. Mine about bank robbers stuck inside a vault, as time ticks on.
And then when we sailed to the UK, we had outfits for the Cruise, and In England it was out of control, fashion had exploded and landed in Carnaby Street, London.
There was Biba and Mary Quant, with her geometrical dresses, (Jackie had one--more about that later) there was Twiggy and Cilla Black and Lulu, there were white go go boots, earrings that twirled in Psychedelic colours, neons of orange, green, yellow.
It was like being in Alice In Wonderland, a weird world of colour, shape, cut, length, mini or midi, there was a veritable smorgasbord of fashion.
By the time I reached Thornes I was a fashion nut. Mum and Dad couldn't afford all the stuff I wanted, so I did jobs for money, Winns car washed, Dad's,
Cleaning out the stable rooms at Roseleigh, worked on the market with Steve and his Dad, learning how to spruik and put up with the cold feet, and hands anything to earn money just for the clothes.
I bought a frilly Purple Satin Blouse (Jimmy Hendrix Style), a Bo Peep dress with matching bloomers that cost a fortune from a boutique in Ossett. All I needed was the crook and the bonnet to go with it.
I bought from the market, but the quality was not good. I bought a grey flannel coat from there, God knows what I was thinking, it was 40 pounds then. I hated it when I got it home, it looked cheap and didn't fit properly.....but I didn't want to take it back but my Mother made me.
I bought boots from the Market that fell apart virtually straight away, cardboard soles, so I stopped buying at the market and looked for quality. Marks and Spencers, London Girl, Biba, Chelsea girl and I wanted so much, everything!
I wanted elegant dresses and heels, my outfit for Jackie's Engagement Party, a fitted coat dress in Teal with a zip all the way up the front, ending in a Big Ring.
Jackie was much more conservative in dress, but she did go and buy a burgundy Kilt and pin, ultra trendy but too long, as far as I was concerned.
So I cut 6 inches off it and turned it into a mini skirt with lace knee high socks, tight white shirt and Tartan tie. I really thought Jackie didn't want it as she never wore it.
Jackie thumped the shit out of me when she found at and she can hit, and she went to bed in my Purple Frilly Satin blouse and ruined it. Harsh lesson
But she stepped up in the Fashion Stakes and bought a fantastic geometric dress in squares of black and white. I loved it, lusted after it, wanted it and one day she let me wear it the Sat afternoon Mecca.
We didn't dress for the boys, we dressed for the girls. I wanted to show it off, so much.
I was standing at the top of the stairs, with Caroline and Denise and a boy strolled over, John Caine, he hugged me up into the air and said
"Don't you look good?"
And we chatted and caught up, I knew John from school and he had left, going elsewhere. We had a snog once on a Monday night Mecca, but not much, just like silly teens that we were. He left to get us a drink and from nowhere arrived this girl in front of me and she was fists raised,
"Leave my Boyfriend alone
She screamed. Spittle hitting me in the face.
"What Boyfriend?" I was really puzzled.
"John Caine"
And she launched on to me, trying to pull hair and scratch me, I just pushed her back and we rolled down the stairs, punches landing no where and then she grabbed my dress and ripped it right down the side.
Only the bit underneath the arm staying intact. So I grabbed hers and did the same and John arrived back with the drinks. He measure up the situation straight away.
"What happened?"
I told him
"This girl is saying I pinched you off her, you're her boyfriend"
He turned around and gave her a withering look,
"I'm not your boyfriend"
"But you snogged me that night"
"I snog a lot of girls,"
it was true
He told her off and demanded she pay up $10 to me for the dress and she did.
And Jackies face when I got home was beyond livid.
To Be continued
