On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Sylvia Rognstad <syl...@ntw.net> wrote: > Here's a question for those (like me) old-timers out there. I may be going > to a 1960s hippies style event and if so, need to wear a costume. My > recollection isn't so good. Remember what they said: "If you can remember > it, you weren't really there"? Anyhow, I'm trying to remember when long > skirts and dresses came in. I can only recall wearing them in the 1970s, > but my legs, not being what they used to be, definitely do not want to be > seen in a mini skirt, which is all I can remember wearing in the late 60s. > Along with bell bottom pants, of course, which is an option, but I prefer a > dress. > > What do you early boomers recall? > > Sylvia R
I had a couple of the long dresses in the late 1960s while i was in high school - i graduated in the spring of 1967. My family lived in the suburbs of Chicago. They were sometimes called "granny dresses". One had a high standing collar and short puffy sleeves, a high waist, and a skirt that was ankle length and was not very full. It was made of red cotton with a small all-over print in black, of a sort Americans call calico. I got my granny dresses in 1965. Here's a photo of one (not mine) http://www.flickr.com/photos/37511...@n06/3524944584/ I was at an all-girls boarding school in northern Illinois. We did not wear uniforms except for certain school functions. We wore our normal clothes to classes. I wore a granny dress to class and got in trouble (i wasn't the only girl with them, but i was much more likely than any other to push the boundaries - i was in student court for something nearly every week). After some wrangling, we were given permission to wear them to dinner. After that many girls showed up in them to dinner. When the first Human Be-In was held (spring of 67), they occurred more or less simultaneously in several cities. I went to the one in Chicago in ?Grant Park?... i was even on TV (although not my face - but i recognized my dress) I was wearing an ankle length violet cotton dress with a somewhat scoop neck and a high waist. The sleeves were narrow on the upper arm and just above the elbow the lower sleeve was sewn in - it was fairly full. ISTR that the upper sleeve was pin-tucked and the front of the bodice may have been, as well. While the skirt was long, it was not particularly full. By the fall of 67 i was living in NYC. I had a dress of that new-fangled polyester knit with a swirly very Pucci-like pattern in black and white and turquoise and cobalt and purple. It was long and the skirt was a bit fuller than the other long dresses i've mentioned. It had a deeper scoop neck and wrist length fairly narrow sleeves. IIRC, it had center front and back seams as well as side seams. The front was somewhat fitted - it may have had bust darts, i don't remember. I used to wear it to clubs. One, the Electric Circus, would let a bunch of us in for free early, before it opened, so the Bridge and Tunnel crowd, coming from New Jersey or New York suburbs would find the hippies were already there. The Grateful Dead even played there at least once - i was there... Of course, by the spring of 1967 i had a nice selection of mini-dresses, most from Paraphernalia, a very hip fashion boutique. These were generally mid-thigh length with long sleeves of various interesting shapes. Some were puffed at the sleeve cap, with a somewhat tight fitting band around the middle of the upper arm, then belling from there to a bit above the wrist. So to my recollection, you have a choice: mini-dress with long sleeves, or long but not loose dress. I have noticed that many of the items of clothing being called "60s" or "hippie" in retro revival fashion are either more 70s and disco or they are 60s, but actually mod - and more European fashion than hippie. Anahita _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
