Daisy Duke was a drag queen?
Picture it…May 1972, Senior Prom. This handsome stud steps out for the evening, the very height of fashion and sartorial good taste in the following:
Powder blue tux, with black satin trim on the lapels and a black stripe down the side of the pants.
White shirt with pleated front trimmed in powder blue.
A satin bowtie that is…you guessed it…powder blue and apparently 36" wide.
A powder blue boutoneire, enaire, errr…flower thingy in the lapel.
Black patent leather shoes (what’s that you say? they were all out of powder blue ones?)
And…the infamous I-was-a-teenage-werewolf hair and sideburns as pictured on
This handsome stud
posing for his senior year yearbook picture.
My parents let me out of the house looking like that!:eek:
When I was in high school, my mom would give us money for school clothes at the beginning of the year. If we wanted things that cost more than the entirely reasonable amount she gave us then we had to pay the difference. My sister was always in the hole – she wanted the $45 sandals when $15 was the going rate for shoes, or the $35 designer jeans when $13 would get you a pair of Levis. Me, I had the opposite problem – I spent the bare minimum on clothes and used the difference to buy books. Throughout the school year, Mom had more or less the same rule – if it was something we needed (a coat, for instance) she would give us what she thought it should cost and we were responsible for the difference – again, my sister would have to come up with some out-of-pocket funds and I would end up with a real cheap coat and a couple of books. If we wanted a new outfit “just because,” then we were on our own. My sister, naturally, spent every available cent on clothes and I never had anything new unless it was free. So, how do you get free clothes? Easy – I ran them up at home on the sewing machine. How did I pay for the patterns? I didn’t – Our school’s HomeEc department kept a lending library of used patterns and I used those. The fabric? Why, Grandma’s stash of garage sale or super-discount ugly fabric, of course. I had alot of books and some scary, SCARY outfits. I only have photographic proof of one scary outfit. I wanted a “prairie skirt” made out of denim – these were gathered skirts, mid calf length, with buttons up the front. They were extremely chic in 1978. I didn’t have any denim, so I made the skirt out of light blue double knit. I usually wore this skirt with a plain white teeshirt and brown sandals – so, except for the nasty fabric, it probably looked OK most of the time. However, I have a picture of myself wearing the skirt with sneakers (bad enough) and an absolutely ENORMOUS blue flannel workshirt. Tucked in. To add insult to injury, I’ll admit here that I didn’t buy the flannel shirt – I found it. On the river near our property. It probably originally belonged to some migrant worker from the pear sheds across the river. But I took it home, washed it and wore it for years – “Look! A new shirt! For free!” Eeek…
Jess (the fashion victim)
When I was nine (late 80s), my favorite pair of shoes were my Punky Brewster hightops–white, teal, and pink leather. The best part was the glow-in-the-dark plastic piping that separated the colors from each other. I must’ve worn them with absolutely everything, even when I had to dress up.
Shit, I had those same Punky hightops!
They were hideous, weren’t they?
Okay, I must confess to a fashion crime here.
In high school (I’m an eighties girl) I was given by a friend a baby-pink outfit with shoulder pads which required REALLY big hair to balance them. This was a jumpsuit with a wide white leather belt. I loved it, and wore it too much. :o
I do have in my closet a great leather jacket I don’t quite have the nerve to wear: it is a biker jacket with a Zodiacal wheel hand painted on the back. It has more of an edge than I do, but I truly love that jacket.
I can’t even blame my mom for dressing me funny, as I bear total responsibility for that crime. I fell victim to the Flashdance and Madonna crazes at the same time.
I remember well the outfit that caused the biggest argument between my mother and me. I was wearing (starting at the top) enormously large hair caught up in back with a banana clip, and at the top of the clip I had tied on some grey and white fabric scraps into sort of a bow. Around my neck, a white lace scarf and a black leather dog collar. On my torso, a lo-o-o-o-ng grey sweatshirt (collar cut off to hang enticingly off one shoulder, natch) with the sleeve cuffs also cut off and rolled back to my elbows. Around the middle of the sweatshirt I had on a darker grey wide leatherette belt embellished with many many many safety pins. Underneath that, dark grey pantyhose. OVER those, lacey white anklets tucked into dark grey stilleto pumps. I accessorized with white lace gloves (fingers cut off), several dozen black rubber o-ring bracelets, and two more safety pins (through my pierced ears.)
When Mom refused to let me out of the house that night, I told her I would probably hate her forever. PS: I will NEVER tell my daughter this story.
There are two outfits that immediately came to mind; many more followed, because I adore clothes, but these are the most significant:
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For my kindergarten photos, my mom took me shopping for a new outfit at J.J. Newberry. I picked out a bright orange/red/yellow/green tropical print pants outfit. The top had a wide neckline and a scooped-up belly; the pants were just normal straight-leg pants in the same garish print. Because it was chilly, my mom made me wear a white turtleneck underneath. The horror! I had to beg my aunt to take down that picture when she moved recently; she kept it tacked up next to my graduation picture and was seemingly deadset on hanging it up in her new house as well. Ugh.
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When I was sixteen, I was rooting around in the Vintage Rose in Ellicott City and found the most incredibly beautiful, navy blue silk dress from the forties. It had a lace/sheer overlay that was tacky, but the dress itself was so perfectly cut to suit my figure, sleeveless with a boat-cut neckline, tapering into my waist with a slightly A-line skirt that hit right at the middle of my knees. It was $20, and I wore it with strappy navy blue heels from my prom. I wore it every chance I got - to weddings, funerals, dances, even on dates. Eventually, the fabric around the back zipper gave out, and the tailor I took it to said the fabric was too dry-rotted to repair. I still have it, though I can’t wear it anymore.
Sara, have you considered having a seamstress making you a repro? I know of lots of people who do that with vintage clothing.