A Crash and a Dash

Women's Fashions

Wherever you are in the world today, you cannot ignore all of the fashion styles and trends are popular, they are always right in front of us, on people who walk by us, in the store windows, in magazines … simply put, fashion styles and trends have been around forever.

From the big fashion designers in Italy and France, to the little seamstress next door, we all want to look chic, trendy, hip, or maybe just ‘in the know,’ when it comes to fashion. Or perhaps the current popular fashion is simply something that is liked and appreciated by some folks.

Another possibility is that there often have been fashion styles that seem to be timeless, that people loved, and that was worn by seemingly every one. I know this to be true, as there were two very distinct styles from the 1960s that I truly loved, and I would really love to see at least one of them become popular once again.

A Little About Me

My given name is Eleanor, but everyone calls me Ellie. My mother had always been a huge fan of Eleanor Roosevelt, and when I was born, she made the decision to name me in honor of the most impressive women she knew.

Today, I am a senior citizen, or as some people like to say, elderly. Give me a break! I hate the term elderly. In my mind it seems to connote feeble, frail, and senile. And I am absolutely none of those things!

But being a senior citizen, I have fond memories of the various fashions throughout the years. While I obviously cannot recall with any clarity, any memories of fashions prior to the 1960s (I was too young at that time), I knew that for many occasions, certain fashions were designed for necessity. In the 1800s, especially in areas where it was difficult to keep warm, shawls and capes became very popular.

Of course, who can forget the Roaring 20s. During that time, fashion took a turn in what would become very risqué designs. ‘Flappers’ began to raise their hems, and the braver they were, the shorter the skirts became. Gaudy jewelry became the rage, colorful garters were added to hold up stockings, and hats were added to complete the picture of a young woman who knew her way around the fashion scene.

The 1930s saw evening gowns with low-slung backs became the rage. During the 1940s, World War II created shortages of all kinds, including a shortage of fabrics. And the 1950s brought us straight skirts and ponytails – think Grease – the movie.

Then we get to the 1960s and Jackie Kennedy, a lady who truly was a fashion icon, whose pill box hats and white gloves, gorgeous strapless gowns, and a simple strand of pearls, always made headlines. Didn’t everyone love the clothes she wore?

But the 60s also gave us an era of styles and fashions that became tremendously popular. Those were the years that I began to make every effort to follow the trends – the trend toward short, shorter, and shortest skirts, commonly known as the ‘miniskirt.’ Another fashion trend that was immensely popular was that of the bell-bottom pants. And I truly fell in love with bell bottom pants.

I was very fortunate regarding the genes that controlled how my body grew and developed over the years. During the 60s, I stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and was often described as ‘skinny.’ I think I weighed approximately 100 or 110 pounds. 60 years later, I am shorter and heavier with a fervent wish that I could go back to those days.

Those two fashions, miniskirts and bell bottom pants, have brought to mind a couple of stories, one of embarrassment and humiliation, and the other one of … I am just not sure. I will let you, the reader, determine if I should have felt embarrassed or complimented.

Bell Bottom Slacks - 1965

It was a warm spring-like day, with a cloud-kissed sky, a warm, gentle breeze that wrapped around one like a lover’s caress, and there was a promise in the air of good things to come. I was relaxing on my front porch with a few of my gal pals who had come to visit. Naturally I was wearing my very best outfit, black bell-bottom slacks, a white turtleneck, and a multicolored short, form-fitting jacket. I just knew I was the epitome of the current fashion scene. Unfortunately, my fashion scene was not ‘The Fashion Scene.’ I lived in a small town in Maine, far from the true center of fashion. But, many of my friends of that time were definitely fashion conscious, or at least they thought they were. However, I just knew in my heart, that I was the most fashion conscious of all of them. My ego was pretty over-sized at that time.

During this visit with my friends, a couple of the teenagers who lived down the street, rode up on their bikes. Anxious to become a part of what seemed to be the ‘in crowd,’ they got off their bikes, and wandered over to see what our latest topic of conversation was.

As soon as there was a lull in the conversation, Pam, one half of the duo that was now sitting on our porch, said “Did you see our new bikes? We just got them last night.”

“Was it your birthday?” I asked, not really interested in the bikes, but wanting to be fair to Pam and her sister Kelly in making them a part of the conversation. Pam was 17 and her sister Kelly was 16.

“No, Mom just told us that they had some extra money, and wanted to buy us something we would enjoy,” Kelly said.

“Good for you,” I said, not really paying attention, but trying really hard to remember what my friends had been talking about before the teeny boppers had dismounted from their bikes and walked up to the porch, injecting themselves in our conversation. I was not awfully considerate of others at that point in my life.

In truth, the bikes were not new, but had been painted in order to look good. While they were a bit older, they were hopefully still safe for riding. The tires looked good, but to my eye, it seemed like there might have been some parts missing. I just was not sure what parts were missing. I could see that the handlebar grips were missing on both bikes, the mirror attached to the handlebars on one of the bikes was missing the glass, and there seemed to be a few other issues, but after my cursory glance, I simply turned back to my friends and dismissed the thoughts of the bikes. Unfortunately, I was soon to discover the problem, with a wish that I had taken a closer look at said bikes.

Pam, always the one who would share everything in her universe, spoke up “Do you want to take a ride on them? They really are nice.”

“I’m not sure,” I said, and was immediately interrupted by Becky, my best friend in the group. We had been friends since we were toddlers, and honestly, we felt more like blood sisters than friends. It helped that she lived right next door. “That could be fun, come on, Ellie, it’ll be fun,” she said excitedly.

“I don’t know. I haven’t ridden a bike since I was about 10 years old,” trying to impart the fact that bike riding was absolutely beneath me.

“Oh, come on. You know what they say. You never forget how to ride a bike. Let’s do it, just a short ride. It’ll be fun,” she whined. If there was one bad habit that Becky had, it was that when she wanted to do something, she always seemed to whine about it.

The others in our group started chanting “Do it! Do it! Do it!”

“Ok! Ok! I’ll do it,” I said in an exasperated tone. I felt like I was being given a challenge, and my ego would not allow me to refuse it.

As Becky and I walked over to the two bikes, I whispered to her, “Piece of cake, right?”

“Of course, would I lie to you?” she chuckled.

She climbed on Kelly’s bike and immediately took off down the driveway and turned left on the sidewalk. While I was not terribly eager to follow her, I finally climbed on Pam’s bike, and headed down the driveway.

Crash!

But that left turn onto the sidewalk became my undoing. Too late I realized that another important piece that was missing from the bike was the chain guard, something which I quickly realized was a real safety hazard.

As luck would have it, even though I did not realize it at the time, my bell bottom slacks fell into the bike chain, and the bike literally stopped in mid-push of the pedal. Thankfully, I was not going awfully fast, but it was fast enough that with the abrupt stop, my body kept moving forward, and I found myself flying over the handlebars, to land on the not-so-soft concrete sidewalk.

I immediately sat up in order to assess my bruises, only to discover that the entire gang was rushing towards me. Becky got to me first, followed by my friends, and Pam and Kelly brought up the rear.

“Are you ok,” Becky asked, realizing how embarrassed I was feeling. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure, I guess I have no idea.” I was totally flummoxed that I had crashed. The fact that it had happened in front of my friends, and Heaven forbid, in front of the two teeny boppers, was turning my face scarlet.

‘Four years older than them, and I can’t even ride a bike safely.’ I thought to myself.

While I had been sitting there feeling sorry for myself and my plight, Becky had been looking over the offending bike. She turned back to me and said, “Take a look at the bottom of your bell bottoms, and I think you’ll figure out why you crashed.”

I looked down at my slacks, and a huge “Oh No!” slipped out. My best slacks were ruined! There was a huge tear in the bottom of my right pant leg. On further examination, it was actually more than a huge tear, that chain, minus the guard, had ripped a large hunk of cloth out of the bottom hem, rendering my best slacks totally unwearable.

Did I mention that those were not only my best slacks, but that they were also my absolute favorite? I just knew in my heart that they were irreplaceable?

The Age of Miniskirts - 1968

Later on, in the mid 60s, I discovered the miniskirt. And oh what a discovery that was!

I was very fortunate to have a really good job that year working for a state office. It was a job that I enjoyed, and I put my whole heart into it. Since we worked with a huge segment of the public, I was truly in my element. I had been told many times that I was great at working with the public, and I truly believed that I was a ‘people person.’ Right after I began working in that office, another young lady whose name was Lori, began working there as well. We soon became very fast friends. We had so much in common … clothes, music, food … all the important things. At least we thought they were important at the time.

When it came to how we looked together, we were as different as night and day. Where I was tall, she was short, I’m not sure she even made it to 5 feet. As short as she was, she was equally tiny. And she had a ferocious mop of bright red curly hair, all of that hair being its natural color, no dye needed for that head of hair.

Lori was more of a clothes horse than I was, and often when I would go to visit her after work or on the weekend, I would find that she had recently been shopping and she was doing her very best to get her new acquisitions hung up in her jam-packed and overcrowded closets. I think she preferred clothes shopping to eating. And she seemed to have an extended budget for clothes, of which I was very envious. But being the good friend that she was, she always offered to loan me any of her outfits, old and new. She was the only friend I knew that I could actually say that she was even more fashion conscious than I was.

Being 5 feet 10 inches tall to her barely 5 feet, I really was not adventurous enough to try to wear her clothes. While her tops and blouses would probably be no problem at all, there was no way that I could fit into her slacks or shorts. And her miniskirts – not even an option. At least that is what I thought at first.

Then came the day that a new business came to town, and they wanted to use our state office to do interviews of people that they were interested in hiring. They were building a new department store and needed to hire an entire cadre of people, from janitors, to cashiers, to managers. I did not realize it at the time, but one of the hiring managers who had been doing some of the interviews, had been watching me very closely, and finally just prior to their completion of all of their interviews, he came to talk to me. He offered me a position with the company, at a rate of pay that I just could not afford to pass on.

My last day

Like any good employee, I gave a two weeks’ notice to my boss. And while they expressed a sadness at me leaving, they truly understood.

The night before my last day of work, I was at Lori’s. We were having a quick supper, and then we had planned to take a walk in the park across from her apartment.

As we were eating supper, she suddenly ran off into her bedroom and came back with a tube of something. She appeared to be quite excited about what she had in her hand, and said “I’ve been meaning to show this to you,” as she passed it to me. I looked it over, and asked, “what would you use this for.” The title on the tube said ‘body makeup.’

She looked at me with a look that said volumes, volumes that stated ‘how could her friend be so incredibly dumb!’ She finally said, “instead of wearing nylons, especially during hot weather, you could put this on your legs so that it looks like you are wearing nylons. I’ve seen others who use it, and it looks great!”

Always on the hunt for something new to help create my ‘look,’ I thought this might be just the thing to use with my miniskirts. I didn’t dare wear miniskirts that were too short, because I always had to wear nylons with the skirts. And wearing nylons had its own set of problems. I was constantly in fear of having a snag in my nylons that would run from the very top of my legs to the very bottom of my feet. Quite often, in order to protect myself if this happened, I would pack a new set of nylons in my purse. That way, I could change into the new nylons if the ones I was wearing became damaged.

In the meantime, now that Lori had brought out that tube of body makeup, I also had an idea in mind that I wanted to ask Lori about, but had been hesitating for a couple of weeks now.

When Lori finally sat down at the table again (did I mention that she is an absolute bundle of energy that seldom finds time to sit down?), I decided to ask her the question that I had been contemplating.

“Lori, I have a favor to ask,” I said cautiously.

As I knew she would, she said “Anything, just name it.”

“I want to borrow your purple suit.”

She laughed as she said, “I hope you’re not asking about my purple pantsuit with the taffy pink scarf. You try to put those slacks on and you’ll be wearing pedal pushers!”

“Funny!” I said sarcastically. Then I asked her the all-important favor, “No, I want to borrow your purple suit, the jacket with the miniskirt.”

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “You are truly getting brave. That skirt is short on me. But on you, there will be nothing left to the imagination, or close to nothing left.”

After looking at me for a minute with a look that said she believed her friend had gone over the edge, she finally said “You know where it is. Before you borrow it, take a couple of minutes and try it on.”

By that point I was so excited, I was almost trembling. I spit out a hurried thank you, grabbed that tube of body makeup, and ran for the closet that I knew contained that magic suit.

Thankful that I had shaved my legs that morning, I began to apply the body makeup. It was a great color, and went on very easily. Looking down at the leg that I was covering with that makeup, and realized that unless you were very careful, it would end up streaked.

Finally my legs were completely covered with the makeup, and while I waited for it to completely dry, I took the skirt off of its hanger, unzipped it, and then, certain that the ‘body makeup’ was dry, pulled it on. It fit perfectly, but was so incredibly short!

Donning the jacket, I walked back out into the living room. Lori looked at me with that told me that I looked good. Even though the skirt was as short as it was, I thought I looked quite sexy.

“So,” I asked, “what do you think?”

“Personally,” she mused, “I think you look terrific!. But I also think you’re going to raise a few eyebrows at the office tomorrow. You know how stuffy those old-timers can be.”

“I know,” I responded, “but it’s my last day. So, honestly, what can they do?”

“By the way,” I added, ”this body makeup is really great! Can I borrow the tube for tomorrow, and then I’ll give it back to you tomorrow night?”

“Keep it as long as you like. Hey, maybe we can go out on the town tomorrow night. What do you think? I just found this new restaurant, we can go there, and then to our favorite club. We will do this celebration thing properly, and give your old job a terrific send-off … or your new job a proper celebration, whichever.”

Nodding my head, I said, “I think that’s a great idea. And now that we have that settled, I’m going to head for home. I have to shower before I go to bed, I don’t want that body makeup all over my sheets, and I have to get ready for tomorrow. I just know it’s going to be a super day!”

“I know it too! I also know you will be the talk of the town in that outfit. Good luck!”

I changed back into the clothes I had been wearing earlier, hung the suit on a hanger, grabbed that all-important tube, and headed out. As I drove home, I wondered if I was pushing the envelope too far. By the time I arrived at my little apartment, I had convinced myself that all would be ok.

I had set my alarm for 5:00 AM, in order to give myself a little extra time to get ready. When the alarm went off, I was instantly awake, and I headed for the shower, again. I wanted to give my legs another once-over, just to make sure that they were as smooth as they could possibly be.

With my bra and panties firmly ensconced in place, I began to apply the body makeup, taking a bit more time than I had last night. I also wanted to give my legs a bit more time to dry after the application of the makeup. So after the application was complete and I had ensured that it was totally streak free, I headed for the kitchen for my regular breakfast of black coffee and one dry toast. I was definitely doing my part to keep my figure slim and trim.

Finally, back to the bedroom, and the purple suit. Once dressed, I looked at myself in my full-length mirror and thought to myself, ‘today, I am the picture of fashion!’

Minutes later I was driving to work. My job was only minutes from my apartment, so I quickly arrived at the parking lot we all used. The look on the parking attendant’s face was enough to tell me that I really looked good. Or, maybe ‘hot’ was a better word. But I wasn’t awfully sure about the ‘hot’ part.

With a bit of trepidation that I managed to squash, I walked through the door of the employee’s entrance, which led directly into the hallway outside the employee’s lounge. I was about 20 minutes early and was really surprised that no one was in the hallway or even at the water cooler. I decided to just go into the lounge and stash my purse in my locker. As I opened the door, I quickly realized that I was in for an interesting few minutes.

Shouts of ‘surprise!’ greeted me as I came through the door. Then from the back of the crowd I heard “Holy Shit! That outfit definitely gives short a new meaning!”

My supervisor, Walt, came over to give me an envelope, saying “Ellie, this is from all of your co-workers here. They truly love you, and we will all miss you.”

He was a very playful individual, easily 35 or 40 years older than me, and I knew that I got away with a lot more than many of my co-workers did.

“And,” he added in a whisper, “if this wasn’t your last day of work, I think I would make you go home and change.”

“Oh, boss! Get with the times. Don’t you know that outfits like this are all the rage?”

“Right!” Walt said, “you look extremely out-RAGE-eous in that outfit. I’m not sure that it’s fit to be worn here in this office. But … since it’s your last day … you can just go on about your job and try to accomplish something today?”

“I will, boss, I promise, I’ll do you proud today!”

It seemed as though everyone in there was pulling at me to go and see the cake that they had ordered for me. Someone piped up saying “It matches your suit!”!

Looking at the cake, I could see that it was done in many shades of purple, from light to dark. “I hate to cut it, it’s so pretty!” Purple had always been my favorite color.

“Well, I want a piece of that cake, so get to it Missy!” One of the older ladies had spoken, and it was time to cut the cake.

Soon it was time to get started on the work day. I walked out on the main floor where the public had already entered in order to apply for benefits that they were entitled to.

The Staircase

The building that I worked in was very old, it had probably been built sometime around 1912. I’m not sure that anyone had ever expected it to be used as a state office building. Some of the older embellishments still remained, engraved columns, tin ceilings, gorgeous hanging light fixtures, and a wonderful grand old staircase built on the same design as one from the Titanic. It was very wide at the bottom, narrowing up as it approached the second floor. I had always loved that staircase; it just looked so grand and impressive to me.

The counter separating the public from the employees ran the entire width of the building and was in front of that fabulous staircase. There were several desks behind the counter for the employees to work at when none of the public needed the attention of any of the employees.

Approaching the counter, I knew I was in for a difficult time from some of the guys that were standing there. Some of the older men and women in line were looking at me with looks that ranged from downright disapproval to something akin to admiration.

Walt came over to me after I had endured a lot of the comments, some complimentary, but others that had been downright lewd. I had honestly not expected all of the nasty comments that I seemed to be getting. But at least a lot of the comments had been really nice. I had received offers of dates and marriage, as well as requests for me to do other things that in my opinion were unmentionable.

“Why don’t you go work on the reports upstairs?” he asked in a gentle tone. “I think we have a rather rough crowd here today.”

“I am not walking up that staircase!” I said emphatically. “I’m afraid that will cause a riot.” I was ready to make a mad dash for that elevator.

“Right,” he said. “Just this once I will let you use the elevator.” The elevator was specifically for the use of the supervisors, and the general employee population was expressly forbidden from using it. The bosses also thought it was a good idea for us to use the staircase as it was good exercise, especially for those of the employees who were a tad overweight, and there were a few.

Around noon, I realized that I was getting hungry. Realizing that I was probably a little late for my standard noon time fare with some of my co-workers, I headed out the door, and down the stairs. Too late I realized that there were still lots of people in line at the counters.

I decided to brave the comments and continued down the stairs. Luckily, there were only a few cat calls, but lots of shouted comments, the majority of which seemed to be again, requests for dates and marriage. One especially good looking guy, looked directly at me as I got closer, and asked “How about taking a leisurely walk in the park with me?”

As I approached him, he seemed to be very sincere, so I said “I’ll think about it, but right now I have to meet my friends for lunch.”

“OK, Ellie,” he said, after looking closely at my name tag. “By the way, my name is Jon, and I know you will be seeing more of me.”

“If you say so,” I said, as I walked away, thinking ‘I truly hope he’s right!' I felt as though I was walking on air, and I knew that my steps were as light as a feather. Definitely something to look forward to.

So, dear readers, should I have felt embarrassed or complimented?

Miniskirt or Bell Bottoms?

In telling this story, I have been deluged with some wonderful memories, some not so wonderful, and some that were downright embarrassing. I would have to admit that, while both styles were really great, I honestly would not want the miniskirt to come back full force. I know that it is still around, but would hate to see it become a world-wide sensation again.

Bell-bottom pants on the other hand are, in my opinion, absolutely wonderful. That is a fad that has almost completed faded out of sight since their introduction to the public in the 1960s. I always believed that they had a very classy look to them, of course, that classy look was also dependent on what they were paired with.

Bell-bottom pants should definitely make an appearance once again. Would they become as popular as they had been in the 60s? I don’t know, but I know that they still look incredible on anyone who has the right frame.