When my brother and I visited our grandparents in Pacific Grove, California, they always took us on a day trip to Santa’s Village outside Santa Cruz. Santa’s Village was a miniature Disneyland with a Christmas theme. Even though it was the middle of summer, we could sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what we wanted the following Christmas. And there were rides staffed by elves. And a train around the whole park.
As I was looking at this picture of our July 1963 trip to Santa’s Village, what I noticed first was that I was wearing a dress. In the 21st Century, I would never wear a dress to an amusement park. But in the mid-20th Century, little girls almost always wore skirts on all but the most informal occasions. As a little girl, I wore pants and shorts around the house and on minor outings to the library and grocery store, as well as on vacations such as camping trips or boating. But for “special” occasions—and seeing Santa Claus certainly qualified—I wore a dress.
For most of her life, Nanny Winnie, the grandmother who took us to Santa’s Village, wore a dress unless she was in a bathing suit. Anytime she left the house, she wore a dress, complete with stockings and girdle. And a wig, after she was about sixty. Her formal dress code lasted until well after she moved to assisted living, when she finally converted to polyester pants suits, except for church or dinners in restaurants. But even after she was in assisted living, she wore the wig. My mother wore a hat as she descended into Alzheimer’s, Nanny Winnie wore her wig during her own struggle. It was part of getting dressed.
Twice in my life I have made a wholesale switch from skirts to pants. The first time was in the tenth grade. In my Catholic school years through the eighth grade, girls were required to wear skirts to school every day (except for field day—one day in the spring). Leotards underneath the skirt were acceptable, but the uniform skirt was mandatory. In the ninth grade, at Chief Joseph Junior High School, girls were permitted to wear slacks in the winter time, but we had to switch back to skirts in the spring. The same rule applied when I got to Columbia High School. But during the winter of my tenth grade year (1970-71), the high school administrators decreed that we did not have to switch back to skirts when the warmer weather arrived. Thereafter, I almost always wore pants. Occasionally, I’d make use of the skirts in my wardrobe, but not that often. And I was much more comfortable.
(Then there was the day I wore hot pants to school, and my dad almost kept me home. That might be another post.)
In college, I wore jeans to class, and “dressed” up in pants suits. I wore a mix of nicer pants and skirts to my office jobs during the summers when I was in college, but pants were more frequent. And I continued that practice through summer clerkships during law school. I looked nice enough at work, though not terribly professional.
So it was a rude awakening after I graduated from law school and had to dress like a real lawyer. I started my legal career with five dresses and skirt suits to my name, so I rotated that wardrobe through my first weeks of work. After I got my first paycheck, I bought a couple of wool skirt suits to add to the collection. I didn’t want to be able to tell the day of the week by looking at myself in the mirror. After future paychecks, I continued to improve my professional wardrobe.
But always skirts. After all, we’d been given a copy of John Malloy’s Dress for Success (and Women’s Dress for Success) to show us how to spruce up our department’s image, and I didn’t plan to let the team down.
I wore skirts and heels five days a week for more than twenty years—throughout my years as a practicing attorney and then in my first several years in Human Resources. Occasionally in the worst of winter or on day-aways I wore pants. And for the eight weeks I was on crutches in 1995 (which I figured gave me dispensation from Mr. Malloy’s guidelines).
It wasn’t until about 2000 that the dress code for professionals began to relax and I shifted to wearing pants suits as I had in my college and law school years. Some days I went so far as to wear a sweater instead of a jacket. I tried to wear a skirt at least once a week as long as I was working, but it got harder and harder to make myself do so. So this was my second shift from skirts to pants, some thirty years after my tenth grade experience.
Then I retired, and now I hardly ever wear a skirt. I’m back to my college uniform of jeans. Nice slacks and heels means I’ve gone formal. I think the last time I wore a dress was for my son’s wedding last October.
How has your wardrobe changed through the years?
