She was up with the fashion, and every season we'd have the latest styles and colours. We had the long tartan skirts cut on the bias. We had smock tops. We had halter dresses (modest ones), and we had the shoes to match, the head bands. When pastels were in we had pastels. When florals, or primary colours, or whatever was in, we had it. We didn't have a lot of clothes. Each season, summer and winter, we'd get a new good dress and an outfit for wearing around home, new pyjamas (also home made), and maybe a new cardie.
Mum took our appearance very seriously. She spent hours, days sewing our outfits. She was constantly bringing home yards of material, cutting, pinning. I can still see mum's mouth full of pins -- she used to hold them between her lips while she was sewing, which gave her a weird smiling grimace. Whenever we went out anywhere, we'd have to get dressed up, in identical outfits (well until I was 11 -- more coming on that), be washed, get our hair done in identical styles, and stay clean until we arrived at our destination. This last point was critical. We had to arrive in good shape. No slops or smudges on anything. It was probably dad's idea to make sure that our top layer of clothing, usually a cardigan or jersey, was put on us in-side-out, and only taken off and turned the right way in the car, once we'd arrived at our destination. All the signs that we were ordinary kids with ordinary sloppy habits were well hidden on the insides of our cardies or coats.
One year we had mustard coloured skirts with suspender-type straps that sat over the top of cream blouses. The blouses had a flash mustard stitch trim that mum's new sewing machine could magically spit out with the turn of a dial. I think they might have had hand-covered buttons too. And we had brown lace-up knee-length boots, fake crocodile-skin if I remember correctly. What I remember most about those outfits was that we could only get boots to fit Julie and me in Invercargill. They didn't have Polly's size. And we were going on a trip, to the North Island, to visit nana Ward and the Ward relatives.
I remember nothing about that trip except that mum got dad to stop at every shoe shop along the way to try and get those boots. It was so important to her that we arrived all perfectly matching. None of the shops had the size we needed, until Levin, which was so close to our destination it was almost a Total Disaster. But the boots were there, just as mum had always believed they would be. Actually, now that I think about it, she would have bought them too big if that was the final option. But we arrived matching. That was all that needed to happen.
None of us liked this, by the way. Well I don't think we did. I certainly hated being dressed the same as my little sisters. Especially when mum got her final triumph and made matching outfits for all five of us. The fabric was nice and colourful, but honestly, at 11, the last thing I wanted was to be part of a matching freak show with my sisters aged 8, 5, 3 and 1. But too bad for me. I had no say in what I wore. That was entirely true. We never got to choose what we wore. Mum told us what to wear. She did it well into my teenage years. And after it became obviously ridiculous for her to do this, she swapped it for saying "You're not going to wear that are you?" I was already wearing that, but it wasn't unheard of for her to make such a fuss that I got changed just to make it stop.
I had a terrible sense of personal style for years, and found it really hard to make choices about clothing. I remember going shopping for a skirt and jacket for a wedding, not long after I was first married. I was with my Aunty Angela, and showed her what I was thinking of getting. She said something I've never forgotten. "If I had a lovely figure like yours, I'd get something much more slim fitting to show it off." "But that might tempt boys!" squeaked a tiny little voice deep within my mind. But I was always thankful to Angela for saying that. I had no idea I had a lovely figure, but I did. All I knew how to do was hide it.
I feel now I have a good sense of what suits me and what I like, but I still tend to dress down, pick the lowest common denominator so I don't draw attention to myself. I do still second guess myself about clothes. But there is that moment when I try something on, and see immediately "Yes, that's the right colour and style for you!"
Mum taught me to sew when I was 10. So at that young age I was able to put together a simple outfit. Mum told me what to make, and picked the material, but I was allowed to make it. My first outfit was in the gypsy theme that was the rage in one year of the 1970s. It was a long gathered skirt in bright reds, oranges and yellows, with a white searsucker gypsy blouse, with red rick-rack trim. It was simple, but effective, and I did enjoy being able to say "I made it myself." I still love saying that about things I sew or crochet.
A recent clothes story: Aunty Pat, mum's older sister, recently gave me a bag of old but lovely woolen clothing, to use for my upcycling sewing projects. One of the wool coats was mum's. We gave it to Pat when mum died 15 years ago. It was good quality, but so long it dragged on the floor, and was far too big for me. But I felt I couldn't felt it and cut it up like the other garments. This was mum's coat, and I really should keep it. It hung around in my sewing stash for a few months, annoying me. One day I was having a bit of a mum-memory meltdown, part of my personal therapy that's been ongoing these past few years, and I slammed my journal shut, dried my eyes, and thought "Fuck it. Fucking mum is not getting way with this one minute longer. I'm felting her fucking coat!" And I did. I put it in the hottest wash, and the hottest dry. Later I pulled it out of the dryer, expecting to hack it up with my super sharp dressmaking scissors, and make it into a cushion or a doormat, but it hadn't felted that successfully. It had shrunk though, to a perfect size for me. I put it on, and it was super warm and cosy. It was as if mum was giving me a warm hug, for the first time. So I kept that coat -- it's more like a house coat, but I sometimes wear it out of the house. It's warm and comforting. The hug I always wanted from her. I had a funny feeling she arranged it all.
Some of mum's fads were traumatic. Like the ringlet fad. I don't know where that came from, but mum decided we'd all have ringlets in our hair (not her, just Julie, Paula and me). This involved wrapping our hair up at night in strips of damp cotton rags, the theory being that the damp hair would dry overnight and retain its curl from being wrapped around the rags. It was like having thick wads of bandaged sausages sticking out of your head. Horrible, painful for sleeping. But there was no arguing about it. We were not in charge of our hair or our clothing. We were a bit like dolls, to be dressed up and paraded around. In the morning, she'd unwrap all the sausage bandages, and tie the hair in pig-tail wringlets. I seem to remember Julie and I had stubbornly straight hair, but Paula's had good curl potential. That fad might have only lasted a week or two, but it's stuck in my memory all these years.
Another one was the '100 strokes a day' hair fad. This involved having our hair brushed 100 strokes, every night before bed. That didn't last too long either.
I remember mum declaring often, and often in frustration, "Right, from now on ___________ fill in the blanks." It could be from now on you'll polish the brass every Saturday. From now on you're all having Lanes Emulsion every day. From now on, you're biking to school and doubling your little sister. From now on, you're getting your hair brushed 100 strokes a day. From now on, you're doing your own laundry. From now on there will be no more colouring-in on the lounge table. From now on, we're going to 9 0'clock mass every Sunday. Whatever it was we were going to do from now on only ever lasted a while.
I understand now, that when mum got married and had kids, she was determined to get her life right, perhaps to exercise control over her life that she felt she didn't have growing up. We probably all do that. If we take the measure of her need to control as an indication of her own insecurity, she was off the charts. She was utterly obsessed with appearances. The white picket fence, the white lace curtains, the five little girls all in a row. So well dressed. So well behaved. Looking stylish. It was definitely better to look good than to feel good!
No comments:
Post a Comment