Welcome to my family history blog. Finding more about my family's history is very rewarding as well as being interesting and educational.
I created this blog to share my thoughts, experiences, tips and resources in my search for my ancestors' history and maybe, help you in your research as well. I am particularly interested in the history of Upper Canada and the Loyalist period in history.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Canadian Genealogy Carnival – Canadian Fashion Fads

Canadian Genealogy Carnival #9 - Fashion Fads is hosted by Kathryn Lake at her LOOKING4ANCESTORS blog.

I don't think there is much difference between Canadian and American fashions and fads, so I am going to share some of the fads when I was growing up. I wasn't very much into fads, being from a fairly large family we didn't go out to the mall every week, we went school shopping and maybe we would get a new outfit for Easter, mostly made by my mom, but if I wanted anything during the year, I had to sew it myself.

Fortunately, I could sew, so if I wanted a new outfit, my mom would take me to the fabric shop and I would chose my own patterns and fabrics. I made a few things that might be called "faddish". I made myself a peasant dress when they were popular, I think I was in grade seven and a denim pant suit, the kind with a high waist and huge flared legs with cuffs and bomber jacket in ninth grade Home Economics.

My older brother's friends had those pants that were popular in the seventies, the kind with the huge flared bell-bottoms with contrasting insets from the knee down. He wanted a pair but my parents wouldn't buy him any, so he asked me if I could make him a pair. I just got a pair of his pants, ripped the seam up to the knee and sewed a contrasting fabric insert in the legs and he wore those pants all the time.

I also made a shirt for him, a green tie-died kind of pirate shirt with long full sleeves. That was the first time that I created anything from scratch, other than doll clothes. I did a good job, if I may say so myself, and he loved it. I was just in the eighth grade and his friends couldn't believe that his shirt was home-made.

I was happy when chokers came into fashion, I could make as many as I wanted, a piece of velvet ribbon, a fancy button, maybe some lace and fasteners and I was done.


Creative Commons License
Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
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6 comments:

  1. Chokers are my favorite accessory! They were quite popular again in the mid- to late-90's.

    It is interesting to look back at what we wore as children and adolescents. Every time I look at the big hair in my husband's highschool yearbook, I get a giggle.
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  2. Greetings Earline,
    Bomber jackets! Oh, I think they were a Canadian fashion fad. I remember them well, as I had one too! ;-) Did you wear your toque with your bomber jacket, too?
    I enjoyed reading your post. Thanks for participating in this edition of the CGC.
    ~Kathryn
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  3. Earline, wonderful post. It brought back so many memories for me of my sewing excursions as a child. I also did alot of sewing, even getting paid for it by some of my fellow students. I made the girls skirts and jackets, what fun. I also did the insert into the jeans for myself. I have nominated you for the Ancestor Approved Award. Stop by my blog at http://arnspiger.blogspot.com to pick up your badge and complete the requirements. Look forward to more posts from you.
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  4. Erline, please go to my acadianroots blog and pick up your Ancestor Approved Award, I feel you really deserve it
    Aline
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  5. Hi, What happened to your last post, abt. SJParker and WDYTYA? I hope my comment didn't cause a malfunction.
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  6. Hi Barbara, I didn't even see your coment before I deleted it, sorry.
    ReplyDelete

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