This is my grandmother. I don’t know what year (or even what decade) it was taken. Like many of the old photos I have, it was taken from too far away and the detail is poor.
My grandmother wore slacks only once that I know of. She just tried them on to show everyone and then changed back into her dress. I was not there for the momentous occasion and I don’t think anyone even took a picture. One of my aunts told me about it later. I was bitterly disappointed and complained to my grandmother about not getting to see her in pants. She said she would put some on again sometime but she never did.
I have been wearing mostly dresses for the past couple of months, enough that now when I put on a pair of slacks they feel a little strange and wrong for the the first fifteen minutes or so and I think how strange pants must have felt to my grandmother, who never wore them.
I like dresses but I feel a little freer in pants because it seems to me that there are things you can’t or shouldn’t do in a dress. One of those things is sitting on the ground and yet, in this picture my grandmother is sitting on the ground in a dress and I’ve seen other pictures of women, including one of my mother in a lovely circle skirt, sitting on the ground while wearing dresses. Women used to do everything in dresses. They didn’t put on pants to garden or scrub the floor.
It’s sort of funny how what seems normal and right changes through the years and how strong are those feelings of “normal” and “right” – as if what’s normal now always was and always will be normal.
August 21st, 2012 - 7:51 am
I’d never dream of wearing a skirt or dress to do fieldwork in, but I have a digital copy of a photograph from 1902 or thereabouts of one of Henry Cowles’ ecology classes on a field trip to the Indiana Dunes. The women were in skirts and “waists” (and probably were wearing corsets underneath!) and the men were in full suits – jackets, ties, and even boater hats.
I wear dresses and skirts most of the time (I prefer them for teaching) but if it’s something really messy or strenuous, I’ll wear pants instead.
My grandmother ALWAYS wore slacks after it became “acceptable” for women to. So I guess it really is just a matter of preference.
August 21st, 2012 - 6:38 pm
I like dresses and skirts. My problem with wearing them is that the older I get, the less I want to wear hose. And part of acceptable with dresses/skirts to me is hose. Can’t go without them. I never wore sundresses primarily because of that. They look strange with hose and heels but skirts and dresses must have hose and most often heels paired with them. Boots are acceptable with certain skirts, though. But even with boots, bare legs are not okay.
Giving more evidence to your observation of how strong feelings of wrong and right are when it comes to dressing.
August 22nd, 2012 - 7:24 am
I used to feel that way about hose and so I almost never wore dresses. Then just a few years ago I decided, “Screw that! There’s no law.” It’s true my legs are not really fit for public display so I wear longer dresses – from mid-calf to just a few inches above the ankle. I do still wear hose on those rare occasions when I’m supposed to be “dressed up”.
Something really funny though – sometime shortly after the big royal wedding I saw a picture of Kate Middleton and the article noted that she was wearing hose and quoted some women who said something about how glad they were that it was “okay to wear hose again.” That surprised me because I never realized that it had become “not okay” to wear hose.
And heels? Never. Not even when I’m dressing up.
August 22nd, 2012 - 7:31 am
I quit wearing hose a couple years ago, when we had a long stretch of 100 degree weather. I will still wear them if I’m wearing one of my (few) short skirts, for modesty reasons, but most of my skirts and dresses are well below the knee, so I figure it’s OK. Or I will wear tights in the winter when it’s chilly. I actually rather like tights.
My legs don’t look that great either – really, really pale – but I’m not going to suffer when it’s super hot out just so someone doesn’t have to see my blinding white legs.
August 23rd, 2012 - 12:58 am
I tend to end up with women who won’t wear dresses/skirts. With two notable exceptions, I think every woman I’ve been with has been the pants-wearing type. I’ve seen my wife in a skirt, once. I’ve seen her in a dress, twice. Once was her wedding dress. One woman I can name was such a pants-wearer that she went to a wedding in blue jeans. She went to HER wedding, in blue jeans.
And now those who know me might be curious as to who those two women were who would wear skirts/dresses.