Your mother's clothes
 |
| Photo: New York Times |
Have you seen the wonderful photo essay, "Mom Genes", published last year in the New York Times? Sheila Heti asked various women to show and describe clothes or accessories once owned by their mothers, and now worn by them.
 |
| Detail, Mom's suit blouse |
I have posted here on her silk blouse, which she wore with a suit at her 1931 wedding, and which hangs in my closet.
What endures most is the memory of the quality: a heathered tweed jacket with leather-piped buttonholes and bellows pockets, a bias-cut charmeuse nightgown.
Do you remember when Anne Klein made good clothes? When decent jackets came with extra buttons, and hems were finished with bias tape? Covered snaps, anyone? No wonder the younger generation wanted these hand-me-downs.
Where do you find the things your daughters or young friends may someday beg from you?
Comments
Mme: I have lately passed up any number of just-okay items, giving my inner cost-conscious self notice of incipient upgrades. But at the same time own far less, so I think it will work out to be about the same level of spending.
But yes, the quality these days (even on pricey garments) just isn't anything close to what I remember from my mother's and grandmother's wardrobes some 40-50 years ago. I still have and wear a sheer silk Liberty print scarf of my grandmother's that I'm guessing is at least 60 years old, and it's still beautiful.
So sad and depressing.
IE
When I was in college I wore a lovely dolman sleeved handknit sweater my mother bought on her Canada honeymoon in 1953. I wore it so much that it completely disintegrated.- about 10 yrs later.
I have an Austrian dirndl that belonged to my grandmother from before the war. This is for family history only.
Anon@10:21: Amen, sister. I have a Scottish cashmere bolero my mother wore in 1960, still in fantastic shape. (It went with a cocktail dress she rarely wore and is too small for me.)
LPC: My mother was far smaller and shorter than I am but she let me have the flowy or less structured items and of course accessories. Your comment reminds me that I accepted such gifts while she was still alive; once gone I found it too sad and gave her remaining effects to other family members.
frugal: Those woolens are about bulletproof if you can keep moths or accidents like cigarette burns away. Unfortunately not everything looks sharp a half century on but it's surprising how some things could be made this year.
Tiffany: You are right, some family members have better stuff to hand down than others! But I also have a few of my Dad's Irish linen handkerchiefs-ones he had never used. hardly glamorous but sentimental.
I am, however, at this moment wearing her white leather moccasins, and I cherish a collection of sparkly costume jewelry she & my granny amassed. I also have a box of antique hankies, some from my great-grandmother, and I actually keep one in my purse at all times, rather than tissues.
I hope my daughters will also cherish these things....one of them has already mentioned a few things of mine that she covets! Ha!
I do have an old woollen blanket (not Hudson's Bay, a competitor with a ram on the label, made in England as well) that was a wedding present to my parents. I do have some Hudson's Bay blankets including a bright pink one; I bought those at a bazaar run by nuns (VERY clean merch) when they weren't so fashionable as they've become again.
I was thinking how pretty a squash necklace would look with some of the slightly flowier clothing Pseu is wearing these days. And isn't there a certain young woman you know who might love the bolero?
She and my father belonged to a supper club in Ontario, Canada, and whenever she dressed for a black-tie evening it was breathtaking to see her. She had a taffeta evening skirt in emerald green that she wore with, again, a men's pleated tuxedo shirt and at her waist she tied it all together with a braided gold belt studded with primary color "gems."
Her clothes have been lost in our many moves, but I always had her jewelry, until everything was stolen including the "men's" rings her father had made for her. Very sad, but as I've said on my blog our dog Charlotte wasn't hurt in the robbery and I know that that is all that would have mattered to her.
Wonderful post, Duchesse.
SewingLibrarian: Ohhh, the fabric! This way you can make what you like and still have that quality. Lucky!
lagatta: These other items, such as blankets or housewares, are also resonant and are often hardier than clothing.
Tish: She sounds like a woman few would forget. Losing her jewelry is a blow (and I recall you had already given Andrea a few things, so there is that, but still).
I do wear the few bits of her jewelry I inherited regularly.
I have seen some squash blossoms reworked to make two necklaces, or using just the big center medallion and (hollow) silver beads. But that alters a piece, and some do not want that.