Women's Dresses from the 1950's

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
Location
USA
Look what $10 could buy! http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50sladiesdresses.html

1951rainbowplaidginghamdress.jpg


1959empirewaistdress.jpg
 

But if you were only making $50 a week, those were pretty expensive dresses. I don't remember my mother having very many dresses. A couple dressy ones for Sundays, a few for the week. A couple of pairs of shoes that you had re-heeled/re-soled when they started to wear down. One coat that lasted for years. Four or five hats because, dang, hats were important!
 
I agree Jujube, my mother only had a few good dresses. We all got our shoes done at the shoemaker while we waited in the high chair. I used to love the new taps, would go dancing around and tapping on every floor surface to hear all the different sounds I could create.
 

$10 in 1956 = $89 today according to a CPI calculator I found. Can you buy a dress like that for $89 today? I have no idea.
 
Yes, and the older the home, the smaller the closets. I once lived in an older home (1898) and the closets were ridiculously small. You bought something and wore it till it wore out or if had any life left, you passed it along to a cousin. Not much wash and wear either, it was either washed and ironed or sent to the dry cleaners! Of course, I believe things were made a little better and they seemed to last. A lot of my clothing was hand made or passed down from my older sister. We had play clothes, school clothes and Sunday school clothes! We also polished our shoes every single week. That way, they were presentable for church.
 
Carla said:
Yes, and the older the home, the smaller the closets. I once lived in an older home (1898) and the closets were ridiculously small. You bought something and wore it till it wore out or if had any life left, you passed it along to a cousin. Not much wash and wear either, it was either washed and ironed or sent to the dry cleaners! Of course, I believe things were made a little better and they seemed to last. A lot of my clothing was hand made or passed down from my older sister. We had play clothes, school clothes and Sunday school clothes! We also polished our shoes every single week. That way, they were presentable for church.
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Same here, Carla. And one of the first things we had to do when we got home from school was change our clothes so we wouldn't mess our school clothes up playing!
And woe betide you if you wanted to wear your Sunday clothes for anything else but Sunday.
 


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