Can you remember the clothes that you wore when you were young?

Yes I remember lots of clothes from my childhood. Most were hand made, my mum was very good at dressmaking & made most of our outfits, including pretty summer dresses & in the winter pinafore dresses and flannelette nighties, she even made me a trouser suit for me when I was about 11. My Nanna was brilliant at knitting & crochet so knitted beautiful coordinating cardigans & jumpers. She crocheted me a lovely poncho when they were in fashion in the 70’s. My other Grandma would take us to choose a new coat & a dressing gown at Christmas (never brought us toys). Overall this meant we had a selection of lovely things in our wardrobe. I love looking at old photos of myself wearing these clothes.
My younger cousin was only saying the other day how she loved getting a big bag of my hand me downs. Not many children would be too chuffed with that now

I think my memories of dresses as a child are really as a result of photographs, though I do remember a series of winter coats with velvet collars. Teenage clothes I remember from events that I wore them at, rather than the clothes themselves. I was well supplied with knitted items as everyone in the family knitted constantly. They ranged from angora boleros as a small child to chunky sweaters as a teenager.

Our school uniform was bought from the school tailor, who visited the school to measure you up, but until the sixth form you could buy the material for school dresses and use whatever pattern you wanted. At this stage this privilege was still afforded to the sixth form but the rest of the school had to choose from patterns selected by the school. I believe this privilege was to allow you to have a dress that you could wear after you left school. I can honestly say that I never saw anyone doing so!

I remember many of my clothes from when I was really little, I had a blue plaid Viyella dress when I was about four, which I disliked because it flopped about, being a loose smock style without a belt. Then when I was about ten I had a red and white seersucker dress I was very fond of. On Coronation day when I was 13 I wore a dark green needlecord dress with short puffed sleeves. It was June, but it was cold.

One time I remember feeling very strongly that I was wearing the wrong clothes. I found myself unexpectedly on the stage presenting a bouquet to a well known ballet dancer. I was wearing a dark red corduroy pinafore dress with a white embroidered blouse. It sounds all right, but I had grown out of the dress and the blouse was creased and battered. I felt a mess.. I was 11 at the time.

My mother made most of my clothes, but school uniform, winter or summer, had to be bought at a particular shop. The summer dresses were awful - floppy checked rayon. The black pinafore dress was all right, but I hated the blue Aertex shirts we wore for games. They were like boys’ clothes, so what could be worse?

I could go on for ever, so I’d better stop!

Yes, I remember many of them, and like you, most of mine were made by by mum, a few by my auntie, and from the age of 11, by me!
I am also struck that you had to travel from Dorset to Ealing to buy your uniform! At my grammar school, most of the girls wore home made gym slips and blouses. We had to buy the correct fabric, stocked by one posh local shop, and, at the Co-op as well.

My mother would make a lot of my clothes and the ones that stick in my mind are the kilts complete with pleats and the big pin on the bottom of the apron part. I have no idea how she got the pleats to stay in but they did. No idea of the tartans either and we weren't from Scotland nor had relatives from there.

She would pair it with the twin sets or jumpers [usually red or yellow] which she would knit for me.

She made a lovely cotton dress for me to wear at a wedding when I was 10, it was white, covered with small pink and red rosebuds. I loved that.

When I got married she made all 3 bridesmaids dresses in blue satin. She was very clever. Sewing [or knitting/crochet] on the scale it was in the 50's is now no longer the case of course, which is a shame.

But any chance I got I was in shorts or trousers [trews they were called then, and often 3/4 length]...which annoyed my mother. I wasn't a feminine child at all.