What did you wear when you were a child?

My school was so lax about uniform that it was virtually optional in all the 12 years I was there. There was a blazer (with the school badge on the pocket) which was always stocked by the drapers in both towns and most of us wore ours nearly all the time. It was convenient to wear the royal blue blazer, white shirt, school tie and navy cardigan as it removed the 'need to compete'. On special occasions like prizegivings and concerts we were required to wear uniform - the other schools in the county were more particular about it and, if we had inter-school events, we were obliged to conform - the same rule applied to school photographs.

I remember wearing white cotton knee length socks with the knicker elastic garters and ankle socks with a turned over cuff. Sometimes the socks were stamped on the underfoot it side with the shoe size and, if I remember right, the name of the maker/shop. Socks and knickers were the only things bought new for me, everything else was hand me downs from neighbours or charity shop bought.

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I also remember wearing liberty bodices as well as vests and I had a new dress for Easter, Whitsuntide, my Birthday and Christmas and my Mother always made them, sometimes a smaller version of her own outfits, though she didn't make my sailor suit. I also used to wear those fluffy boleros, also huge bow ribbons in my hair, I wore a gaberdine mac for school.

sodapop

That's scary Casdon my eldest daughter was a child of the sixties
I too remember all the hand knitted items, school uniform with felt hats in the winter and panamas in the summer. My parents were older than average so I was invariably dressed in a more old fashioned way than my peers. Always gloves for Chapel and like other posters I remember the liberty bodices and rubber buttons. Lot of memories here.

Did you have one of those concertina plastic rain hoods you were supposed to put over your Panama hat when it rained?
We wouldn't wear them and our hats used to go all wrinkly in the rain.

I can still remember the smell of gabardine coats….happy times

We couldn't afford Clarks shoes, but I had Startrite sandals

They were more expensive than Clark's.

when my legs were encased in long gaiters for warmth

I think gaiters were still popular in the 1940s, designed to keep us warm when we were very young. I remember wearing them, I must only have been 2 or 3; with freezing cold winters, thick tights hadn't been invented and girls didn't wear trousers, they were better than having chapped legs.

I can't remember much about my clothes, perhaps because I was desperate to be a boy and hated all my girl's stuff. My grandfather worked in the rag trade and I was sometimes given dresses that had been made for me. I had to pretend to like them, but they didn't get worn much. When I got to about 8 or 9I had a pair of shorts and a couple of T shirts that I could wear at home in the summer. I remember them having to last me at least two years. We couldn't afford Clarks shoes, but I had Startrite sandals and my father used to cut the toes out of them when I out grew them so they would last another summer.

Throughout childhood I hated nearly all my clothes.
My Mother modelled me and my sister on "The Little Princesses", meaning the royal ones Elizabeth and Margaret.
reardless of the fact that E and M had been "little" in the 1930's and were now adults.
For summer wear, my mother made and handsmocked matching little dresses with Peter Pan collars. In winter, we wore pleated wool skirts supported by buttons on our liberty bodices. Plus a handknit jumper.Our hair was "trained" every night (clips and rags, painful) to mimic the LP's childhood waves.

I had a winter all in one snow garment called a siren suit , unless I was wearing the pleated skirt, when my legs were encased in long gaiters for warmth, the gaiters fastened with a long row of buttons or hooks.

By 1950's, things got worse; my mother's nursing friend had married a yank, emigrated. had a child the same age as me (but much bigger in all directions, being raised in the land of milk and honey while we still had food rationing) As we still had clothing rationing, the US friend used to send parcels of her daughters cast offs for me. They were in US fashions and fabrics; let's just say California taste did not match fashions or the climate in post-war industrial Manchester .
My interests centred on animals, (lots of poo) and messy outdoor activities with my best friend, a boy . He invariably wore shorts all year round , far more suitable for our activities ( biking, climbing, making fires,fishing and messing in water). My parents refused to let me wear shorts. BF's mother secretly gave me a pair of her sons shorts (unknown to my parents) which I wore over my pleated skirt/ liberty lawn dress (skirts tucked inside) until I finally got spotted and there was a big row. I declared my ambition to be a boy and called Jim; and refused to eat or answer to any other name. The upshot was that Mother sewed up the flies of BF''s shorts which somehow made them acceptable wear for a girl.
At the end of primary school my elderly dad died leaving us penniless, Mother got a job as a social worker and we moved to live in Grand father;s council house (with no plumbing).
One of Mother's ancient clients had an elderly sister who was ladies maid to a titled Lady; and got first dibs on Her Ladyships cast off clothes; which mother made me wear for the rest of my teens. Can you imagine, being a teen in the 1960 forced to wear the ghastly discarded fashions a middle aged Lady no longer wanted to be seen dead in.

Finally, I was escaping to university so Mother took me to the Army and Navy (govt ex- military kit, not new but VERY cheap) where she bought me what she claimed were my needs as a student ; a wool flannel skirt, a pair of robust brown leather lace-up shoes, an Army duffel coat and a trunk.
to pack them in.

I remember Liberty bodices, but I must have been very small.
Navy school knickers! And later, brown school ditto.

midgey

I remember liberty bodices. Some children had the toe tops cut off their sandals by the end of the summer. My mother knitted all our jumpers, I longed for a shop one!

Yes, my Dad used to cut the toes out of my Clark's sandals during the summer.

I remember liberty bodices. Some children had the toe tops cut off their sandals by the end of the summer. My mother knitted all our jumpers, I longed for a shop one!

As a sixties child too I wore a liberty bodice . Gaberdine mac far too long for growing into of course, School uniform bottle green dresses in summer with matching underwear ghastly really so pretty much as most of the above . As a late teenager I couldn't wait to be a hippie although I don't think I really was!

Hand me downs- even my first bra belonged to someone else first and it wasn't an older sister.

My mum even got me some boys jeans which I refused to wear (I'd be about 11) so she gave them to the girl next door and she wore them!

In summer it was plastic sandals.

I do remember liberty bodices but they soon disappeared. I also remember those itchy balaclavas you wore in winter- my mum once got me a man-made fibre one which was hideous and I refused to wear it...

I am loving all your happy and not so happy memories of what we wore back then.

I think children's clothes are much more comfortable and practical now but I think the 1950s clothes were smarter and more stylish.

Much the same here. Tartan pinafores and hand knitted jumpers. 🥱 I remember when I was about 8 years old getting a pair of stretch black trousers with elastic ‘stirrups?’. Loved them. One or two of the girls in school had pale blue jeans with black polo neck jumpers…. I was so jealous!! My love of fashion has never diminished!

That's scary Casdon my eldest daughter was a child of the sixties
I too remember all the hand knitted items, school uniform with felt hats in the winter and panamas in the summer. My parents were older than average so I was invariably dressed in a more old fashioned way than my peers. Always gloves for Chapel and like other posters I remember the liberty bodices and rubber buttons. Lot of memories here.

Ladybird vests and pants, all white. Long socks, I remember ribbed ones with stripes round the top in a contrasting colour. We wore trousers a lot, ski pants or straight leg ones of jersey type material, with T-shirts or blouses, and a hand knit cardigan. Shorts in the summer. I had several M&S anoraks with ric rac down the front and round the hood. I don’t like dresses and skirts, but we had to wear them for school, as girls weren’t allowed to wear trousers. I’m a child of the sixties.

Yes Allira. At my senior school we wore ghastly pleated, navy square neck tunics with a square neck white blouse for the first two years.

After that we wore navy pleated skirts with a white shirt and a navy tie.

In the summer we wore blue gingham dresses.

We had navy school blazers and an awful navy blue hat that my little sister called knickers for a hat because that is what it looked like.

watermeadow

I wore the same as the rest of you in the 50s. My mother made nearly everything including my uniform for grammar school. She made Viyella blouses which were cream instead of everyone else’s white cotton and put puff sleeves in my summer frocks, having only vague sketches to go by. She thought my clothes were far superior to bought ones but I was so embarrassed.

We wore gingham dresses for school in the summer; my mother made two blue ones which were fine but bought one which was thicker cotton, green and had puffy sleeves.
I hated that one!

I bet the Viyella blouses were lovely and soft, though, nicer than the white cotton ones. .

I wore the same as the rest of you in the 50s. My mother made nearly everything including my uniform for grammar school. She made Viyella blouses which were cream instead of everyone else’s white cotton and put puff sleeves in my summer frocks, having only vague sketches to go by. She thought my clothes were far superior to bought ones but I was so embarrassed.

Much the same clothes as many of you, often hand msewn or knitted. White plimsolls in the summer that were whitened with a paste and left to dry in the sun.
School uniform at grammar school was very strict. One outfitter in the town only.

Magenta8
I could have written that 😁

Did you have to wear a gym slip too? Just ghastly!

Nice little velvet dresses in winter when I was very young and my hair being bound up in strips of sheet to make ringlets for best.

I do remember I had some hand-me-downs from the daughter of my Mum's employee, a lovely georgette party dress and fancy dress costumes.

We weren't well off either, so how did they manage to clothe us so well? I do remember the sewing machine whirring away and my Mum always knitted.

I wore my brother’s cowboy outfit, jeans and his old grey school shirts. My school uniform because I had no say in the matter and a white dress with cherries on it for best during the summer. Looking at old photos it was actually a very nice dress but I hated it. 😂 We were only in England for two years during the fifties so I was able to enjoy my freedom from girly clothes thanks to my father’s Middle East postings.
When we returned in the early sixties I had changed my opinion of boys and somehow my clothes seemed to follow suit! 😂
Beatnik, Biba and hippy in that order. 😂