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Petticoats, Bells, and Dog Collars
The nature of fashion is change. Even during our school days back in the mid-fifties at Vernon Gay Junior High, we experienced
various trends and followed them as much as our limited income allowed.
We were students around fourteen years old, going on eighteen!
Dollar Day, held in Harlingen one day each month, meant that all our mothers flocked to La Parisienne, Franklin's, J. C. Penney,
C. R. Anthony's, and Sears and bought everything they could afford at one dollar per item. As a result, our collective wardrobe
wasn't very original.
During Christmas season girls at Gay Junior High pinned tiny bells to their petticoats. Charlotte Keyes and Patsy Kirk wore
so many bells that some teachers made them leave the classroom to remove the bells. You would have thought a whole team of
Santa's reindeer was approaching!
In those days girls' jeans had a side zipper and were baggier than the boys'. Prior to this the only denims were overalls
worn by farmers, railroad workers, and the poorest folks.
We had no hair conditioners, only shampoo, or we used bath soap to wash our hair. The best was Castile soap, from Mexico.
We wore penny loafers or oxfords to school; only boys wore tennis shoes. Later we girls wore ballet slippers or similar flat
shoes with white high socks.
Dog collars came into fashion! Some girls wore little collars in bright colours, complete with locks, on their ankles. Others
wore them around their necks, and some girls wore the real thing, but no one wore S&M black studded collars!
Waist cinchers and wide belts came in. The result was a wasp effect accentuated by the wearing of multiple varicoloured petticoats.
I only had white petticoats so I wore my red ruffled skirt underneath another skirt, so it looked as if I was in fashion!
Personalized leather belts with embossed names became fashionable, and many girls got their boyfriends to make these for them
in shop class.
Suspender belts became important articles of underwear, and my friend Nelda Avila whispered in my ear that she had bought
one! They held up your stockings, otherwise you wore elastic garters above your knees and got varicose veins.
Padded bras became popular. Some bras were so heavily padded that they gave the girls the look of wearing two missiles ready
to take off.
Girdles were for everybody! I found it helpful to wear a high-waisted girdle when I became a nurse years later because it
supported my back, but they were very hard to put on and even harder to take off. The one famous advocate against girdles
was Marilyn Monroe, and we all loved her for allowing women to look like women.
Transparent nylon peasant blouses came into fashion. We always wore lacy cotton slips underneath them. No exceptions to this
rule!
Sleeveless blouses were a problem for some girls of Mexican descent. They were compelled to cover an underarm with one hand
while raising the other, when answering a question in class. Underarms and crotches were considered private places. Attention
wasn't called to these areas.
Girls went mad with the tweezers, and wore a variety of astonished expressions until they got the hang of plucking and shaping
eyebrows.
Boy's fashions were less flamboyant. Some boys pulled their greased hair down the centre, like Tony Curtis, or wore a flat-top
or duck-tail haircut. Tight jeans were starched, as were their crispy shirts, worn with white socks and loafers. Dress pants
and white shirts and sport coats were for more formal occasions. No one wore leather.
Only troublemakers or boys no longer attending school smoked or drank alcohol. They stood in groups, practising pachuco jargon and making smart remarks as girls passed by.
All boys were cleanly shaven and there was not a tattoo in sight!
My friend Sylvia Salazar told me conspiratorially that the radio station from Kingsville broadcast something new called "rock
and roll."
Bebop was the dance for Anglos.
Our school held "sock hops," but I never asked permission to attend, knowing the answer in advance. Nelda's older sister Olga
bebopped with her boyfriend Raul to the jukebox at Badways, our hangout during lunch break. Another time Bertha Torres's older
sister Connie danced the mambo to Perez Prado's "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White."
Mexican girls, if their parents could afford it, celebrated their fifteenth birthdays formally. Anglo girls seemed to celebrate
their eighteenth or twenty-first birthdays instead. If the girls were particularly religious Catholics, they joined the Hijas
de Maria. The Anglo girls had the Blue Triangle, a Baptist girls' association that encouraged good morals and ethics.
Couples went "steady," meaning they agreed to date no one else, and broke up on a regular basis. During this split, they dedicated
numbers like Rosemary Clooney's "Come on-a my House," Al Hibbler's "Unchained Melody," Doris Day's "Love Me or Leave Me,"
and Hank Williams's "Your Cheatin' Heart" to each other. I never got beyond exchanging notes with Luis Zammarron at the pencil
sharpener, or speaking on the phone with him when Mother wasn't around.
No one used the word "diet," as we all wanted to become curvy someday and did everyóthing to make ourselves look what we thought of as voluptuous, bad skin not withstanding.
Many town girls took home economics classes. Those who lived out in the country joined the 4-H Club in an effort to learn
how to develop their domestic skills and knowledge of animal husbandry.
And no girl doubted she'd marry and live happily ever after. I don't recall one girl ever saying that she wanted anything
after graduation, even after college, to exclude marriage and motherhood. The word "career" sounded as bizarre and unsexed
to our ears as the vocation of a nun.
I found my own path, in time.
Alma Iris Ramirez
Adelaide, South Australia
Published:
February 06,
2006
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