Nature of Fashion Paper

Gretta Warner

January 19, 2016

SFL 280-Dynamics of Clothing

Nature of Fashion

            I interviewed my mother and grandmother about fashion back when they were in high school and college. It was interesting to ask them questions and be taken back to their era of when they were the most fashionable. My mother, unknown to me, defined herself as a fashion leader when she was a late teenager and in the beginning of her twenties. Her friends were very stylish and that increased her draw to the fashion industry. When my mother was younger she would look up to the high class for her fashion inspiration. She would read magazines and follow treading styles. During our interview, she said, “I was the first in my friend group to adopt a lot of different fashions. I bought some boy pants (501’s) because I saw it in a magazine and it took me almost a month to finally wear them because no one else had. I was the first one to do it and soon after everyone else followed my lead.”

            My grandmother is a different story. On a scale from 1 to 10 she rated herself a 3! She said that she has never been into fashion, and even at her most fashionable time in life she didn’t really care much about it. But fashion back in the 50’s was very different. They never really cared about what other people wore where she grew up. Clothing was either made by hand or ordered out of the catalog. The catalogs they got were the only fashion statements that they would have seen.

            When I asked my mom about how fashion had changed, she laughed and expressed the hilarious fact that the styles that were “in” when she was younger are now coming back into style. Some of the styles that were cool when my mom was at her high point in fashion were pegged pants, big shirts with writing on them, pants that were made of thick materials, and hand painted clothing. My mother expressed how the type of clothing you wore defined what you were like when she was in high school and college. The clothes and style that you showed told everything about you including the music you listened to and the media you followed.

Some of the things that my grandma said were in style when she was in high school were saddle oxfords, tight sweaters, pointy bras, poodle skirts, gabardine slacks (nothing tight-body image wasn’t that important), pinafore dresses, and jumpers dresses. She also talked about how they would always wear lighter colors in the spring and summer and darker colors in the winter. They were never allowed to wear pants when she was young. And finally when she was a senior in high school, they could wear pants to school once a week.

            Asking both my mother and grandmother about how fashion affected friends and family was very interesting. My mother did not feel like when she was at her high fashion point, that it really affected her family. She said that no one really cared how she dressed (unless it was inappropriate) ,and that it seemed normal because she bought her own clothes. But her friends on the other hand, were definitely fashionable and the type of styles you wore affected who you dated and who you ended up marrying.

            My grandmother felt that we learn to appreciate fashion through our families. And because her mother was never into fashion, she never really got into it. But now that media has become accessible to everyone, most people really get into fashion and therefore care about what they wear and what other people think. My grandma decided that, yes there were times when you were jealous of what someone was wearing. But because you never could go out and just buy clothes from a store, you never actually really copied anyone’s style. Both my mother and grandmother talked about how there are big stores now that are able to create their own fashions for cheap, like H&M and Forever 21. Back in my mothers and grandmothers generation there we less options to choose from.

The last question I asked my mother and grandmother was how their rating of fashion has changed for them over the years. Both of them said that they decrease on the fashion scale, focusing more on comfort and use of clothing. It is interesting because I feel like as we get older, we lose our ability of staying with fashion. My mother has stopped being a fashion leader, and now is in the majority of accepting fashion, and my grandmother is definitely a fashion lager, or not even on the fashion scale anymore.  

            After interviewing my mother and grandmother, I have come to see myself in both of their views on fashion, more on the side of my mother.  I would not consider myself a fashion leader, but I am not a 3 on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being a fashion leader, I’m more like a 7. I am more like my grandmother by the fact that I look more to by peers for fashion ideas than looking up to the high class, like my mother did. After I finished these interviews, I definitely feel like I am able to understand and connect with my mother and grandmother better. Doing these interviews has helped me to appreciate the time that I live in, and learn from the past generations of my mother and grandmother.