From this picture can you guess which movie influenced back to school clothes in 1965?
Another clue...
And this darling third clue?
Naturally, it is the movie that for five years made more money at the box office than even Gone with the Wind.......
The Sound of Music!
I remember seeing the movie when it premiered at Nashville's nicest movie theater in 1965. How I loved it! RH and I had only been married a few years and didn't have any children yet but if I'd had school age children I most likely would have been wanting to dress them this way for the first day of school.
And that first day of school back then was always the day after Labor Day, not some barbarous day in August when we would have still been at Pleasant Green swimming pool or Myrtle Beach.
I loved the songs from the movie, still do. You still hear These are a few of my favorite things on Instagram, don't you? I think one of the most memorable scenes from the movie was So Long, Farewell when the von Trapp children bid adieu to their house guests one evening and disappeared one by one up the staircase, cute little Greti going last. And then of course when the song is repeated at their performance at the Salzburg Festival when they bid adieu to the audience and escape through the Alps to Switzerland.
But back to fashion! Here are two more fall fashion pictures from my August 1965 issue of Ladies' Home Journal.
and...
I see a slight influence of the movie in the second woman's dress, do you?
Would school children today be caught dead in these clothes?
Do you think the style will ever come back?
Did you ever wear a dress similar to these, as a child or as an adult?
I'm not sure how my mom dressed me in 1965! I was three years old. I know she loved dresses though (she still does) and dressed me often in those. Always ironed. I love that red dress in the second photo. Who knows, maybe these styles will indeed come back into style someday. That's usually how fashion works!
ReplyDeleteOf course you were just a baby then! I think one reason the movie affected fashion styles then was that it was followed so closely by the hippie movement affecting styles and that the two had their similarities with the embroidered peasant look in blouses and jeans. The movie ran so long and the noted Summer of Love in San Francisco only a couple of years later. And every once in a while I think the dirndl skirt has come back for little girls. I remember in the early 1950s being sick in bed with measles and my father coming home from work and bringing me a present, a white ruffly blouse with red embroidery so surely the peasant costume look was in for little girls then. Hard to see it coming back now but who knows?
DeleteI love the dress in the last photo and would definitely wear it today, on cold, wintry days, perhaps on a coffee date to a cozy cafe with a fireplace, sipping on a delicious cappuccino, with girlfriends.
ReplyDeleteWould you believe I have never seen 'The Sound of Music' in its entirety?! But, the clips I have seen are always inspiring in many ways: the MUSIC, the scenery, the warmth of the relationships, etc.
I do remember my mom dressing my sister and me in velvety type dresses that were patterned in stitched flowers, full of happy colours. My favourite was a red one, which I can still bring to mind, and which I think influenced my decorating style!
Thanks for reminding me of those days!
Poppy xx
Oops! Reply to Poppy below!
DeletePoppy, you would be ever so chic in that dress! I can see you at the autumn coffee party you're planning hostessing in it. I am amazed that you've never seen The Sound of Music film in its entirety! But of course it just goes to show that you're from a much younger generation than I am. Please try to see it! And yes I really think the colors of the Austrian Tyrol the movie was from, would be similar to your own design loves!
ReplyDelete