I went to see a small, parent-organized Halloween parade of kindergartners and their siblings at my local elementary school today. Their costumes were not too elaborate, but it got me thinking once again about how even less elaborate the ones were in my neighborhood in the 1960s and early 1970s (which I wrote about back in 2009).
My era and location were thrifty and working class, so the choices then were between quick-DIY and off-the-shelf/mass-produced. I think my family could afford to buy one or two of the mass-produced ones each year for the four of us daughters, so the others did the improvised DIY stuff, perhaps. I probably didn't realize that was the reason at the time. (Kind of the way two of us got to buy our school pictures every other year, as I've mentioned in my blog anniversary posts.)
My mom didn't sew, and I don't remember the other moms who did sew making costumes, either. There just wasn't that much effort put into it: It wasn't that big a deal in my town. (Maybe I should ask the other numbered daughters if they remember it differently.)
Anyway, I was thinking about this not only because of this morning's parade but also because of these 1922 costume pattern promos I saw shared later in the day:
Those are some pretty amusing concepts, especially the ones shown on adult men. Imagine a 21st century man wearing that jester-like getup, let alone one of those smocks with a dunce cap. Whew!
No comments:
Post a Comment