What did you wear when you were a child?

[OneUmberJoker]

T shirts hoodies

My mum used to put me in trousers/dungarees for daily wear which I hated - I wanted pretty dresses. She also kept my hair cropped short and I was often mistaken for a boy, which I loathed. My favourite thing was my long party dress - this was the 70s when party dresses were always long - it was a lovely red tartan with white lace collar and cuffs and black velvet ribbons.

When I was a teenager and had some say in the matter, my taste in clothes was very boring, standard 80s teen wear - I was bullied heavily at school and just wanted to fit in and be inconspicuous. Chelsea Girl stonewashed jeans, River Island floral blouses when they were in fashion, pastel coloured jackets, that sort of thing. Miss Selfridge was my favourite shop.

I was and am more adventurous as an adult. I was quite gothic in my 20s and have been through various style phases in later life, I currently favour boho styles and get most of my clothes from charity shops. Now I'm middle aged I have no fucks to give what anyone thinks and I wear whatever I want.

In the 70s it was themed t-shirts (my green Wombles one was my favourite!) and trousers or blouses and trousers.
In the 80s, big hair, floaty skirts, a ra-ra skirt and a lot of my mums hand knitting, cardigans and jumpers.
Edited to say, my grandma was a tailoress and she made me a floaty long dress every Christmas. They meant more to me then than all the presents!

1970s blue tracksuit with white stripes down arms and legs jeans, home made blouses and home knitted jumpers , plimsolls and later trainers. Into teens cords, t-shirt and jumpers/ sweatshirt. Tomboy.

With the exception of school uniforms, we were allowed to wear whatever we wanted, because it was easier than trying to stuff us into outfits that we didn't want to wear! This led to many questionable styles (floral-print velour leggings, anyone?), and it is a wonder that my sibling actually attained status as a high-fashion style icon in their circle of friends later on. In the meantime, I am still the weird, unfashionable sibling that has not been admitted to being related to since primary school 😁

A lot of Benetton clothing 🤣

1970’s

Home made stuff - my mum was a great at sewing, hand me downs and jumble sale stuff - lots of corduroy and nylon nightwear!

polo necks, duffle coats and Clarks shoes

Lots of corduroy. Pinafore dresses. Flared jeans/cords. Hand-knitted jumpers (my mum was a brilliant knitter and made lovely things). Lots of knee-length dresses - for some reason I wasn't allowed a long dress for parties. I have a feeling my mum thought they were unsuitable for children. Laura Ashley fabrics as my mum could sew too. Tank tops with blouses underneath. Pleated skirts.

I remember really fondly a beautiful black velvet pinafore dress that tied at the sides with black ribbon and had a white appliquéd flower on the front that I wore with a white polo neck and white tights. That was my party dress for a while.

And I had a lovely dark brown dress with tiny orange flowers on it.

Terrible Clarks shoes. I had such narrow feet that there was only ever one or two styles available to me and they were always the ugliest ones. My friend Petrina had red sandals. I LONGED for red sandals but mine were absolutely always tan or dark brown.

Looking back I actually think we were dressed quite nicely but the no long dresses still rankles. Don't blame my mum for Clarks being mean with their narrow feet range.

All the photos of me as a toddler have me wearing similar cotton dresses, many of them stripey. When I mentioned this to my mum, it turns out that they were so broke and she was so handy that she used to get my Dad, Grandad’s and Uncle’s old shirts and cut the collars off and turn them round so the buttons were down the back and cut and sew them into wee frocks.

My DC wore Clothkits. the clothes were so hard wearing that as a group of parents we used to pass the clothes down and round. Did you have a Cloth Kitty? DD still has hers.

When I was young enough for DM to choose, dresses with petticoats and frilly socks. From about 8, joggers, t-shirts & fleece jumpers.

I mostly wore dresses as a child. I also remember having corduroy trousers. And tartan skirts with pins in them. Mam knitted us cardigans. I had a fabric poncho at some stage in the late '70s or early '80s. It was dark brown. I think I had dungarees at some point - I remember struggling to get out of them quickly when I needed to use the loo. I couldn't wait to get legwarmers when 'Fame' was popular. I had a lot of hand me downs over the years (I'd two older sisters and my Mam's friend's daughter was a year older than me, so I'd end up with her things also). There's a photo of me going on a primary school trip wearing a very fetching white coat with orange and brown horizontal stripes and those duffle coat buttons. There were probably t-shirts with pictures of TV shows on them - my brother had a Flintstones t-shirts. And lots of people had clothes with 'I shot JR' logos.

I still have my Cloth Kitty and our matching pinafore dresses.

Ripped jeans and a tshirt with something like a howling wolf on. Super cool Tom boy or what?!

DM knitted or sewed pretty much everything I wore as a child, and I had hand me down clothes from cousins that were originally bought in Dublin's most swanky department store, Brown Thomas - kilts, merino wool jumpers, lawn blouses, smocked dresses, pinafores. There were also dungarees, worn with a jumper underneath. I wore them a lot.

There is a photo of me and my siblings in dresses DM made from fabric she bought in three different colours. Dresses were really short back then. I remember wearing tights a lot. DM knitted lots of jumpers, even fair isle pattern. She made trousers in crimplene fabric that had a little stretch, and shorts from cotton twill. Skirts and shorts had elastic waists. Shorts and skirts were worn with homemade peasant style blouses or cheesecloth tops. I remember being thrilled the day DM allowed me to choose a dress in a shop - a salmon pink shirt style dress with a belt. I also remember a long campaign I waged for a pair of real jeans, and the thrill of buying them, bringing them home, and then sitting in a full bath with them on, as 'twas said this was how you got them to fit you right.

DM made me a duffel coat just before I had a growth spurt, so I only wore it half of one winter. She went out and bought me a replacement - a little too big for me to begin with. As were all my shoes and sandals.

We attended a very formal private convent school and had a very formal school uniform - pleated skirt, white blouse, v-neck wool jumper, and a tie, along with a wool blazer, tweed school coat, and beret. There was a PE uniform too - shorts in the colour of the jumper, and a white T-shirt, and plimsolls. We had indoor and outdoor shoes - we changed shoes three times a day; on arrival, at lunchtime, and going home. The shoes we weren't wearing, along with our plimsolls, were kept in drawstring bags in cubbies in the corridors.
I learned the important life skill of tying a tie at age five.

Whatever my mother chose for me, until I was 17 and earning my own money.

I’m 58 now, and she still tries to control me

Liberty bodices.
Dresses made from seersucker in pastel colours.

I used to make clothkits garments for my kids. I sold a couple of unused kits on Ebay a couple of months ago 😁. They sold ready made things too, knitwear for instance.

How old?

I was a child in the 70s.

I wore T-shirts with boats on! I loved that T-shirt.

And my Mum wore giant collars!!

Apart from school uniform, navy at prep school and algae green at the next, my clothes were either made by DM or handed down from my sister.
Uniform included ties and really thick knickers of the same colour, which we had to wear for gym, also aertex shirts and short games skirts for outside games.

I remember a much loved tartan dress and a similar one in vivid blue, skirts, blouses and cardigans, worn with knee socks in winter and ankle socks in summer, with Clark’s sandals for school and play, or patent leather shoes for going out.
I remember my ankle socks were made of knitted silk or similar and they were a bugger to get on, so that they didn't get stretched over the heel and go baggy. Nylon socks were both an innovation and a relief.

All little girls wore the same sort of pale pink party dress in the early sixties, honestly, it was like a uniform in itself. Short puffed sleeves and an enormous gathered flared skirt, with petticoats underneath, then an enormous bow at the back. White Mary Jane shoes. There was some competition about who had the biggest bow. I remember one year, a girl turned up at the school party in a pale bluedress, still the exact same style, and the commotion it caused.
DM wouldn't let me wear jeans, when I first saw friends wearing them, but I wore shorts in summer.

As the sixties drew on, Mary Quant style clothes, minis and colours, and some mad patterns made their appearance. I had some shift dresses and pinafore dresses for colder weather and some amazing lacy white tights. And joy of joy, shoes with an actual (tiny) heel!
DM thought I should start wearing a girdle but I put my foot down. I also got my jeans in the end and some t shirts, but still mostly white then.
I still had my older sister's hand me downs but she was a London chick by then and they were all Carnaby Street fabulous.
Then Biba and bras arrived, and I was in charge of my own clothing at last. I remember a reefer jacket, high boots, a cap and wonderful purple and wine dresses with bell sleeves.
Then a maxi coat, and maxi everything, hippy bells and scarves followed by an extremely smelly Afghan coat, flared jeans or loons, tie dye t shirts and desert boots. I had a gas mask bag instead of a handbag.

Sorry about the Ted talk, but it really set me going down Memory Lane!

Primary age: smocked front dresses, kilt type skirts WITH A POLYESTER VEST ATTACHED LIKE A DRESS, OH THE SHAME, usually with a skinny rib polo and long white socks.
Party dress was a long dress as described by other posters here. We only shopped at M and S or department stores once a year in the sale for one dress only!
Shoes were always Clarks black patent leather or brown t bars, JESUS SANDALS for summer- remember those?!
Later on at school discos all the popular kids had all in one leotard/leggings type things in metallic red or royal blue.
Then we moved into the Fame era, so lots of grey marl, rara skirts and leg warmers.
Briefly everyone had a Princess Di lacy frilly blouse and velvet knickerbockers, when everything was burgundy.
I coveted Benetton but DPs didn’t have the budget for that so it was Gloria Vanderbilt at C and A jeans, with little swans embroidered on the pocket, with sweatshirts and ski pants from the market!
Shout out to the Madonna phase about age 11-lace gloves, scraps of lace from the haberdashers in my hair, leggings and a mini tube skirt over the top. With my beloved suede pixie boots from Freeman Hardy Willis.

I was an 80s child. Me and my sister had matching Clothkits dresses which we loved. I can remember another couple of ‘special occasion’ dresses I had, one red velvet and one tartan, both with white lacy collars. I had lots of patterned leggings and cycling shorts, and Benetton T-shirts and sweatshirts, and some sort of padded dungarees which I wore a lot in the cold weather. My absolute favourite was a pink shell suit that we bought in a supermarket on a trip to France!
My mum cut my hair until I was a teenager, I had very thick wavy hair and she did a very blunt cut with a thick fringe which did not look good. I used to wear a lot of Alice bands (the soft, stretchy fabric sort) or a big scrunchie to control my hair.

This was a major factor in me getting a Saturday job aged 16, to get some decent clothes.

As a child - hand me downs, and other 2nd hand stuff. Anything bought new was likely to be v cheap. We weren't poor either.

I say earning my “own” money, but in reality my mother took most of my wages, I had a paper round when I was still at school, one after school and a different one on Sundays, think in total I got about £5 per week, she allowed me to keep 50p, but that’s for a different thread.

Probably why I enjoy buying clothes now!

Sorry, meant to say I love your name 😂

Bebbanburg is still mine though. ⚔️⚔️