Reflecting on Women's Fashion in the 60s

I was invited to represent the 60s clothing style at a birthday party for someone who was born in 1965. My immediate reaction was, what was that? I just remember it as being "normal." And I guess what I mean by normal, basically neat and practical, conservative, classic. So I decided to do a little research. I suppose I could dig up some pictures or home movies, but I remember more or less what I wore. It was not the outfits you find when you look up "60s fashion," I'll tell you that. Sure, there were some shorter skirt outfits, but I did not wear miniskirts and go-go boots except when I was singing in that one band in the 70s in Wyoming. I did wear dresses sometimes though. I didn't wear slacks all the time. Skirts and blouses, dresses and cardigans were the norm. I went to look at my Mexico scrapbook about the first time I went in 1963. I did wear my hair in a flip with no bangs, kind of chin length, but not extremely back-combed and huge, as represented in the ads online supposedly representing that era. And it looks like we all wore some form of sneakers or tennis shoes, although they weren't bulky and fancy like they are now. I discovered the "baby doll dress," that became famous after the famous movie by that title, but apparently it had its origins much earlier like in the early 1940s. Th[ie film came out in 1956. There are apparently endless varieties of baby doll dresses and endless ways to wear them. I had bought one that could fit in the category of baby doll dresses, for $5 on sale because I liked the fabric but I have never worn it in public. So, I considered that. I had this idea to get a short denim skirt, wear it over black leggings and a bulky turtle neck sweater. I thought that would be something I would have worn in the 60s, and I have an appropriate off-white turtle neck sweater that I could wear. I am not sure about the short denim skirt. It's not terribly short but much shorter than I'm used to and I would definitely have to cover my legs. The young women in Mexico always dressed up and looked fantastic in shirt-dresses several inches above the knee and stylish little pumps. I always envied how pretty and feminine they looked compared to me, even though I wore dresses to school every day, I don't remember what I wore to the numerous parties the families threw for us. Other than that, I haven't changed my personal style that much over the years. I always leaned toward the "classic" look, and have never been good at making fashion statements, and in the line of work I'm in, working in a grade school now, as a tutor, jeans are always appropriate, which is really what I basically live in. So, no, I didn't wear a lot of bellbottoms or big flower prints or anything like that they are portraying online as being what people wore in the 60s. The famous people did all that, the movie stars, etc., Twiggy and Brigitte Bardot and Sandra Dee, etc. but regular people have always worn regular clothes in my world. Out here on the prairie, in the heartland of America, I don't think we've changed all that much. I should say, not my generation, anyway. The younger generation, that's a different story. Now, everyone is at least partially covered with tattoos and/or face piercings in various places, technicolor hair, well, but, still, the clothing hasn't really changed that much over the past 50 years or so. Just basic conservative, casual attire, for the most part. Clearly, people don't dress up as much today, and I will not pursue this topic. I still see most people wearing regular clothes and wearing normal hair styles, kind of basically variations of the 70s layered styles. There are, obviously, a lot of strange hairstyles in the mix, extensions and dreadlocks and strange shavings going on, and in the 60s you would never see grade school children highlighting their hair, for instance, or wearing lipstick. I am tending to agree with Neil Postman about "the disappearance of childhood." So, anyway, I'm likely going to save the baby doll dress for sleeping in, the denim miniskirt for wearing around the house, and go with boot jeans and my white turtle neck sweater to that birthday party tomorrow night, because that is probably much closer to what I would have been wearing in the 60s than all that other concoction I was thinking about. I even found a go-go girl Halloween costume that I actually tried on but the neckline was too big, plus it was missing the hairpiece and the belt that had gone with it. I was shopping at God's Storehouse, my favorite thrift store. Also, does it still seem that, in general, women are the ones whose fashion changes the most over time? I think so. Even though they like to slip androgyny into the picture, there seem to still be basically trends in women's and men's clothing that are widely distinct. And I hope it stays that way for a while.