Easter Attire

For the last year or so, I have delighted in reading Erin’s blog, A Dress A Day. She writes very entertainingly about vintage dresses. She tells you where to find the patterns and material. She even, on occasion, gives a delightful history lesson. I get the feeling reading her blog that Erin not only delights in making vintage dresses, she also delights in any (and every) occasion to wear one.

The only time I remember dressing up was for Easter Mass. My mother sewed Easter dresses for my sisters and I all years we lived in Venezuela and California. The dresses were colour coordinated but cut in different styles. We wore patent-leather shoes and Easter hats with them.

These hats were wonderful to look at, but a torture to wear. There were two different kinds of mechanisms that made sure the hats stayed on little girls’ heads. The first was a thin elastic band, which went down under our chins. The thin band acted like a wire cheese cutter, cutting into the tender skin of our necks. It fitted so tightly that it was extremely difficult to swallow. I used to worry that I was going to choke on the Host when I went up to take Communion.

The second method was metal wires bent on two sides of the hat so they dug into our temples and made us feel like Frankenstein. He also had strange knobs connected to his head.

The patent-leather shoes we wore were wonderful to look at. They were like the shoes Dorothy wore in the movie, The Wizard of Oz. In reality, they were excruciatingly uncomfortable. They were always a size too small, rigid in form and contained no foot bed whatsoever.

Yet, like all true blue princesses, we endured the discomforts of the hats and patent-leather shoes stoically. Or, at least we liked to believe we did.

My memories of dressing up fancy, are somewhat tainted with the bother and pain of choosing and wearing the accessories. I just cannot shed myself of the impression that dressing up is more work than it is fun. Thank heavens there are women like Erin showing me it is otherwise.