Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation. A young woman asked me what people wore in Russia in the 50s and 60s. She was asking whether the fashions were the same as in the US at the same time, or not. She started to google the images and asked me whether they represented reality.
And I remembered that several years ago, I wrote a blog post about the children’s clothing in the 1960s when I was a child myself. It was so different from the modern kid’s clothes that nowadays, parents will find it hard to believe.
What a preschool girl in the 1960s would wear indoors:
- cotton undies which would be up to the waist
- a waist with elastic garters for stockings
- cotton stockings
- drawers
- a dress
- an apron with a pocket
- slippers
Long hair was supposed to be braided neatly, for shorter hair pigtails would be fine, but only if they were really short, not touching the shoulders. Short haircuts were quite common as well.
Boys also wore waists with elastics and stockings; the only difference was that they wouldn’t wear dresses and drawers but instead shirts and short trousers. By my time, boys didn’t wear aprons, although it was not uncommon just ten years before. I am going to consider it gender discrimination 🙂
I hated aprons, because they would cover any pretty dress I would wear. I hated waists, because they had buttons on the back. You can imagine how long it would take to dress and undress even for a five-year-old (and you were supposed to change into your pajamas for a nap). But for the outdoors, it was even worse!
In winter you had to put on:
- Woolen pants
- Woolen socks
- Valenki with galoshes over them
- A fur, of a faux-fur hat, tired under the chin, which you would expect. What you won’t expect that there HAD to be a cotton kerchief (for boys and girls alike). The ends would cross under the chin and tired at the back of your neck. The idea was that there is no chance of any cold air to get to your ears.
- A woolen cardigan.
- Woolen mittens attached to the elastic ribbon (the ribbon was placed inside the sleeves of your overcoat)
- Overcoat, made either of rabbit fur or squirrel fur or woolen cloth with a fur or faux-fur collar.
- A woolen scarf.
- Optionally – a belt to keep the overcoat closer to the body.
And in preschool, children would go to play outside twice a day!
I do not have any pictures of myself in full gear, but here are two pictures which I copied from 1962 Soviet book about children upbringing
My historical posts are being published in random order. Please refer to the page Hettie’s timeline to find where exactly each post belongs, and what was before and after.
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