Fashion Always Finds A Way

I was visiting the Queen Mother yesterday and whilst eating a big plate of roasted potatoes (yum!) I was explaining what the blog is and does. She never really realised I was so into fashion and was rather excited when I told the things I'd been working on.

I come from a very small mining and harbour town. The people are rough, and back when the Queen Mum  was young, also exceptionally hardworking (the same cannot be said now however). She was telling me her stories of her youth and how her mother, my grandmother, took great pride in dressing her daughters very well. As a family they were working class, but because both my gran and my grandfather worked they were much better off than most people. This meant they never went without whilst other children and families lived in squalor. My gran apparently used to make big pots of hearty soup and throw parties for all the less well off children from the surrounding area to ensure they got at least some good food in their little tummies.

Because my mum and her sister were so well dressed, they were known as the Princesses - my mum, Princess Alexandra and her sister, Princess Margaret. My gran would find patterns of beautiful dresses and have a seamstress create them for her daughters. My mother would always get hers made in blue whilst her sister would always have hers in pink. So it seems bespoke runs in the family!

On Sundays they would don pretty hats and white gloves and would visit a local farm where they would buy strawberries and gooseberries and the farmers wife would always give them a big bunch of flowers to take home to gran. It sounded so idyllic.

It got me thinking about how style and fashion finds it's way into the most unusual and unlikely of places - even a poor, seaside town.

I loved the fact that even though my mum and her mum weren't surrounded by fashion or style, quite the opposite infact, they still had a desire to express themselves via their clothes.

I've always been of the opinion that very often real style is in those people who don't have easy access to it. It's easy to be fashionable when you live in a city like Paris, Milan or London, where it's on your doorstep and you can absorb it no matter what your budget/age/class may be, but for me, many truly stylish people are those who have to hunt it out, create it, invent it and express it, even though that might mean they may look like an alien in their own surroundings. These people exist so much in their own heads and their creativity is genuine because the odds are stacked against them. That's why I was so impressed that my gran, who had never been outside of her town in all her days, still had a sense of what style was and sought it out for her daughters.

Of course nowadays, even the smallest of towns have access to magazines and TV and can still absorb fashion, but back in the day, when the Queen Mother was young, that simply wasn't the case.

My gran passed away when I was teenager, but now I know why she would always vehemently defend me whenever I got any grief for how I dressed - because she understood the need for self expression. Go gran!

Queen Michelle

Comments

[Judith in Umbria]

It's just as easy to be a fashion victim in Milan etc. There's fashion and there's style. To have style you don't really have to care anything for fashion, and your gran sounds very stylish to me.

My childish fantasy was to grow up to wear convent-made embroidered silk underwear. It didn't happen. But I was obviously as obsessed as a child with clothes as you are. It has endured.

There are hardly any mothers prepared to hear from their children that their goal in life is to wear embroidered silk knickers, and I hope it hasn't ruined my mother's life.

[Lady Julianne Eternity]

That is a lovely story.

[jen b.]

this is a really great story. my mom has never really understood my style but is open arms when i buy her high fashion clothes or accessories. oh and making a big stew for all the unwealthy kids is really commendable/amazing.

[Lauren]

Princesses! I had no idea the Kingdom of Style went so far back!

And that is a very sweet story, especially the bit about the soup. Your grandmother sounds like a true lady.

[Queen Michelle]

Well, truth be told, the gran I knew was a grumpy, hardy lady indeed! I remember once when I was little me, my mum and my gran were walking down the street and this girl, who didn't like me for some reason, was sitting on a wall and as we passed she called me a "cow". My gran, a tiny lady of not even 5 feet tall, saw red and pushed her over the wall!!! The girl never called me a name ever again!

[Drusilla]

I always assumed you were a born Glaswegian, Queen M. But that's an amazing story you chose to share with us. My own mum made my clothes when I was little, but I grew up to frustrate her by turning into something of a grunge girl. But your post is ringing true in a way that I'd be cheering at if I was a bit more demented. As a student in a half-rowdy suburb in India, it's tough to love fashion sometimes, through sheer lack of access to things, and lack of people to discuss them with. And that's partly why blogs are so amazing- even if it's just the screen of your computer, it's nice to know you're not alone.
PS: The women of your family- you included- sound like absolute crackers.

[Susan]

That sounds picturesque. I think style must run in families. Here in yorkshire its hardly a fashion capital but there are still some excellently stylish characters about. That is so weird they were called princesses, you must be royalty! love your blog its an inspiration.

[WendyB]

Wonderful post.

[juliette]

I totally agree. I grew up in a small seaside town without a lot of money (us and the rest of the town once the dairy factory shut!) as well. It was so small we had only two shops selling clothes and shoes and was 5 hrs drive to the nearest big city. I used to save my news round money to buy a now defunct 80s pop mag called No1 - it was 6 months out of date as was sent via ship from the UK. I'd pour over it for hours then run things up on gran's old sewing machine using old sheets, second hand clothes - even curtains - and creating my own versions of new romantic glamour (not exactly blending in with my contemporaries). I was about 12 or 13. At a school reunion my old classmates told me how they thought I was way too cool. I thought I just loved clothes, but not the ones in our town!

[Queen Michelle]

Oh Juliette thanks for sharing that story. I don't remember that magazine, but I was obsessed by Look In magazine, another 80's classic. I always felt diddled when the centre fold was King though - I hated King.

[iopine]

Go Gran indeed. Standards were different then, and I'm glad of it. I wish things could be more formal now, sometimes.

My Grandma was the same way. She always looked great; I can't remember her ever looking anything but absolutely put-together.

Haw haw on me, though: To her dying day she wore a wig, and for almost the whole time I knew her, I never knew that. It was really, really weird to think that I'd never seen her with her real hair.

A long time ago, I chanced upon a photo of her with her wig off, and her hair was sparse and thin, just like mine is. I understand now why she insisted on indulging her vanity with a wig. Everything else about her was real, though.

Sometimes when I see myself in the mirror now, I see her. It's uncanny how much we look alike.

[Prêt-à-Porter Prostitute]

Beautiful
-h of candid cool

[martine]

Wonderful! My grandmother was a tailor and I feel that she passed her eye for quality and love for materials on to my mother and me. Sometimes, when I am hesitating to buy an expensive, but beautiful piece of clothing, I tell my self that it is a 'tribute to my roots'. Oh, I can make up so many excuses to spend! But anyway, I am proud of my grandmother that she gave my mother and me our love for clothes and a confidence to trust our tastes.
By the way, I don't think I have ever commented before. I love your blog and I hope you will continue a long time. It feels like a weird one-way friendship to me!