Anyone else recall the days when you had to look your very best for Easter? Where have these days gone, friends? Nowadays, you go to a church or the theatre and find the most garish, ghoulish or whorish outfits fathomable. Or jeans and trainers–really? That’s the best we can do? And why have we capitulated to the lowest common denominator, accepting less than your best for Easter –or Passover?
Through my childhood in the late 70’s and early 80’s, it was still an annual ritual I loved: getting a pretty pastel dress, often with gloves and sometimes, even a little handbag to match. Either times were still formal then, or my mum was carrying on a long-held Easter tradition. I grew up seeing photos of my mother in the frilliest 50’s dresses and from that time, my aesthetic leaned towards eras preceding me by multiple decades. These images are from the spring of 1954. Shall we go trite, and assert that it waas ‘a simpler time’?
Though I’m not a big follower of the British royals, I will say, I hope the popularity of Kate Middleton will inspire and urge some of the careless dressers to find some occasions upon which, the tradition of tasteful attire would be not only a welcome sight, but also appropriate.
Tasteful, elegant, reverential–it would make sense to resurrect this tradition along with the annual celebrations, would it not?
