The Dress Up Box

Did you have a dress up box while growing up???

I define this in my 1960s childhood as a big cardboard box kept in the playroom in the basement filled with clothes, shoes, jewelry and hats that could keep me occupied for hours.

The box contained a collection of things--from a variety of sources--but they were always adult clothes and jewelry and hats that could transport me into an Auntie Mame world of make believe.  The dress Grandma wore to Mother and Dad's wedding, neighbor's bridesmaid dresses (in lovely mint or coral!),  elbow length gloves, stiletto heals that had seen to many sidewalk cracks, and jewelry.  Oh The Jewelry!

The above photo is a recent  bracelet find from Twice Is Nice resale in Carol Stream Illinois.  It is a vintage marked Hollycraft Co. gem from the 1950s that is just the type of piece that would find its way into the Dress Up Box. It is called a Dragon's Breath and Aurora Borealis bracelet.  By the time it got to my playroom--it would be missing a few stones or woefully out of fashion. But that did not matter to me.  If one bracelet was good--three were better.  A necklace or five and always bling bling clip earrings that were sure to pinch my earlobes--and obviously pinched the previous owner's ears as they had those squishy foam pads attached to the clip.

I have been wearing the bracelet all day.  I am channeling my best Wallis Simpson today.

I Want to be a Cowgirl

Why is it when poking around auctions and shows, you never find any items of memorabilia  for sale concerning cowgirls?

Hollywood had a love affair with cowgirls during the early years of cinema---when serials starring Marie Wallcamp and Josie Sedgwick filled cinemas with roping and riding and shooting cowgirls and rodeo riders.  Closer to our time, Dale Evans knew how to ride and rope with the best of the boys.  Millie Baldwin and Tillie Douglas were women cowgirl trick riders in the early years.  You have to have a name like Millie or Tillie if you are going to perform horse riding tricks I think...

And those skirts!!  And those gloves!  and those BOOTS!

And the beadwork and sequins!!

My very first dress up costume was a cowgirl costume--I have been channeling cowgirl for a Very Long Time.

The romantic stories of the american west always regale stories about cowboys--and any women of the west were always long suffering wives in conastoga wagons or hookers or saloon singers.  May I introduce the real adventurous ladies of the west?  The cowgirl!!