White cotton gloves

[getonwithit]

My mother now 70 says White cotton gloves were always worn until around 1962 she was from a working class family from ilford Essex is this right ?

[Buenchico]

It depends upon your definition of 'always'!
(They weren't worn for peeling potatoes, for example!).

I was born in 1953 and I can remember that, in the 1950s, any young lady going to a social function (whether that be a dance or a cinema) would never leave home without her white gloves. They weren't the plain type of cotton gloves which are now associated with workers in factory 'clean zones'; they were far more fancy:
http://ny-image1.etsy...llxfull.210420333.jpg

http://farm3.static.f...645706_cac10587be.jpg

http://www.flickr.com...94515@N00/3852256872/

http://www.fashion-er...1950-2000/whit400.jpg

Chris

[vallaw]

Yes it's right. They were a plague.

[jno]

I think they faded away after the war, along with men's hats. I'm surprised they hung on as late as 1962, but I suppose in the wilds of Essex anything is possible.

[Euphemia]

....and women's hats

[vallaw]

Not just the wilds of Essex. I was in NE England - my father wore a homburg hat well into the 1960's and was daring enough to go for a Russian fur hat and sheepskin jacket when his peers were still in trilbies and Crombies!

[getonwithit]

Hats went early fifties !

[boxtops]

They were certainly around in the early sixties - I remember wearing them to "proper" events. I guess it was about 1962 that our headmaster was giving out details of a social event to which parents were invited, and he announced that the girls should wear "afternoon dresses"....

[Mosaic]

It's another of those phenomena isn't it, where an upper-class marker disseminates into the working classes then disappears, becoming unfashionable.
All Victorian and Edwardian 'ladies' wore gloves outdoors, and white gloves showed you didn't do dirty work therefore were a cut above. Once Europe had stopped ripping itself apart with wars and the economy began to settle down, working people began to have more cash to spend on desirable consumer goods and fashions.....including little white gloves to show you were a proper lady.
On a practical level, before car ownership was common it made sense to wear gloves cos it got very cold waiting for buses. It was also handy to put your bus fare, then your bus ticket, inside your glove so you didn't have to root in your handbag in the dark.
On 'walking days' ie around Whit Sunday the girls walking outfits always included a completely unpractical pair of little frilly gloves, worn only for church thereafter.
Go -on - who remembers Market Street in Manchester on Whit Sunday?