But it wasn't always this way. I can remember (now that I'm retired, I can say stuff like this) having clothes that were kept for 'good'. In fact, when I was at grade school, I had three categories of clothing and shoes. There were the school clothes: no girl went to school in pants. Dresses and skirts were expected. On cold winter days we could wear pants under our skirts on the walk (always long) to school. After school, we had to immediately change into play clothes. This was usually a dress but what my mother called 'dungarees' were OK, too. Of course, we also changed our shoes. Then, come Sunday, we wore the very best stuff to Sunday School: good dress and coat, hat and gloves.
We lived in a small country town not far from Vancouver - it's a huge suburb now - and the family would occasionally drive in to shop at the big department stores. Oh, the agony, as a teenager, of trying to decide what to wear. Of course, when we got there, we could see that we would always be recognized as outsiders anyway. That's probably what produced the angst in the first place. When I went off to university, my mother insisted that I have skirt/jacket suits and good pants and sensible shoes. That would have been fine if I'd been a professor. But these were the 60's, man. That kind of style wasn't going to make it on campus.
Dressing up has always meant getting into fancy clothes that I wouldn't normally wear. As a child, I loved clomping around in my mother's high heels (old) and holding up the long skirts of one of her old party dresses. There was no lipstick or face painting for us kids. Unless it was Hallowe'en and then we were allowed to have some lipstick to complete the effect. I still wore my Mom's clothes as a costume. Today, dressing up for most children only means wearing a costume but it's still pretend. And, now, as an adult, I hate to wear costumes. And I avoid dressing up, too.
