Anne’s World: My Hometown – What to Wear in Bay City, Michigan
Week 3
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Fashion was never really my thing. But if my Mom taught me one thing, it was to always try to look your best.
I think my most memorable piece of clothing growing up in Bay City was a pair of pants that I earned through Coca-Cola bottle caps, circa 1975: a pair of drawstring, low-slung, extra wide bellbottom pants made of 50/50 cotton/poly material with the Coca-Cola logo emblazoned all over them! Man, I thought I was groovy wearing those pants!
My bellbottoms couldn’t even hold a candle to my sister, Tess’s prom dresses. Beautiful and thin, model-like Tess, had two different floor-length skirts with “hot pants” underneath that she wore to different proms with white lace up knee-high platform high-heeled boots. Wow. I wanted to be like her! I can still see her now in the photos with her boyfriend, Doug Smith, at the Handy Prom and at her All Saints Prom. That was the time, in the ‘70s when stars were wearing pants in place of formal wear. Remember when Cher married Sonny? She wore a white lace bellbottom wedding ensemble. Oh, to be like Cher at that time (pre-braces, pre-face and body surgeries -- just plain natural beautiful young Cher)!
Then, there were my Catholic school uniforms. At Holy Rosary Academy (kindergarten through 8thgrade), the plaid I wore was the same tartan that my daughters wore to their Catholic school in Washington, DC. Are there no new plaids for school uniforms invented in the 40 years that passed!? The cool thing about school uniforms at HRA is that we wore jumpers until 5thgrade, then we advanced to just skirts. My fellow female students and their Moms actually cut the vest portion of that top of the jumper off to convert it into a skirt. Needless to say, I did not do that because I outgrew the jumper in time to get a brand, new skirt. Funny thing how my fast-growing, lanky body earned me a faultless skirt for 6thgrade! (And skirt did not have the fringe residual around the waist that the jumper-skirt often had.) short prom dresses 2019
What about those monogram sweaters that All Saints administrators deemed “uniform worthy” to wear with our ASC herringbone plaid skirts or navy-blue pants. I loved my initials “AMH”. In college, 90% of my new friends would ask the same, repetitive question that got really tiring: “What does the “M” stand for?” “What’s your middle name that begins with “M”?” Eventually, I just lost patience with the same darn questions and gave into my sense of humor with my response: “Oh, the “M” is for “Maxwell”, yes, my full name is “Anne Maxwell House” – like the coffee.” No more questions were asked about my name which is really “Anne Marie House” – pretty boring in comparison!
Recently, I posted my senior prom photo with my date, John Tomasjewski. My FB friend from DC, Rosemary Lally, asked if my dress was made of Qiana. She was right on the nose! I was so proud to have an original dress (which by the way, was long enough for me) that Mrs. Matice (a seamstress located in Essexville) made for me from a photo that I took to her as a sample from an Estee Lauder cosmetic ad from Glamour magazine. My dress was a beautiful toga-like sleeveless garb in a shade of dusty rose Qiana and as my friend Rosemary pointed out in her FB reply to my prom pic, “Qiana was so silky and smooth.” Unfortunately, Qiana was probably the most unbreathable and flammable material on Earth!
My final fashion note from my days in Bay City is a short tribute to one of my most impressionable fashion influencers: my oldest sister, Judy. Not only did her abundance of Pappagallo shoes make her ever a stylistic statement, they also helped her become Homecoming Queen of St. James’ High School Class of 1965. Judy, who was 13 years older than I, moved out of Bay City to transform herself into a stylish Pam Am stewardess in 1969. She could take a silk Emilio Pucci scarf, tie it “in such a way” around her head, to make her look like a million bucks! Thanks, Judy, for your influence on my fashion flair. Sometimes it radiates through!