Back to School

Although our schools have been in session since August 16th, many schools across the country will not start until after Labor Day.

Waaay Back When, when I was getting ready to head back to school, we would wait in anticipation for the August Back to School issue of Seventeen. It was big and fat and loaded with the newest back to school styles.

I spent hours paging through the issue, choosing the outfits that I would "copy". We never bought our clothes - we sewed our clothes.

I found a big box of Seventeen magazines for sale on Ebay. Ranging in years from 1969-1974 - my era.

Here are some of the styles featured in these magazines.
Plaids were BIG.

And not just in popularity - BIG in size.

Did we never ask the question - Do these pants make my butt look big???

Obviously not.

Dresses were short and we always wore colored tights.

Crazy pants where in.
And the size of our butts obviously was not an issue.

Red white and blue was a very popular color combination.

The red, white and blue dress in the middle

was one that I wanted to copy...but never did.
Just like then I had many "want to do someday" projects

and a few UFO's.

A lot of the clothes had smocking on them.
I made many items with this feature.
Like now, the smocking was done with elastic thread on your bobbin.

Shoes were big and clunky, with big buckles…
probably to balance out the BIG plaids.

"Want to have" brands at the time:
The Red I

Bobby Brooks.
This was another one of those
"I wanted to copy"...but never did get it done

This was the look in prom dresses.
I think these are real live models….
but they look a little manikin-ish.

Betsey Johnson signed on with Butterick pattern company
featuring her line of patterns named Alley Cat.
I made many of Betsy's patterns.
She looks way more conservative in this picture…

then she does today.

Charms were very big…

And I don't mean five inch squares.
I had a charm bracelet but I did not have a ton of charms.
I wanted a charm bracelet like Sandra Eggiman's.
She was one of the older girls who rode my bus.
Her charm bracelet was loaded with charms.
The greeting sign of the era was the peace sign.

Everybody had tattoos.

Metal ones.
Also know as I.D. bracelets.
Everyone wanted to receive one of these...from their boyfriend.

In the pages of those Seventeen magazines I also spotted some of the newest beauty products.
Sometimes it was okay to be the second child. Being younger I was sometimes not "old enough" to use some of the products that my sister used.
I will never forget the time my sister Linda and her friend Linda used their hard earned money they made waiting tables at Pavelko's Café to buy QT.
I was soooo jealous…. until I saw the results.

Your skin turned a very unnatural shade of orange,
with your knees, elbows, heels and hands being
a much darker shade of that unnatural shade of orange.
Dodged a bullet there.

By the time I was "old enough"
everybody had quit using QT
and started using good old natural Baby Oil.
We added Iodine to the baby oil for our "tan".
We looked a little jaundice….but at least we did not look like a copper kettle.

Sun In was another product that the "Lindas" used but I never tried.
This product was supposed to give you that
"bleached naturally by the sun" look.
Really it turned your hair quite yellow.

Pssssst was another product that really did not work.
Basically you looked like you had powder in your hair - which you did.


Wigs were big in this era, although none of us ever had one.
The ad states: So natural, so lustrous, so for-real they even fool experts.


Well I am no expert but I certainly am not fooled!
Could be why a wig was never on my "want" list.

Ambush was the fragrance of choice.

Our faces were washed with Noxema

Then we slathered blue eye shadow on our eyes.

We whitened our teeth with Pearl Drops.
It did not quite work as well as Crest White Strips.
If fact I don't think it whitened my teeth at all.

Our IPods were called Transistor Radios.
If you turned the volume up really high and held them up to your ear
you could hear a lot of static mixed in with a little music


Our computer was one of these…

and a trip to the library.
There was no such thing as google.com.

While paging through the ads in the back of these magazines, I noticed the careers they were pushing for girls were
airline stewardess, fashion merchandising, interior design and nursing.
There was an ad to become a Veterinary Assistant - but not a Veterinary.

We've come a long way baby!

From my heart,
Sandy