For those fond of pattern mixing, here is one for you! We have plaids and geometrics on the walls and floors, flowers on the table and apron, a paisley dress, and a figurative drawing on the curtains. In short, there is just about every possible pattern style along with a myriad of colors in this small kitchen scene. No wonder my mother, who set up her own household at about this time, decided on basic white.
The colorful Pyrex mixing bowls, first introduced in 1946, give an approximate date. I am guessing early 1950s. While the little girls appear to be dressed up in their Mary Janes and decorated socks, the two older women look fairly casual. What was the occasion? Maybe both women were grandmothers who happened to have their grandchildren visiting at the same time. Insert your own story here.
The older woman with (dyed?) blond hair is wearing what looks to be a house dress, something without much of a shape and a long zipper for easy dressing. The large paisley print would have been hard to match, and whoever made it didn’t bother. She wears sensible lace up oxfords, the choice of older women for decades in the twentieth century, along with stockings that are slightly bunched up at the ankle.
Her friend at the mixing bowl has on a simple black dress. It must have been her kitchen, since she is doing the mixing. Isn’t it interesting that she chose a plain dress when her kitchen was so colorful? She has on stockings with her comfortable sandals, but maybe it had been a long day since she has detached them from her girdle and wears them rolled down around her ankles. And why not, when she’s at home?
This picture could be of my grandmother in the ’50s and ’60s. That house dress and the oxfords are what she always wore plus the style of apron the other woman is wearing. (I always used to think of the oxfords as horribly ugly old lady shoes. Now I think of them as pretty comfortable for footwear without modern cushioning.) My mother, who married in 1951, always had the same set of 4 nesting Pyrex bowls in her kitchen. Now I use them. They’ve held up well although the color is somewhat worn and scratched from the 70 years of use.
My grandmother never took to wearing garters that fastened to a girdle. She always rolled them, just like she did as a young woman in the 1920s.