A booklet on clothing

By Nicola Benge

Glamorous times

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Dancing at the Regent Ballroom

Image from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Nancy at the milliner's

Image from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

The Way We Wore

This book is the result of ten weeks of reminiscence sessions based on clothing and fashion with a group of people, all over 55, who attend the WRVS Portslade day centre in Windlesham Close, Portslade, and who wanted to share their histories and memories of the 'way they wore' with others. Many of the participants who attended are involved in the WRVS and helping with the day centre, as well as other third age and local history projects, so they came well equipped! The group were ably facilitated by Imogen Christie.

The full, rich lives we have included here are just touching on the histories of those who came regularly to the sessions at the centre, and it's been hard to know what to leave out, as well as what to put in. Many of the participants had no difficulty remembering their fashion favourites and disasters over the years, and especially wearing crepe soled shoes to avoid having to dance!

This project has been helped by Brighton Museum and Pavilion who kindly let us see clothing from their archives and gave us a gallery talk on adornment and fashion, for men as well as women. This will hopefully be a resource that will enable others to remember more of their history, and teach others about the heritage of fashion and clothing, as well as the wonderful, creative, warm people whose memories helped to create this book.

The book was produced in 2009 including some fantastic illustrations from WRVS volunteer Hannah Eaton (see right).

A full pdf copy of the book can be downloaded by clicking on the link below (size 7mb).

Nicola Benge

WRVS Heritage Plus Project Coordinator Portslade

Spring 2009