Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Though tomboys were present in the media and culture in the 1950s and early 60s, from Scout Finch to Gidget, it was a time of telling women who’d been liberated by WWII to return to their restrictive gender roles. Rosie the Riveters had shown their muscles in rolled-up shirtsleeves, but traded them for highly feminine 50s fashions, traded working outside the home to the new role of homemaker. Caren Downie, Asos womenswear buying director, is less sure. "With a jumpsuit, you put it on and you're ready to go," she says. "With dungarees, you have to style them up because, let's face it, they're not the most sexy item of clothing. I also think there's an age limit – they work really well for our 18 to 26 demographic but are quite a young trend." Then came sexism and the sexual revolution. With the rise of the counterculture came the questioning and rejection of gender roles. For adult women, claiming to have been a tomboy meant renouncing the restrictive expectations of their childhoods. Some 78 percent of college-aged women in the 1970s said they’d been tomboys growing up, because it expressed their feminism. It was a way of saying they were above the low bar society held them to, and always had been.
A pair of iris-coloured overalls from Beyond Nine have been the garment I have reached for most in the first 16 months of my daughter’s life. Poppers allowed the waist to be cinched when the fit became too roomy; they are a decorative colour but in a silhouette that signals graft. I wonder whether there is something in wearing workwear-inspired garments at a time when women are taking a break from the workforce, temporarily shedding some of the identity that a job can lend. “Potentially,” says Mair. “Work plays a very important role in our identity, so being out of the workforce can make us feel less worthy.” Never more so than in a country where the working culture can feel unbending to the needs of new parents.
Popular Posts
In America in the 1890s, Levi Strauss invented the first pair of denim overalls, intended to be worn as protective workwear. This style was similar to the dungri workwear worn by Indian farm and ship workers, but made from a more robust denim earning the brand the tagline ‘never rip, never tear.’ They are tried and tested – it is a look many women have reached for in the past. Throughout the 1980s, the decade when she had both sons, Diana, Princess of Wales was pictured in yellow ones, blue ones and aspirationally clean white ones. Raybould was “initially inspired by some jumpsuits my mum lent me that she wore in the 80s when she was pregnant”. Mair adds some context: “In the late 70s/80s dungarees were associated with the ‘mother earth’ style of fashion, self-sufficiency and growing your own.” Maybe that could go for babies as well as marrows. As a style that has well and truly stood the test of time, we think that dungarees make a great addition to anyone’s wardrobe. They’re so easy to dress up or down, and it is this versatility that makes them ideal for transeasonal dressing - pair them with your favourite vintage tee in the warmer months, or layer over a chunky jumper when it’s colder outside! Baby boomers, the first generation raised with highly gendered young kids’ clothes, the first real taste of the pink/blue divide, now became members of the procreating counter-culture, poised to reject the gender stratification that had been imposed on them. Some partook of “nonsexist parenting,” the idea that girls deserved parity with boys and access to their worlds. Raising daughters to reject gender roles meant deliberately rearing a generation of tomboys.
It's impossible to mention great dungaree look without mentioning Dexys Midnight Runners. Taking inspiration from the working class of Ireland they described their style as an, ‘off the farm look.’ Layered with knitwearand belted at the waist, the ‘farm look’ can be pretty cool. Toys followed the same pattern. Less than 2 percent of the toys in those catalogs were marketed to a specific gender in the seventies. There were lots of toy ads showing girls as doctors and pilots (though not with boys as ballet dancers and nurses). Science- and domestic-themed toys were sold in many colors, with images of boys and girls in ads working and playing together. After World War I, the flapper movement took hold, offering more masculine, corset- free clothes for liberated women. World War II promoted Rosie the Riveters. During each war, economic times were tight, and women filled men’s roles while they went off to fight: War begat feminism. And often the children of feminists were raised as tomboys. The following is an excerpt from “ Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different” (August 2020), by Lisa Selin Davis. Lisa Selin Davis, author of “ Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different.” The dungaree started to transcend the realms of manual labour when they were worn by Hollywood royalty, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and even Judy Garland, turning the overall into a desirable garment.As we often didn’t have waterproofs, on a wet rally we would improvise with bin liners! The photo below was taken at Great Yarmouth in 1984, where our tent flooded and we had the prospect of a 200 mile ride home in pouring rain. I think the expression on Sarah’s face says it all!
Sure, there were plenty of highly feminine girls’ fashions—the Gunne Sax dresses and lacy Lanz nightgowns of my childhood heart’s desire—but many of us wore outfits like those of the “Freaky Friday” girls. Lots of boys had bowl haircuts; girls had Dorothy Hamill haircuts. Turns out, they were the same haircut!A lot of my mates from the Midhurst Detours would also wear kilts over army greens or bondage trousers, an overhang from the punk era.
Great Deal 
New Comment