1963! Oh my gosh, AJ!!!!

I graduated from highschool in 1963. As I look back at my yearbook, most of the girls either wore flips - hair long flipped out on the ends, or layered in sort of a bouffant hairdo that we set in rollers and slept in every night:-( The girls with curly hair would use orange juice cans to set their hair in order to get it as straight as possible. Some even ironed their hair to get it straight! French twists and "teasing," or back combing hair to get it really puffy and bouffant were also popular, as was hair spray. The popular outfit for our senior pictures seemed to be either a "jewel neck" sweater ( what you or JCrew might call a refined crew neck sweater with a nice, simple necklace or pearls, or a blouse with a round collar and a circle pin, with or with out a crewneck cardigan sweater. In my highschool, most of the boys wore button down collar shirts with what we called "wheat jeans," a light, wheat colored pair of jeans. We wore our skirts about knee length (just below the knee) and with pantyhose and keds...yes, keds or flats or penny loafers (Bass weejuns were the brand you had to have!) The guys ties were skinny and, I sort of think that maybe tab collars were also in for guys. Both pleated and straight skirts were popular, again, knee length. Plaid was popular for pleated skirts. You should see the guys basketball uniforms - so funny compared to the huge baggy ones the playrs wear today. They were really quite short (ooh la la :-) ) and definitely much tighter than todays uniforms. In the picture of the varsity basketball team, they all have their shirts tucked in. I don't think that we (girls) were allowed to wear pants to school and I'm pretty sure that the guys in my school were not allowed to wear blue jeans, thus the popularity of "wheat jeans." I also, vaguely remember that at some point, colorful pants for guys were popular - chartreuse (? sp.) and red being 2 such colors. I guess, looking at the pictures in my yearbook, that the styles that were most popular were what we called "Ivy League." This happens when you grow up in a town with an Ivy League school located in it. I think that the really short mini skirts came into popularity later in the '60's - '67, '68 and '69. I will never forget getting sent home from school to change my skirt which was too shortin 1962. It was a beautiful genuine Scottish kilt that my mother had given me. One teacher in our school would make you kneel down on the floor and if your skirt didn't touch the floor, it was deemed too short and you were told to go home, change, and come back when you were presentable! I think that my kilt was just above my knee! Horrors!!! I wore it with tights or knee socks and my Bass Weejuns. I thought I looked presentable and "way cool:-)!!!" Our cheerleaders wore sadle shoes with their uniforms. We all thought the shoes were very cute! I didn't wear very much make-up in highschool, just powder and some "rouge." It was before the days of blush-on. When I got to college in the fall of 1963, I sure wanted to have my make-up look like the girls from the NYC area so I had them teach me to do "doe eyes" with liquid eyeliner. I also started wearing mascara and eye shadow. Again, I thought I was and looked very cool:-)!!! Good luck with your costumes and your party, AJ. It sounds like fun. I will tell you that the music was great!! We liked doing "The Stroll" and "The Twist." A dance called "The Bug" seemed to have a following. One guy would dance by himself, imitating a bug ( a dying one if you ask me), then he would stop and another would start. Everyone stood around in a circle, clapping while those brave souls did this "hideous" dance. "I want to hold your hand" by The Beatles was number one on the charts in the fall of 1963 so times were changing and, again, the music was great:-)!! As, I think Gladys said, if you were old enough, cocktails were popular. Beer was always served at fraternity parties except on big weekends when some kind of lethal punch would be served. Many thought that smoking would make them cool and many of us tried to get beer when we were still in highschool. Otherwise, drugs were unheard of. My class is having a 40th class reunion in July, and I am debating whether or not to go. I probably will. As one of my friends said,"We should all feel lucky just to be alive!" We have lost several classmates to cancer etc. so, yes, we need to count our blessings and remember the good times:-)