Did your mother make you wear a Liberty bodice?

Vest, liberty bodice, full length underskirt, blouse, pinafore, cardigan. No wonder it took me ages to get dressed for school!

I remember their rubber buttons than broke in half. Very cosy though - especially when warmed on the fireguard first.

Definitely!

I don't even know what one is, and I grew up in the '50s too?

Yes think most girls in the 50s 60s had Liberty bodices definitely remember the rubber buttons. Did boys have equivalent?

Oh yes! So many clothes - Chilprufe wool vest, Liberty bodice, Viyella shirt, wool serge tunic, hand knitted cardigan - but knee length socks, not tights! Could barely bend to put my shoes on. And then wool gaberdine mac, pixie hood and mittens. I am exhausted just remembering it!

Wow Liberty Bodice that stirred some memories, I remember the rubber buttons. I was always getting chesty coughs so next to my skin was some lint material smeared with goose fat. Think that is why I wiped Liberty Bodice from my memory!!

I grew up in the fifties and sixties and never came across a liberty bodice.

Yes I remember wearing one but don’t remember rubber buttons

I wore a liberty bodice in the mid to end of the 1940's but have no memory of wearing one as late as the 1950's. My children didn't wear them. They were born in the 1960's and I don't think liberty bodice were available by then. Also with the advent of central heating they weren't needed.

I too wore one in Glasgow in the fifties. I remember it buttoning onto a kilt....or did I just imagine that??

Yes definitely vest, then Liberty bodice, complete with rubber buttons, then petticoat then top clothes
I wonder how you grew up in the 50 s without encountering a liberty bodice ?

I grew up in the 40s, houses and schools were very cold (fuel rationing), I had a vest, liberty bodice and woolly jumper. When it was extremely cold (winter of 1947) there were suspenders which hung from the liberty bodice buttons to hold up black woolly stockings. I used to get dressed under the bedclothes because the bedroom was so cold.

We have had no hot water or heating for the last 10 days as our boiler broke. (We had a new system installed today).
It took me back to the 50’s where we lived in a terraced house with just a coal fire in the living room, no bathroom, and an outside toilet. I was always ill with colds and worse. My Nan (with whom we lived) insisted my brother and I wore a Liberty bodice, and I remember how difficult it was to do the rubber buttons up.

My Liberty bodice didn’t have buttons. It was a flannel vest with strips of a sort of twill material either side of the neck opening running down to the hem. It was a rite of passage, I think, when you were firstly allowed to stop wearing a Liberty bodice, and a further step to adulthood. when you discarded the Chilprufe vest, and didn’t even have to wear it in the winter!

We wore three gored worsted pinafore dresses - with a square bib and crossed straps. They had to be bought from the school tailor and as you were waistless at 11, and the skirt virtually reached to the ankles, it nearly saw you through to the sixth form having taken off the bib with the straps that restricted the budding bosom!

I wore a liberty bodice. No central heating for many then so needed warm clothing. There used to be icicles hanging on the insides of the windows when it was very cold.

I think my mother must have dressed GrannySomerset for school too, because the routine and the layers of clothes my sister and I wore, were identical to hers...

And Vick rubbed on your chest at night ...
(I hated the Vick ... and the liberty bodice).

Every morning in the winter my mother used to put my liberty bodice in the grey 'New World' gas oven to warm it up before I put it on. The buttons were small and fiddly. I don't remember my slightly older brother having to wear anything similar.

Yep, after I had a terrible chest infection, which, looking back was probably whooping cough. I was the only child in my class who had to wear one. ?

My liberty bodice had suspenders to hold up my woollen stockings , they hurt if wrongly fastened and ended up under my wee fat thighs when I sat down !

Oh yes, the fleece-lined bodice with the sticky rubber buttons some of which got flattened in the mangle This went over the thick vest.
We had to wear them on account of there being icicles inside parts of the house as well as the beautifully patterned windows after a heavy frost.

Thanks so much for all your memories. I had my long scarf crossed over at my chest then under my arms to be pinned round my back. My mitts were on a string threaded through my coat sleeves. Also remember having a scooter hood, a hat and scarf combined!!

I think I was the only child in my class who wore one. My mum was an ‘older’ mum, and I was always hugely embarrassed by that, as I felt I was old fashioned as a result.

Some of my friends never wore a vest either!

Oh, such freedom!

Wore a liberty bodice in the 1960s and I also remember having a huge metal bottle. It was put in the bed and we put our feet on to get warm three of us shared a bed.