Time Capsule - 1972

I ripped open another box of stuff-from-Dad's. This one had lots of clothes and stuffed toys. And it did have my mum's wedding dress in it. Here is a photo of my mum and dad on their wedding day. They had it at the Waterloo Hotel, which is now a backpackers, opposite the Wellington Railway Station. They didn't have any religious elements and wrote their own vows, which was rarer for the 70s. That's me and my brother having a bath, on the right. I miss Polaroid cameras.

Mum's dress was by some designer who had a boutique up north somewhere (quite trendy at the time, apparently). Dad wore a Spanish leather jacket that Mum made him buy (his only trendy clothes purchase ever).

I fit it. Only just. My mum was skinnier than me, pre-babies. She was a bean-pole (and it was the 70s and I think she did the odd bit of speed, if not other drugs, which she sincerely warned me against in my teens), though I think we're basically similar proportions.


It has moth-holes and rust stains on it now, but it's still quite beautiful to me. If you took the chiffon sleeves and chest bits off and made it a bit longer , it'd be pretty much exactly perfect. It has these really delicate pleats in the chiffon, from the waistband to mid-thigh, then it has looser pleats and flares out a little more, with a satin under-dress. I perhaps shouldn't have had my black leggings on under it...

I think me and Mum were both 'dress people'. It's funny to think of a parent as 'fashionable', since that element of them seems to be sacrificed once they have children (more fat, less money, less glamorous occasions). But I think Mum was a pretty stylish lady back in the swinging 60s and 70s.


A couple of weeks after my birthday this year, my life will be split in half exactly (half with Mum alive, half without). That's an odd thought.