CHEMISE

Wild Word Friday!

Once upon a time a long, long time ago, (when I was in the fourth grade), my mother styled my hair into CHEMISE bangs and I wore a baby blue CHEMISE dress. The dropped-waist-box-pleats look was really in, and I was a fourth-grade fashion maven. At least I thought I was.

For those of you who weren’t born yet way back in 1959, CHEMISE bangs were styled with some of the bangs coming down over your forehead and some going back towards the top of your head. Don’t laugh. I’ve watched a lot of styles return for a second whirl, including shoulder pads, stiletto heals, and CHEMISE dresses (think 1920s flappers).  CHEMISE bangs might make a comeback, too, and maybe those poodle skirts of the early rock-and-roll days will even….

Or maybe not.

Anyway, CHEMISE is a very interesting word and very ancient. It is a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon word for shirt, hemethe, and may well have its roots in the Indo-European prefix – wer – which is a reference to the sky and actually means cover. Related words include the Gothic himins; the Old Norse himinn; and the New High German himmel.  All these words refer to the sky in some way. The German word himmel actually means heaven.

So…maybe when I thought my baby blue CHEMISE dress was heavenly, I wasn’t entirely wrong!

Q4U: What fashion trends have you loved or hated?