Spring fashion changes, but Easter eggs still roll
Saturday things were on a roll, literally, all over Central Florida, including Winter Park, where the city’s annual Easter Egg Hunt was scheduled to return for its 64th incarnation. Billed as Winter Park’s oldest community event, the hunt got its start in 1954, during times when folks wore hats and gloves to church on Easter and children donned their new spring clothes to search for Easter eggs.
Decorated eggs have been linked to Easter celebrations for centuries. Like Christmas, the secular side of this Christian holiday has long been entwined with customs that go back to ancient celebrations. The word Easter itself probably derives from Eastre or Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and dawn.
Whatever the origins, those of us who are “of a certain age” can remember Easter fashion and fun in Central Florida in the mid-20th century. Here are a few of the holiday’s highlights, 1950s-style.
In 1950, the Orlando Evening Star’s pre-Easter fashion advice included tips for gents for buying a corsage for the ladies. Fresh flowers were favored, but faux ones were in demand as well. The ladies neckwear department at the Yowell-Drew Ivey’s store boasted a selection of fabric roses, violets, daisies, poppies, iris and “many other delightful spring blossoms,” at prices of 59 cents to $1.98 for a pin-on bouquet.
Like other natural materials, leather had been in short supply during the rationing days of World War II, and postwar styles luxuriated not only in longer, fuller skirts but in fashionable footwear to match.
According to newspaper ads, budgetconscious 1950 shoppers could find Easter bargains at the Self-Service Shoe Store at 220 S. Orange, which touted pastel ladies shoes for only $3.
The store’s two-tone men’s model that I always think of as “Cesar Romero shoes” — after the suave movie star known for tropical elegance — cost only $4.95. Made from nylon mesh combined with leather, these sporty men’s shoes were popular in warm climates. Rutland’s advised shoppers to “do your Easter high-stepping” in its more expensive version, priced at $11.95.
Among the Easter fashion underpinnings unlikely to make a comeback are the formidable undergarments for ladies discretely advertised in 1950, like the “smoothie controleur” priced at $12.95 at Corene’s on Orange Avenue. Judging from the sketches in the ads, this baby looks like it could control Godzilla.
One blessedly longgone 1950s Easter custom involved the sale or promotional giveaway of “real, live, honest- to-goodness tinted Easter chicks” to children.
In 1958, Moses Rexall Drugs in Orlando offered one to any child less than 10 years old accompanied by parents. “This offer is good at any Moses store as long as the chicks last.” And, of course, in most households, the chickens usually did not last long after they were brought home.
If it seems we were all a little obtuse in not grasping that this was not the greatest idea in the world, especially for the chicks, we can remember that most adults at the time smoked like chimneys — and we all thought that was fine, too.
Next Sunday, April 8, at 2 p.m., the Orange County Regional History Center continues its free Brechner Speaker Series with veteran journalist and author Craig Pittman, speaking about his book “Oh, Florida! How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country,” which won the Florida Book Awards’ gold medal for nonfiction.
A native Floridian, Pittman graduated from Troy State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work for the student paper prompted one dean to label him “the most destructive force on campus.”
Since then he has covered a variety of newspaper beats, including hurricanes, wildfires and the Florida Legislature. He now covers environmental issues for the Tampa Bay Times and has twice won the top investigative reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists. For more details and to reserve a place, visit thehistorycenter.org/events.