As a style that has well and truly stood the test of time, we think that dungarees make a great addition to anyone’s wardrobe. They’re so easy to dress up or down, and it is this versatility that makes them ideal for transeasonal dressing - pair them with your favourite vintage tee in the warmer months, or layer over a chunky jumper when it’s colder outside! Those aren’t necessarily tomboys,” I replied. “That’s just how lots of girls dressed in the 1970s and early ’80s.” In the mid-1970s, the objective of feminist parents was to empower girls by stripping their clothing of every last vestige of traditional femininity and replacing the ideal little lady of their childhood with the tomboy.”

After World War I, the flapper movement took hold, offering more masculine, corset- free clothes for liberated women. World War II promoted Rosie the Riveters. During each war, economic times were tight, and women filled men’s roles while they went off to fight: War begat feminism. And often the children of feminists were raised as tomboys. The dungaree started to transcend the realms of manual labour when they were worn by Hollywood royalty, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and even Judy Garland, turning the overall into a desirable garment. They are tried and tested – it is a look many women have reached for in the past. Throughout the 1980s, the decade when she had both sons, Diana, Princess of Wales was pictured in yellow ones, blue ones and aspirationally clean white ones. Raybould was “initially inspired by some jumpsuits my mum lent me that she wore in the 80s when she was pregnant”. Mair adds some context: “In the late 70s/80s dungarees were associated with the ‘mother earth’ style of fashion, self-sufficiency and growing your own.” Maybe that could go for babies as well as marrows.As we often didn’t have waterproofs, on a wet rally we would improvise with bin liners! The photo below was taken at Great Yarmouth in 1984, where our tent flooded and we had the prospect of a 200 mile ride home in pouring rain. I think the expression on Sarah’s face says it all! One reason so many kids looked like Jodie Foster or Kristy McNichol in my childhood, even me, is that wearing “boys’” clothes was a readily available and uncontroversial option. Tomboys were encouraged, and easily clothed. And toys and media that tried to represent the vast experience of girlhood had a tomboy, or several, among them. One look at skimpy-outfitted, high- heeled Bratz dolls and you can see how much that later changed.

Then again, Mattel’s 1970s line the Honey Hill Bunch was a racially diverse group of girl cloth dolls, most of whom were wearing pants and had accessories ranging from guitars to purses. In the photo below, Rich has painted band names onto his jeans with bleach! He’s also wearing the classic 80s Alien helmet. In the 1980 movie “Little Darlings,” tomboy icon Kristy McNichol and her love interest Matt Dillon wear the same T-shirts and jeans and even have the same feathered, shoulder-length hair. Tomboys were common, in life and in the media. Here are more big hairdos from the Alcoholic Rats ladies, who demonstrate that cable knits were big in the 80s too! Blue hair and blue eyeliner – a great combo!Today, so much of childhood is divided into pink and blue; there are even “girl” LEGO Friends and “boy” LEGO helicopter sets. So why were so many girls dressed like boys, and encouraged to play with and like them, when I was a kid? Why were the 1970s a tomboy heyday?