White Pages … and Frederick’s Of Hollywood!

White Pages … and Frederick’s Of Hollywood!

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka #Granny Gee

Photo is of me as a young woman who loved to dress in the most beautiful clothes … I loved myself … I may have been a little vain … but, I was a ‘good’ vain …. Photo is of me, owned by me… Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

The old, brown, wooden floor felt cool to the back of my naked legs. I sat in front of Grandma Alma’s wooden bookcase. Oh, the many books she had! They all had … white pages … in them!

I looked down beside my crossed legs, saw my crayons, pencil. I would be here for some time. No one would miss me at all!

I sat cross-legged, my favorite way to sit. I still do that as an adult; I feel it in my knees … but, I still make me do it.

I pulled several books out to examine them. I looked only at the white pages this time. Sometimes, I would read.

I saw drawings on some of the white pages. They were my drawings. I loved to draw clothes on women. I wanted to be a fashion designer when I grew up! I was only a child at this time.

There! I had drawn a girl with pretty, curly hair. I drew a beautiful dress on her; colored it. I’d never seen anyone wear a dress like that! I would even made paper dolls, draw … color the dresses, cut them out … place on my dolls. In my eyes, they were beautiful … I remember people liking them.

Later in life, I was a teenager … married, living in the mountains of North Carolina. I received a catalog one day … I stood there with my mouth opened wide.

I had been drawing some of those clothes as a young girl! I loved the beautiful women, clothes in that catalog! It was a … Frederick’s Of Hollywood, of all things!

I didn’t go to fashion design school. I had married too young. I had a young child. My Grandmother Lola was going to send me to fashion design school. I ‘messed that up’… by the choices I made.

I sometimes, look back … see the little girl sitting on that old, wood floor. I can still feel how cool that floor was on the back of my legs. I can see how she sat there drawing, coloring … forgetting the harsh world around her. Colors, dreams occupied her mind. Oh my, what that little girl would have done if she’d only lived her dream! White pages … one day to see my style was like Frederick’s Of Hollywood!

 

 

Photo Credit/True story are both owned by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka #Granny Gee