I never bought a dress in a shop until I was twenty-one years old. My Aunt Decima had a dress-making business in our small village on a mountainside in Wales, and she made all my family’s clothes.

My earliest memories are of “clothes coupons” since everything during and for quite a while after World War II was rationed in the U.K. When we had enough money and coupons we would go to the shops – the drapers of cloth, the haberdashers for buttons, buckles, etc., but Deci often covered her own buckles and buttons. We never bought patterns; Deci made her own,

As a child in Wales, the week was traditionally tasked – Sunday was for Chapel, Monday was for laundry, Tuesday and Wednesday for mending and ironing, Thursday and Friday for house cleaning and Saturday was for baking.

My mother, an indifferent housekeeper but a wonderful cook, happily spent her Saturdays baking Victoria Sponges, pies, fruit cakes and my favourite, Maid of Honour Cakes. I was happy to be exiled to my grandparents’ big house up the street. My grandfather was in his wonderful garden where apples, berries, vegetables and flowers abounded. My grandmother was in her kitchens supervising (bossing) my Aunts Gwyneth and Hannah about her own household baking.

I was sent to the Dressmaking Rooms where my Aunt Decima and her apprentices worked on Saturday mornings. I was seated at an old treadle sewing machine, without a needle (mother was a worrier), and I treadled away happily on an old piece of cloth. I learned to sew and also heard a lot of gossip I probably shouldn’t have.

My Aunt Decima has, over the years, made me the most superb clothes. From this cornucopia of fashion comes to mind:

• when I was six years old, a royal blue velvet dress with white silk smocking;

• when I was in school, school uniforms of brown wool gabardine pinafores and cream silk blouses that just met the school dress code but were so much more flattering than those bought in stores;

• when I went to university, long dresses of burgundy velvet and skirts and blouses of black and gold silk to “wow” them at the requisite formal functions of those “long ago” university days.

But the dress I remember as my most favourite was when I was nineteen. It was of emerald green wool, boat-necked, long-sleeved, with a flared skirt. I wore a gold pin at the neckline. I’ll never forget telling Deci what I wanted done with this piece of wondrous green wool – how I wanted it to flow and how I wanted my newly discovered figure to show, but subtly.

She read the dreams in my eyes, she lived them with me, and she made me a dress fit for a princess.

My Aunt Decima never traveled much beyond the Welsh village where she was born, but she is a true fashonista. She is now 89 years old, almost blind and very deaf. She is one of my best friends. We talk about fashion, what’s in, what’s out, and have lots of laughs. What’s fashion – if it’s not fun?

Menna Weese, Toronto, Ont.