"Jump, Jive an' Wail" is a 1956 jazz swing song by Louis Prima. This video is for the cover of the song from the 1998 album The Dirty Boogie by The Brian Setzer Orchestra.
I'm not that musical and not that knowledgeable about dance styles. The dance style is most likely swing dancing, which dates to the era of the original song, and the outfits in the video look 1950s-inspired, though likely updated rather than authentic or reproduction.
I have managed to find one old black-and-white photo (out of many) of a female swing dancer in shorts, but most seem to have worn dresses that went below the knee. Swing dancing could be fairly athletic, though I'm guessing this video version is more athletic than was generally true for "average" people having a night on the town.
I am very fond of the video because it's like a nutshell version of some aspect of my childhood. It makes me somewhat nostalgic for when I was a little girl and my mother routinely sewed me matching shorts to wear under all my super-girly dresses and it makes me go "Man, I have THE BEST MOM ON THE PLANET."
My mother's mother was from a low-level noble German family, so I was raised with rather strict ideas about prim, proper and appropriate attire for a girl. My mother's expectations somewhat echo gossip column articles about how The British Royals are expected to dress.
Cleavage on display was kind of a no-no. Cover it up.
Under no circumstances should your bra straps or other bits of undergarments show while in public. Straps falling out of a sleeveless shirt and onto your upper arm or being fully on display because you wore a regular bra with a shirt with spaghetti straps was just Verboten.
I didn't own a pair of pants until I was SEVEN. Little girls wore SKIRTS, DRESSES and SHORTS. Full Stop.
(No, my parents weren't religious. They were just really old fashioned and conservative.)
So, no, it wouldn't have been okay for me to show my undies while doing cartwheels in a dress or something. BUT, at the same time, I was not denied the opportunity to do cartwheels because most of my dresses had matching shorts. So I could climb the monkey bars or climb trees or do cartwheels ALL I WANTED.
And rest assured I did. I was very much the most athletic of the three kids at home and I did LOTS of cartwheels and tree climbing and such.
I was raised with the idea that I needed to dress like a VERY girly-girl AND I needed to be extremely prim and proper about it while being pretty, feminine and attractive. But I was NOT raised with the idea that this meant that I had to sit on the sidelines of life and watch while the boys had all the fun and did all the cool stuff.
I'm not that musical and not that knowledgeable about dance styles. The dance style is most likely swing dancing, which dates to the era of the original song, and the outfits in the video look 1950s-inspired, though likely updated rather than authentic or reproduction.
I have managed to find one old black-and-white photo (out of many) of a female swing dancer in shorts, but most seem to have worn dresses that went below the knee. Swing dancing could be fairly athletic, though I'm guessing this video version is more athletic than was generally true for "average" people having a night on the town.
I am very fond of the video because it's like a nutshell version of some aspect of my childhood. It makes me somewhat nostalgic for when I was a little girl and my mother routinely sewed me matching shorts to wear under all my super-girly dresses and it makes me go "Man, I have THE BEST MOM ON THE PLANET."
My mother's mother was from a low-level noble German family, so I was raised with rather strict ideas about prim, proper and appropriate attire for a girl. My mother's expectations somewhat echo gossip column articles about how The British Royals are expected to dress.
Cleavage on display was kind of a no-no. Cover it up.
Under no circumstances should your bra straps or other bits of undergarments show while in public. Straps falling out of a sleeveless shirt and onto your upper arm or being fully on display because you wore a regular bra with a shirt with spaghetti straps was just Verboten.
I didn't own a pair of pants until I was SEVEN. Little girls wore SKIRTS, DRESSES and SHORTS. Full Stop.
(No, my parents weren't religious. They were just really old fashioned and conservative.)
So, no, it wouldn't have been okay for me to show my undies while doing cartwheels in a dress or something. BUT, at the same time, I was not denied the opportunity to do cartwheels because most of my dresses had matching shorts. So I could climb the monkey bars or climb trees or do cartwheels ALL I WANTED.
And rest assured I did. I was very much the most athletic of the three kids at home and I did LOTS of cartwheels and tree climbing and such.
I was raised with the idea that I needed to dress like a VERY girly-girl AND I needed to be extremely prim and proper about it while being pretty, feminine and attractive. But I was NOT raised with the idea that this meant that I had to sit on the sidelines of life and watch while the boys had all the fun and did all the cool stuff.