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Long before rising prices helped push the custom aside, Easter Sunday in the 1940s and ’50s meant an entirely new outfit for many little girls. And “outfit” meant everything: dress, shoes, socks, purse, hat and gloves.

Mothers shopped as though their daughters were competing for the title of Miss Easter. As a child, I happily joined my mother and the retailers in this annual ritual. My father, who had to pay the bill, was probably less enthusiastic.

The dress always came first because every other purchase had to coordinate with it. Pastel colors were preferred, along with lace, ruffles or decorative buttons. Puffy sleeves, sheer fabric and a bow in the back made a dress even more desirable.

Shoes came next—usually white Mary Janes with a small strap across the instep. One favorite pair had flower-shaped cutouts that revealed my carefully matched socks. Another featured little bows on top, which seemed like the height of elegance.

The socks, then commonly called anklets, could match the dress or remain safely white. A pale blue dress might call for pale blue socks, but conservative girls like me usually chose white, preferably with lace around the cuffs.

The purse only needed enough room for a delicate handkerchief borrowed from my mother and a quarter for the Sunday school collection plate. Decorative flowers were welcome but not essential.

Finding a hat was the hardest part. The goal was to avoid anything that made me resemble Carmen Miranda or Madame Zelda, the fortune teller. After trying on numerous hats—and catching my hair in countless artificial sprigs of forget-me-nots or forsythia—we would finally surrender and buy one.

By then, the easiest purchase remained: a pair of white gloves in a youth size.

At last, we would stagger home with the mission complete, confident that we had boosted the American economy, Old School style, and assembled another Easter fashion triumph.