You brought back a lot of memories, Shakeysix - I was born in '44, but the youngest of four children (by quite a few years). I remember (and have pictures) of my sister who was 17 when the war ended wearing short shorts and sweater type short-sleeved tops. She wore a lot of sweaters with skirts too. My brothers (13 and 15 when the war ended) wore jeans and colored T-shirts or flannel shirts, even to school (rural school). Mom had housedresses she wore for everyday, button up the front, frequently she'd made them. Dress up was more likely a button up the front dress or suit with a white blouse. Overall, colors were pretty drab for everyone except little kids. Dad was a college prof with his gray suit and always white shirt and blue striped or gray tie. At home he had gray work pants and wore just a white T-shirt with them in the summer and a flannel shirt over the T-shirt in the winter. He always wore a T-shirt undershirt under his white dress shirts.
Steam irons weren't really in yet so Mom would dampen the laundry, roll it, and put it in the refrigerator until she was ready to iron it. Wash day was once a week and with an old Maytag wringer washer it took all day. Laundry was hung from lines strung across the driveway to dry in the summer; in the winter the lines criss-crossed the dining room of our house.
A lot of everyone's clothes were homemade, although women's much more so than men. My aunts even made their own wool suits. And there weren't zippers in too many of the women's home-made outfits - everyone knew how to make buttonholes.
As far as pants go - I wore pants and shorts at home to play in, but pants were not allowed for girls all the way through school including college - and that even carried on after I entered the workforce. I think it was about 1968 when pants-suits for women came in; panty-hose were pretty close to the same time.
Fun remembering. Puma