#43, #44 - Feminine wearing pants or even rags

Sunday was a dance and pants day. Yesterday was a pants day, and hell... let us make today pants day as well.
Dresses have a special place in my heart, and I love to wear them but every now and then I go pants-amok. There is just something perfectly casual yet feminine in the combination of a pair of capri, cigar or what ever pants, a sweater and a pair of ballerina shoes. In some way this is essence of simplicity or rather casual femininity.

If you wear your pants high-waisted and you match them up with any kind of pre-1960s vintage hair you will get a classic and elegant look of the exact era you wish to represent.
Of course the lingerie plays a huge roll in this as well, but I'll come back to this part in one of my exceptions on the blog.

A lot of men don't like when women wear pants, they prefer their women in skirts cause skirts equal feminine. And even though I absolutely agree on this statement; That dresses and skirts are more feminine that trousers, I'd say that femininity doesn't lay in the clothes but rather in the appearance and how you carry yourself.
If you try to google Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn, you will see both of them wear pants and even jeans, but their charisma is so feminine that even if they were wearing rags, they would look feminine.
Or remember Marlene Dietrich and her suits?  A suit is one of the most masculine outfits of forever, yet Dietrich nails it every single time, and she is just to die for... every single time!

Of course skirts help you feel more feminine, but the best way to become feminine is by discovering it within yourself. And of course practice, practice and some more practice.
I believe that every woman has the femininity hidden somewhere underneath of decades of anti-patriarch and pro gender neutrality propaganda of the 1970s Red Stocking Feminism.
I bow in respect for the hard work that the Red Stocking feminist did for the liberation of the woman back in the day, without them we wouldn't have the opportunities we have today. But just because you are a feminist, doesn't mean that you have to cut your femininity and womanhood off. One doesn't have to rule out the other. I'm feminist, but I sure do my best to keep in touch with my feminine sides as well.

Don't hesitate; let a man open the door for you, thank him for the gesture and smile. Put a flower in your hair as decoration, use lipstick. Don't be afraid to be extravagant or even dramatic from time to time. Let a man help you carry your bags...
Keep your head up and smile. Relax your face, be aware of how you walk, talk and act... at a point all of these things will become just a part of you and you won't even notice it anymore. At that point it won't matter anymore weather you wear a ball gown, pants or even rags. You will always look feminine.

Yesterday I wore my 1940s inspired chiffon pants. I bought them in h&m two years ago. They are so lovely. unfortunately they are too big, so I need to keep them up with a belt. The shirt is approximately four years old, and I found it in Vero Moda. This is from a time where I still was figuring out how to do this vintage style surf.  I love the color and the pom-pons at the shoulder. I remember I wore it with a pencil skirt back then. And I just adored the style. 

The hair I'm wearing is the same as here. This is so easy and quick and I love it when I need to get my hair out of the way in a creative and fancy way. 

Still what you do to get this hair is: You use a long scarf and secure it on the top of the hair with a bobby pin. 

2. You braid two braids. One on each side and secure them with a rubber band each. wrap the hair and the scar around the hair and tie it in a creative way. I usually tie it on the side. 

The jewelry yesterday was basically non existing. I only wore my old plastic earrings, cause the hairdo and the shirt were details enough for the style. 

Today I'm wearing pants cause I slept over and didn't have time to play around with dresses or skirts. 

These pants are actually my dads old working pants. I stole them from him, long time ago, cause I always wished I had a boiler suit. So these were a compensation for the boiler suit. 

I just adore these, they are so comfy, and they are perfectly big that I can wear them as a pair of high-waisted pants. They are too long as well so I always wear them rolled up. 

The blouse I'm wearing is my favorite turtle-neck blouse. I'm not sure what I'll do when this gets worn out. I think I've had this one for almost 10 years, and as I recall it's a h&m pice. 

I wen't all casual 1950s today. You know, like the american girls imitating the auto mechanics from mid-1950s. There is something light and very romantic and playful about that look. 

The hair was just put up in a hight bun and kept in place with a scarf and bobby pins. The same as Sunday. 

Earrings are bijouterie from h&m and the pin is one I bought on ebay a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if it's vintage or what ever, but I really don't mind, what I fell in love with is the fact that it is the eternity sign. 

Oh yeah the shoes. This is one of those pairs I always forget I have. I bought them two years ago, I like the combination of the patent leather and the sateen fabric. I bought these in one of those cheap outlet shops in Copenhagen. 

#8 - Mad Men and the 60s

So have you ever come across the sentence: "Have you seen Mad Men? NO?! Oh but why not, you are so in to the 50s!" Well I have - more than once. Ignorance can be a bliss, but I like to get the facts straight. The successful series Mad Men doesn't portray 1950s, it actually portrays 1960s.

I haven't seen the series, but I've read a lot about it, I've heard even more about it and I'm pretty sure I'm never going to watch it. I prefer my series… ehm.. rather supernatural.

I believe a lot of you would connect 1960s with the mini skirt. Although this type of skirts did peak in the 1960s, it is rather important to remember, that the mini skirt wasn't really invented before 1964, and it was mostly Londoners who knew about it to begin with. Of course it got popular very fast, but none the less your everyday outfit would most likely look like the clothes you see in the TV-series Mad Men, unless you were a rebellious teenager.

The easiest way to distinguish 1950s wardrobe from the 1960s is basically by the hemline of the dress. Dresses and skirts from the 1950s, with a hemline that reach halfway the calf, are approximately 15-20 centimeters longer than dresses from the 1960s that  usually stopped somewhere just under the knee.
This is basically very generalizing and the fashion is hard to put in boxes, but these are guidelines for an easier identification of the standardizes lines of the vintage eras.

I prefer the longer 1950s hemline and the luxury woven in to the simplicity of this decades clothes, but for me 1960s aesthetics is almost as important as the 1950s (and the 1940s). It broadens the variety and the possibility, and as you can see in Mad Men it is absolutely sexy to the core!

It is very rare for me to wear light colors, and especially a color like salmon, but I fell in love with this blouse mostly because it's transparent and obviously because of the collar (this is BTW bought on a sale in Zara). 

Blouses with collars are rather classical than just vintage, but depending of what kind of collar you chose, you can style your blouse to represent a decade of your pleasing. 

The skirt is a piece I bought in a thrift shop last winter, and it has been very useful to me. The hemline is rather 1960s than 1950s but I like the simplicity of it and this is exactly why I've chosen to match it to this very 1960s inspired blouse. The blouse actually has a marked waist, but I've chosen a pink belt with simile-stones just to emphasize the waist. I could have chosen a black belt, but ended up with the pink one because of the funky color. 

A close-up of the collar. I love the detailed work with the beads and the pearls. 

The hair is an experiment and I'm going to work more with this style in the future. It's inspired by Holly Golightly from the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's starring one of my favorite style icons - Audrey Hepburn. Basically what you do is make a ponytail, and secure the ends on the top of your head. Use some kind of jewelry to hide the rubber-band. 

Finish the look with a pair of pearl- earrings. They never go out of fashion.

   

#2 The Sack Dress

There is no doubt and it is a fact; the 1950's are in. More and more people get their kicks by wearing vintage clothes and "rockabilly" is the new "hipster". The 50s are in, and most of you will think: "Oh! I love the 50s and the pencil skirt, and the big fluffy crinolines and the ponytails." You have probably already asked your hairdresser to cut your bangs short, just like the ones the infamous pin-up model Bettie Page had.  And you know what -  I don't mind at all. This exactly is the beauty of our age. We can choose to be inspired by whatever we want and like, and use it to individualize our style.
Some of you will probably get annoyed by this stereotype of the American 50's pop culture, and look at your pretty pin-curls, your elegant New Look dress, and thank God you're from Europe or at least inspired by the old world fashion form the early 50's.

I love the classic silhouettes.
I love Dior's New Look from 1947; It's simple, feminine, pure in it's aesthetics and the lines make the female body look as elegant as a ballet figurine from a music box.
I adore the bombshell dress, the one Marilyn Monroe made immortal, and what that kind of dresses do for a woman's curves and sex appeal. A very big bart of my wardrobe contains these styles and not to forget my all-time favorite pencil skirt.
But for me exploring the vintage scene of fashion is more than just these well-known iconic and yet stereotyped silhouettes. For me vintage fashion is to dig deeper and see what else used to exist back in the days.
There is more than 18 years between the birth of Dior's New Look and the so-called death of the golden era of haute couture in the end of the 1960s.

During one of my explorations of the past of fashion I found out that Cristóbal Balenciaga introduced the so-called sack dress in 1957. Basically, it's a very loose and almost baggy dress, it look a lot like a sack and it is just perfectly practical during a long day of work or for the Christmas Eve dinner.
What I love about the sack dress; it's very simple and comfy but with a belt you can make it as sexy as hell.
Unfortunately the sack dress is rare as original, but I was lucky enough to find a dress in COS a couple of years ago that is very similar to the ones introduced in 1957.

I love the details of this dress. The neck get's a very elegant and long line because of the oval opening. 

The main reason I fell in love with this dress is the fabric. It is very thick and heavy. The dress weighs over a kilo. (I've had it on a scale.)

A close-up to get a picture of my brooch. This dress is so simple and elegant, to keep the simplicity I use a brooch. Today I chose a big one with color, to brighten it up.