Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Anachronistic Style is here to wish you a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a smashing New Year! We will be back in 2013 with a new attitude, new content, hopefully a new layout, and a new perspective on blogging. Until then I sincerely wish you and yours the safest and happiest holiday season ever!

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween. I'll be attending a party tonight but since I have to work all day I won't be in costume...unless that costume is an over-worked retail manager! In which case I win first prize.

Style Icon: Bree Van De Kamp

Let's continue with style icon week! A style icon is a personal saint of your style world and serves many purposes--such as a starting line for a killer outfit or a persona to channel when things get tough at work. These women kick butt, take names, and look good while doing it. Their style is to be admired, dissected, and emulated but never copied--each should make you try to be a better version of yourself! 

I love shows about middle-aged women. Television shows with young characters tend to target young people so if I want intelligent, self-possessed and feisty women I look to shows like Desperate Housewives. There's no surprise that my favorite housewife is Bree Van De Kamp. Her life is far from perfect but she insists on keeping up pretenses. She's a perfectionist. If I stayed home all day I would run a home as tight and neat as Bree who's spent years polishing the routine of her life. A lot of the comedy in the show surrounds how Bree keeps it together despite all the drama in her life while maintaining her perfect middle-class facade. In season four she tells her son "This family's reputation is already hanging by a thread. I mean first people thought that your step-father was a wife killer then your sister takes up with her history teacher and now we're supposed to parade a little bastard up and down the street? We might as well sit on the porch and play banjos!" And her style! Bree looks like she stepped out of a Ralph Lauren Polo ad. She taught me all the colors I could wear as a pale-skinned red-head to look stunning. Like a Stepford wife she has a strong twist of the 60s in her wardrobe--classic cuts, pearls, jewel tones and pastels, and that lovely flippy bubble-inspired hairdo!

Fabulous!

Style It: Bree had one of the best pregnancy wardrobes ever, as if every piece was bought from Modcloth and let-out just for her. To get an everyday Bree Van De Kamp look the classic cuts and candy colors of Old Navy or J.Crew will fit the bill, just be sure to mix your high and low with some fabulous faux-estate jewelry like this and lady-like shoes from here.

Style Icon: Joan Holloway

Continuing with style icon week! A style icon is a personal saint of your style world and serves many purposes--such as a starting line for a killer outfit or a persona to channel when things get tough at work. These women reveal a part of yourself and encourage you to foster other virtues. Their style is to be admired, dissected, and emulated but never copied--each should make you try to be a better version of yourself.

Joan Holloway is a natural choice for a style icon. Mad Men has been inspiring the fashion world since it started airing in 2007. Joan won me over instantly with her easy grace, classy business clothes, and complete self-possession. She's polite yet blunt, elegant and put together. Most of all she's good at her job, makes it her art and excels at everything she does. She uses her femininity like battle armor, she is very calculated in how she dresses and what she reveals to those in the office. She uses her love life to blow off steam but keeps her personal life perfectly separated from her professional career. She maintains her facade at all times and keeps other people's secrets as well as her own. She has more integrity and honesty than anyone in the office. She clothes herself in shift dresses and high-waisted pencil skirts and never shows cleavage, as a curvy girl this realization completely changed my work wardrobe. Joan taught me how to show off my curves without exposing my body--a lesson every woman should learn.

Youch!

Style it: Look for jewel tones, little sleeves, scarf-like details around the high-neck, and a pencil silhouette. I've always had good luck at Banana Republic ($150) and J.Crew ($198) for shift dresses, keep in mind that spindly models do not show off the Joan-like possibilities of such dresses!

Style Icon: Wanda Woodward

I've been dealing with RL recently and my blog has gone forlorn and unattended. To get myself back into the posting mood I've decided to share several of my style icons with you this week. This blog is all about different inspirations and incorporating them into your personal style. Identifying your style icons is a very important process. A style icon is a personal saint of your style world and serves many purposes--such as a starting point for a killer outfit or a persona to channel when things get tough at work. These women reveal a part of yourself and encourage you to foster other virtues. Their style is to be admired, dissected, and emulated but never copied--each should make you into a better version of yourself.

My first style icon of the week is Wanda Woodward from the movie Cry-Baby (1990). Wanda is part of the title-character's gang and is a true rebel without a cause, she comes from a very normal family and should be well-adjusted. She joins the drapes (slang for greaser in Baltimore at the time the movie takes place) because she is so privileged, things came too easy for her in life so she's bored. As a very sexual character (she is played by Traci Lords, famous for creating porn while underage) Wanda is the only one from the Cry Baby gang that is single, she puts up a wall between herself and men. Her style moments are plentiful (the whole movie is a style moment, really) and she draws attention in every scene with her blonde hair and baby bangs. She makes me want a leather motorcycle jacket. When she's not wearing a pencil dress like in the scene below she sports a longer gray pencil skirt, tight black off-the-shoulder tee, saddle shoes and her red Cry-Baby scarf around her neck. She says at one point "You'd never catch me dead in a full skirt." She knows how to stand up for herself and she exudes danger and un-attainability  Be sure to check out some of the musical numbers on Youtube to get a real taste of the movie.

Isn't she fabulous?

Style It: Cry-Baby is such an obscure movie I had a conniption when I found this T-shirt at Hot Topic($23) and I channel Wanda whenever I throw on this red scarf ($10) from Vivcore.

1940s-style wedding!

So several months ago Mr. Anachronistic Style and I tied the knot after eight years. We never really had the money for a wedding and have been supporting ourselves for years so we decided to do something quick and simple. My concept was the 1940s, during wartime many couples were married in their back yards or in wedding chapels before the men shipped off to war. Weddings of this time period were simple and bittersweet affairs.

We decided not to invite anyone to our wedding except our parents. Whenever we attempted a guest list it always got out of hand so we kept it simple. We chose a local wedding chapel for its retro appeal and it was our most tasteful option in Columbus. Mr. Anachronistic Style wore his grey Mad Men for Banana Republic suit, wingtip shoes and a pink striped tie. He had to wait on me since I was fashionably late to my own wedding.

My dress was the Ava dress from pinupgirlclothing.com. The wrap style and longer length were so 1940s! My bouquet was white and pink hydrangeas (my favorite flower) and I realize now how slimming a bouquet is, I should carry one every day! My purse was a gift from my husband for my birthday last year and was made by Guess. My sunglasses are kate spade, my shoes are Madden Girl found at DSW. My rhinestone necklace was genuine vintage. My lips were Lime Crime Retrofuturist and my toes and tips were Essie Lollipop.

We make such a picturesque couple! It doesn't hurt that Mr. Anachronistic Style fills out that suit so well.

Detail shot of our shoes and my hair. I wanted victory rolls and I got them! My nude platform pumps actually had little white polka dots, I had to add my own quirkiness to such a classic retro look. After the wedding we spent some time with our photographer Stephanie Atwood and then met our parents at a swanky restaurant for dinner. The whole affair was nice and relaxed, just the way I wanted it!

Beauty on a Budget with Revlon

If you're a make-up aficionado like myself the drug store may be the last place you'd find yourself trolling for make-up. Stores like Sephora, Ulta, and the MAC counter are bright and vibrant and fun (with great sales people for all that fabulous free advice!) but Mid-century American women had no choice but to buy their cosmetics at drug stores or the occasional department store. Revlon has been around since make-up was first packaged and sold and believe it or not the same colors mid-century women chose are still available today! As soon as I saw this diagram I picked up a tube of Fire and Ice on my last grocery trip. I love knowing that I am wearing an authentic 1950s lip color with my anachronistic ensembles. So far I am very happy with the color, a pretty pinkish-red that glows on my lips. The color is moist and subtly wearable. The packaging leaves something to be desired, and I had to spend several minutes peeling off the unattractive price label. Also the lipstick has wear issues, I'm used to expensive lipsticks with high pigment content that last until lunch and leave a stain all day. I found that layering is key with the Revlon lipstick: use a liner to fill in lips, apply lipstick, press powder onto lipstick, re-apply lipstick. Repeat after lunch.

Overall I am happy with my purchase and plan on collecting all the colors in the chart above to achieve a retro lipstick collection. At $5 a tube I really can't pass these up even if they do need a little more work to last. After this little experiment I am more interested in trying Besame cosmetics...if I can get the same authentic retro colors with a higher pigment content, more durability and that gorgeous golden lipstick bullet? I'd happily pay the $22. In the meantime enjoy some matching nails and tips ads from Revlon featuring some of the colors above for inspiration.

Etsy Find: Rococo Vintage

My current favorite Etsy shop is Rococo Vintage. All the dresses are beautifully photographed and carefully curated, I love zooming in on the details on some of the best 1950s dresses I've ever seen. Every piece listed is worth scrutinizing and I like to check back often for new listings. Below is a few delicacies in the current selection but I definitely recommend favorite-ing this delicious little shop.

Check out more Rococo Vintage here!

A Pastel Dream: Let Them Eat Lace!

It's no secret that pastels are having their day in the sun thanks to designers like Louis Vuitton's pastel carousel and Prada's retro-riffic video. This photo shoot called "Let Them Eat Lace!" embodies all the trends of the season with a strong dose of rococo flavor thrown in. Here are a few of my favorites by photographer Nicole Patricia Malina but you can see the full photo set HERE!

Thursday's Movie Review: The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The thing that I love about old movies is realizing that the pastoral, picturesque ideas that our grandparents paint of their day are completely fictional. Who knew The Seven Year Itch (1955) is actually a movie about infidelity, seduction, and fantasizing? Richard Sherman is a book editor whose wife and son goes to Maine for the summer while he stays in the city to work. A model moves in upstairs (played by Marilyn Monroe) and begins Richard's summer of unresolved sexual tension.  The comedy of the movie lies in Richard's absurd fantasies involving the girl upstairs, his wife, and multiple other women in his life. His mental condition spirals downwards throughout the movie until he becomes the personification of cognitive dissonance. The only thing keeping Richard's libido in check is the model's sweetness and innocence, in the end she proves that she has more character than Richard. The movie is best known for the white dress billowing over the subway grate scene, which never actually appears in the movie in all it's glory.

Get the look: The white dress defines not only the movie but Marilyn Monroe herself and is probably one of the most recognizable dresses in all of movie history. Every anachronistic fashionista needs one so head on over to  Trashy Diva's Dottie dress ($163) and pick one up. Wear it all summer.

Style Diary: Memorial Day Weekend Festivities

I spent memorial day weekend in Port Clinton lake-ing in style. Summertime is all about stripping down a wardrobe to the bare minimum. I always struggle every Ohio summer to dress utilitarian yet stylish but I believe I'm getting better year after year.

No trip to a lakeside resort is complete without a "healthy" amount of golf-cart riding. This is our personal golf cart, butter-yellow with a striped awning. I've discovered the joy of city shorts from WHBM so I buy them in every color. I always wear flats with shorts because of that old addage--a lady knows the higher the hem the lower the heels. My tank is a cheapie from Old Navy, the print is very pin-up vacationing in Hawaii. Sunglasses and untamed lake hair complete the outfit.

The  perfect way to start the day is a morning boat ride in the Boston Whaler. I prepared for an afternoon on the water with a messy bun corralled with a vintage green scarf. My new green swim top is a refreshing change from last years red Marilyn number. My kate spade's sunnies are back again and my lipstick is MAC Morange. The perfect boating companion is Sadie, a corgi-westie mix!

After the boat ride I slipped on this navy and white striped number to attend the Walleye festival. I wore my favorite mid-heel mules and wrapped my boating-bun in another vintage scarf. My lipstick is Lime Crime Retrofuturist. The day was so easy and carefree we walked around and ate our way through the fair. Here I am sitting down to enjoy fried pickles and raspberry lemonade shaved ice on the lawn.

There was a petting zoo for only a dollar! There were piglets, a baby coyote, strange-looking birds, a hedgehog, tortoises, kangaroos, goats, llamas, antelope and holy cows from the Himalayas. I was trying to pet the animals without getting licked.

The final treat of the day was a fried snicker bar. Honestly, I didn't need to know such a thing existed!

Hopefully we'll be heading back to the lake for Independence Day for a few more days of relaxation and recreation.

Summer in Style with L'Wren Scott

Now that I've got my new job, new apartment, new husband and new car situation ironed out (Whew!) I should be able to get back to my regular posting schedule. I'm in love with L'Wren Scott's first resort collection. Resort collections are my favorite since the clothes are always wearable. The cuts are 1940s style with cheeky prints and bright colors. I love the shoes and bags in the matching print but I would lose the strange military hats.

I've been devoting myself to my Pinterest account, hop on over for some inspiration!