As cliché as it sounds, I'm inspired by everything around me. When I was younger, I couldn't care less about style. I sought comfort and jackets/pants that covered my hairy arms and legs. I wore Limited Too tracksuits and Gymboree hair clips. It wasn't until middle school that I started caring so much about my appearance, that I tried to change it. I began regularly shaving my arms in the seventh grade, an experience that I remember making me feel like I was a different person. I was still insecure as fuck, but at least I could wear t-shirts without thinking everyone was glancing at my gorilla arms. Unfortunately (or perhaps very fortunately) I was required to wear a uniform to school until I entered ninth grade. So when high school began, I had no idea what the difference was between things I liked and things that looked good on me. Now that I've sort of grown into my own, I've begun to develop a sense of style that I feel is both contemporary and eclectic. Here are a few of the inspirations behind that:
Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, and Vivien Leigh
Sexy, timeless, and talented.
Sophia Loren was often typecast as a European bombshell in her films, a sex icon that was glorified for her naturally curvy physique and sultry doe eyes. When she was first beginning in the film industry, producers and managers would tell her that she needed to get plastic surgery, because her nose was "too long." She refused and soon after began doing American movies, where she was blown up to international stardom with her beautifully ethnic features and her slight Italian accent.
Brigitte Bardot is classified in her documentary as being a "symbol of uninhibited desire." Her voluminous blonde hair and lush lips created an unforgettable appearance, only to be eroticized by her sexually fueled French films that quickly became insanely popular in America. She helped create a much more sexual theme in the movie industry that had previously been banned, with roles like sex kitten Juliete Hardy in ...And God Created Woman and estranged wife Camille Javal in Contempt.
Vivien Leigh is most popular and well known for her role in Gone With the Wind as the saucy, incredibly charming Scarlet O' Hara. She is remembered for being an insanely beautiful woman, often times being referred to as the most beautiful woman in cinema.
Leigh's public affair with Laurence Olivier catapulted her sex appeal; their erotic letters to each other proved she was an undeniably alluring temptress. Olivier was obsessed with her. He wrote "I woke up absolutely raging with desire for you my love...Oh dear God how I did want you. Perhaps you were stroking your darling self...I am sitting naked with just my parts wrapped in your panties. My longing for you is so intense."
Other Golden Age bombshells of inspiration are Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland and Grace Kelly.
Style from this era almost nearly created contemporary. The big luscious hair and the bright mod colors created a canvas for future style. Often times when I find myself struggling to achieve any type of look, I go to the past for inspiration.
xx
Liz
(Next I will feature modern style that inspires me, beginning with Brooke Shields' Calvin Klein commercials and settling into the era of bold brows and Instagram iPhone shoots)
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