My First Style Icons

When I was growing up in the Seventies; my big sister and I used to play with my Mum's two wigs. She wasn't bald. Apparently it was fashionable once to have totally different hair from day to day. (!?!?)

One of the wigs looked a bit like Krystal Carrington hair, from Dynasty, or, if you wore it round the wrong way, which we did; like Farrah Fawcett in Charlies Angels.

The other was a short brunette Pob, like this one ------------------>


You see, this is supposed to be my 99th Post, but fool that I am I didn't realise that the 15 or so drafts that I never finished counted towards the total and I'm still a good few posts from my century.
Never mind. I got to thinking about "99" anyway and was reminded of the gorgeous Barbara Feldon who I now realise, was one of my first style icons.

She always looked so immaculate beside the goofy Max in Get Smart (for those of you who didn't grow up on a diet of American sitcoms) And her outfits probably represented the best designers of the day.
I don't know for sure. I am afraid I lack the skill and finesse of Bronwyn of Fashionability to adequately research and collate a retrospective of Agent 99 and her couture.

My Very first big style influence if I am to be quite honest, was this girl:

Cindy Brady from The Brady Bunch

I clearly remember getting my mum to get up early and do my hair in hot rollers, the kind you plugged in which always had a smell of slightly burned hair. And then try and sculpt these two pigtails, for an excursion to the zoo when I was at kindergarten. So I was 4.

Next up, and I loved this goddess so much that I was allowed to stay up until 7.30 pm (imagine!) to watch the latest episode (latest as in "new" to Australian television)

It was of course: the beautiful Elizabeth Montgomery, and Bewitched.

Curiously, I didn't identify with Tabitha. I really really wanted to be Samantha. And while I loved her outfits, she wasn't quite as "out there" as her bold "cousin" Esmeralda.

Who I am guessing was a lot more fun to play.
To this day when someone refers to "The Good ABA" or "The Good Scissors" even;
I always imagine that "The good" anything is wearing a blonde wig, and the bad is the one in the kooky brunette shag.

A ploy that also worked for this sitcom, which came along slightly later: 

I Dream of Jeannie

I think when Barbara Eden played Jeannie the women's movement had come on some from where Bewitched had started. And Jeannie's costumes when she was out and about pretending to be a normal gal, were a lot more "way out" than Samantha's.

And Larry Hagman didn't seem as bothered by Jeannie's powers as Darren was about Samantha being a witch.

I once took part in a call in radio show (on Triple J) discussing feminism and I argued that Samantha's powers as a witch were an analogy for the emerging power of women in society.
Darren (repressed queen that he turned out to be) went out to work and she stayed home, supposedly repressing her natural abilities and being a house wife.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Jeannie, seemed to be a lot less uptight. At least when it came to blinking through her housework. (bliss)
I do seem to recall that she had to keep hiding in a giant pencil tin whenever anyone came over.
But perhaps that was more about the fact that they were living together, without being married.
(at least in the first series).

Enough of the feminist subtext. Jeannie's outfits were a lot more revealing and as I found when I did a little bit of trawling through photobucket, Barbara Eden was no stranger to cheesecake modelling.

However, the only outfit that I really wanted to own and wear was of course this one:

These days I would gladly settle for the bottle!

Anything to get a bit of space on my own. As long as it had WiFi of course.

During the 80's I think I went for which ever female pop icon was in at the time. 
Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Chrissie Hynde and Chrissie Amphlett of The Divinyls were on the charts but I never consciously copied them and I was too old for 80's Kylie.

I think if you asked my GBF from High School Micheal, you would find that my premiere interest music wise was a bald guy by the name of Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil.


We did go through a little stage of trying to be mods:

Circa 1985, Trying to be a mod.
Photo: ImeldaMike 

I even had a fringed leather jacket from "Harley Heaven" in Elizabeth Street Melbourne, until it gave me whiplash. (And it suited Micheal much better than me, annoyingly)

I might see if I can track down those photographs and put them up on another post.

My other real style icon from that time was my cousin from Sydney. And Sydney Style.

I think that's why I like Skylark and Son so much.

The last really significant Icon I had was the delicious Audrey Tatou and of course Amelie!

The inspiration for yet another one of my hair disasters. I went in with a request to look like Audrey Tatou, and came out looking like Phil Oakley of the Human League.

Which brings us to today. I have left out Rachel from Friends (My fashion rep days) and of course Carrie from Sex and the City as it is hard to define which period I really identified with and I think Patricia Field got it a bit wrong sometimes.

My current style icons are the ladies of the blogs I read every day. And I like to think I have finally developed a bit of my own style. Which is nice, at 39.

Have a lovely week.

xx

All photographs are used without the intention of making a profit. If I have used a photo that you wish to be credited for, please let me know.