Get the Look: My Mother

Every now and then I highlight favorite vintage style icons, such as in my blog posts

Finding Marilyn Monroe
Billie Holiday, style icon
Get the Look: The Thin Man, 1934
Get the Look: Audrey Hepburn
Get the Look: Emma Peel
Dream Girls: Girl Groups of the Sixties

Today, in honor of Mother’s Day, I'm celebrating my very first favorite style icon. I've talked of my mother before (Flowers for my mother, Style ideas from my parents) but I'm devoting this post to her style alone.

Mama would laugh and blush at the thought of this. My mother did not consider herself stylish; she wasn’t particularly interested in clothing, but she most definitely had a discernable style, and it’s a style that influences me.

Born in 1920, she was in her twenties in the 1940s, and 40s style suited her and remained a lifelong influence on her. She was big on navy blue, plaid, good basics, scarves, gloves and generally what I'd call handsome clothing. She wasn't the frilly type. On the other hand she rarely wore trousers but preferred dresses. She emphasized her waist. She knitted, sewed and tatted, and I don’t remember her ever wearing a commercially-made sweater. I'm choosing to highlight my mother’s style in the 1940s and 50s, my two favorite decades for clothing and coincidentally when my mother was a young woman.

Have you ever noticed that people tend to like clothing from the era when their parents were young?

{The items with me in the pictures are for sale...just click on their captions to take you to the listings}

My mother in the 40s

There’s that waist emphasis and another simple and flattering dress

40s fern print rayon dress

Mama knitting

50s hand-knit cream wool sweater

Her ubiquitous white blouse, plaid skirt, and great shoes that (it must be noted) caused some havoc for her feet later

50s white cotton blouse

My parents, with my mother in the midst of creating something

40s navy gabardine suit

Mama in a plaid skirt, sporty jacket and gloves

50s rayon dress with plaid scarf and trim

I’ve always been convinced that every woman needs a classic coat

40s burgundy gabardine coat

...and a classic scarf

My mother in plaid again, leaning on my father’s MG. The jacket was most likely his. 

50s plaid summer dress

My parents on a ferry in 1956. I love the flowered circle skirt!

50s fish print circle skirt

My mother, very soon to give birth to me, with my aunt Marie and brother John

Happy Mother’s Day to all the First Favorite Style Icons out there!