20 Walnut Creek Magazine

Elevate

yourrelaxation

Massage • Body Polish • Facials • WaxingNail Treatments • Spa Packages • Gift Cards

2805 Jones RoadWalnut Creek, CA 94597www.renaissanceclubsport.com(925) 938-8700

R Spa: (925) 942-6379

What I Know

My New Vintage LookBy Deborah Burstyn

Here’s all that Jackie O and I used to have in common: we both breathed the air on the same planet for a brief overlap in time – some of it even on the Atlantic

seaboard. Here’s what we have in common now: a proclivity for 1960s little tailored dresses and big black sunglasses.

This is how it happened. Dial back a few years to one fateful night. Pre-party panic swooped over me like the first dip in a roller coaster. Here it was nearly “go time” and I had confronted disaster in the mirror. I had nothing to wear! How did this hap-pen? I had drifted along on a cloud of ignorant bliss, presuming that one of the usual “standbys” would do quite nicely. By this I meant my cherished collection of spiffy vintage party dresses. I had anticipated trying them on and deciding which one would feel right this night. Short answer: none!

First out was the long black crepe dress with exquisite beading on icy champagne pink netting all across the bodice and shoul-ders. It looked like something out of the 1930s and I usually felt very slinky in it. But what was this? Suddenly I looked like that frumpy lady who’s always the brunt of Groucho’s jokes in Marx Brothers movies. Next up: a tea length silver dress flocked with black velvet. Its short sleeves, jewel neck and cinched-in waist

always conveyed a feminine fifties vibe. Only tonight the feminine fifties vibe was that of Mamie Eisenhower.

I didn’t look pretty in any of my favorite vintage dresses. I just looked kind of…old, like the dresses. Just then, through the foggy ruins of time, a New Yorker cartoon drifted to mind. Two old ladies stand in front of a vintage clothing shop. One is turned toward the other who gazes into the shop window. The caption says, “My dear, we can’t wear vintage. We are vintage.”

“So it’s come to that, eh?” I quickly yanked a decidedly non-vintage Anne Taylor dress from the closet. It was a summer dress but at least it was black. So what the heck happened back there? Was this the end? Good-bye yellow brick road and vintage clothes? I’d been collecting bits of it since college. Not that I wore a lot anymore. They just didn’t seem right for Safeway or soccer practice.

But I love vintage clothes. There’s the quality of the fabrics and workmanship, the quaintness of style and the uniqueness of the pieces plus the thrill of the find. Fast forward a few months. I was in San Francisco at a vintage book fair. I started flipping through a collection of paparazzi Ron Galella’s photos of Jackie O. One shot mesmerized me. She is strolling alone through New York City. She is no longer young. She is not dressed up – no tiara and evening gown or sleek designer suit. Yet she looks fabulous. Why? How? She was slender, she had thick hair and she wore simple classic clothes. In the photo she wears a knit pullover sweater with three-quarter length sleeves and light slacks. Her windblown hair streaks across her face. In one hand she holds a pair of oversize sunglasses.

By golly that was it! Time to swap out Katharine Hepburn for Audrey Hepburn. Time to shift from funky bohemian vintage to classy tailored vintage. Sixties styles, I realized, were a little kinder to women of a certain age. So that was it. I parted with a bunch of my old vintage classics and started building a new collection of what I call “astronauts’ wives dresses.” Like in “Apollo 13.” But Houston, we do not have a problem. I love them! And they love me back! Some are old and some are new. I even found a new “retro” Marimekko skirt at Anthropologie and little seersucker fitted summer dresses by Rampage.

This summer, sixties summer dresses were everywhere. Many of them were more psychedelic teeny bopper than classic icon. There is a difference. How can you tell? Take a long hard look in the dressing room mirror. Should you buy it? Just repeat after me: “What would Jackie do?”