The focus of fashion these past five years seems to have shifted to the real. Street-fashion bloggers have taken off (see: the Sartorialist, Face Hunter and Garance Doré expanding their photos and words into just about every major publication there is), leaving behind many editorial spreads that concentrated on the fantastical and the unobtainable.
And there are always those guys and gals who catch your eye when you’re out, the kind who just have it: the ability to throw outfits together with half as much effort as you. It’s nice having these types to gawk at on the street, on blogs, or wherever; it makes it seem like looking that good is within your reach.
Tamara Dutton, photographed here in Long Beach, is one of these women. She wears all vintage and second-hand, excluding her beautiful jade-green Chloe sunglasses. The ’60s, striped (in white, orange, royal-blue and tan) shift dress seems like it was made to go with that lightweight tangerine-colored pea coat with the gold buttons. She finishes off the outfit with simple blue-canvas slip-ons, a look that eco-friendly, charitable TOMS Shoes has popularized recently (but for $45 to $70 a pop).
Her ensemble is thoroughly ’60s, but modernized with the addition of the slip-ons and Chloe shades. It’s mod, totally femme, yet totally badass, and it actually looks like something Kim Gordon would have thrown on (which explains that “badass” thing) some years ago.
It’s no surprise that Dutton unearths the best of the best of vintage goods for a living from thrift stores and estate sales, searching so you don’t have to. She’s a member of the Long Beach Craft Mafia (which the Weekly featured in a cover story; see “DIY Or Die,” Sept. 26) and runs an Etsy shop, Carnivore Cockatiel (carnivorecockatiel.etsy.com), hawking all her finds, which she describes mostly as “classic Americana.” It’s hard to argue with that description, actually—scrolling through the store’s wares, you’ll find everything from perfectly pointy-toed, dark-brown-leather Mary Janes ($22) to red-canvas loafers ($12) that bear some resemblance to Keds’ pricier department-store counterparts to a handmade, deadstock leather satchel ($32), as well as several pairs of timeless canvas plimsoles.
The standouts are the actual clothing items, beautifully modeled by Dutton herself. Thanks to Mad Men—and our (my) undying obsession with Mad Men—items such as the Tulip and Anemone print dress ($38) make for the perfect, uncostumey homage to the 1960s: classy, clean lines, always flattering. The sleeveless dress, with its mostly white color scheme and splashes of deep navy and a scarlet red, falls just below the knees and is finished off with a matching bow belt. It’s on my Etsy favorites list. So don’t buy it.
Or, you know, go ahead. But tell her you beat me to it.
