Fashion It Girls Before There Were Fashion It Girls: Our Favorite Style Icons Through the Ages
Once upon a time (you know, before the internet), style stalking your favorite celebs wasn't as easy as it is today. Instead of getting a peek into their lives with a quick scroll through Instagram, you would have waited days, weeks, months even, for photos to appear in the fashion media! We can't help but wish that stars like Brigitte Bardot and Patti Smith would have been documenting their daily ensembles, blog style, for future generations to enjoy. And though street style has been around way longer than we've been snapping pics and putting 'em up online, these four ladies were definitely rocking it on the style front in their day, no matter who was watching. Let's take a quick look back in the past, shall we?
1/5New York never looked so good.
Photo: Courtsey of Sunset Boulevard/Corbis.2/5Brigitte Bardot
Though Brigitte Bardot is way more than just a pretty face (she's a part of the French intellectual set in addition to being a talented actress and animal rights activist), no one epitomized the glamor of high-piled hair, pouty lips, and perfectly smudged cat eye liner like this French femme. Her look was (and is) classic chic, transitioning between full skirts with simple scoopneck tops to fitted pants and a classic cashmere crewneck sweater. And while she was certainly street snapped a ton through the '60s and '70s, her legacy look is a mess of blonde hair —never perfectly coiffed —paired with effortless styling. We totally would have followed her Insta account in the day (and probably attempted to copy her look on a weekly basis whenever possible).
Photo: Courtesy of Pierre Scherman3/5Diane von Frstenberg
You probably know a little something about the iconic DVF dress. But what about the woman behind the wrap? Diane Von Frstenberg moved to New York City with her then-husband, Prince Eduard Egon von Fstenberg, in the late 1960s (yep, prince). She started designing womenswear the following decade, and by the mid '70s the wrap dress had taken root and begun to revolutionize the way stylish women dressed. We are thoroughly obsessed with early shots of her in matching print pant-and-tunic combos, and only wish there was a big blog chock full of them we could scroll through for our fall fashion inspiration.
Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images4/5Audrey Hepburn
It’s hard to imagine anyone more timeless than Audrey—and we definitely credit her with our seriously over-sized sunglass addiction. No one ever made a little black dress look better (or a little black turtleneck, for that matter). And if she decided to launch a little lifestyle blog at some point back in the day, a la Gwyneth’s goop, we definitely wouldn’t have complained. How else would we find out how she managed those perfectly sweet-yet-sleek updos?
Photo: Courtesy of Patti Hudson5/5Patti Smith
Could anyone be cooler than Patti Smith? We just adore this poetess-muse-artist and everything she’s come to embody about the spirit of NYC while the city’s creative community was just getting on its feet. And we’re pretty fond of her ability to turn otherwise lifeless ensemble items into an intriguing (and worthy of imitating) outfit. There was a freedom in the way Patti dressed herself in her early career, very Brooklyn-before-Brooklyn was cool, and she managed to turn even the most innocuous of menswear items into the kind of thing that we try to effortlessly emulate ourselves today. Luckily, there are tons of photos of Patti in her twenties and thirties that we can style stalk, but can’t you just imagine her —perched on the cobblestones streets of a still-sketchy Soho —sipping a coffee and squinting at a street style photographer from under a hat, on The Sartorialist blog today?
