Hoop skirts and red lips

I have been on Mad Men gorge, and it’s beginning to be a problem. I wake up in the morning and feel the need to appease my urge and watch an episode, and recently, I have been waking up in the middle of the night, sneaking out of our room so that my husband will not judge me, and watch another episode. I have been able to do this all thanks to Netflix, and I don’t know what I am going to do when I finish the 4^th season (which will happen very soon at the rate I am going.) This binge has raised the question, “Why don’t we dress up anymore, and when did it stop?” The show is set in the 60’s, and while 50 years was a long time ago, it wasn’t that long ago. Most of our parents were born in this era and remember their parents dressing the same way. The hoop skirts, the vibrant prints, the red lips, and the glamorous women were prevalent in the 60’s, and I miss it! My educated guess would be that people, especially women, stopped dressing up in the 70’s with the whole “hippy movement.” The women felt it was oppressive to be “expected” to wear skirts that sucked in their waist, and bras that made their boobs look pointed. Some women went so far as to refuse to wear bras, but that is a bit extreme, and I must say, unsettling. I do also think that the lack of fashion has something to do with the government becoming more lax over the years, and our style usually seams to follow; one example would be, when the economy is bad, the hemlines seem to get longer, so the recent maxi-dress trend that unfortunately took place a few years ago was an indirect correlation to the bad economy, but I digress. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am glad that we are not “expected” to dress up every time we need to pick something up at the grocery store, and God knows that I have gone out looking worse than you could imagine to pick up some milk, but I do wish that sometimes I could wear a really poufy dress and go out to dinner and not be looked at like I just climbed out of time machine. The vibrant colors and extraordinary patterns of the ensembles are breathtaking, and that is one trend I will embrace. The bright patterns are creeping back into vogue, but they could come faster. I am, however, excited to tell you that red will be a pretty big color this winter, so I suggest you buy a really vibrant red coat or jacket and wear it proudly with some matching 60’s-inspired red lips. Run on fashion friends, run on!