1960's Elegance

So a new commission has led me on an immersion tour of the glamor and grace of 1960's style. I am now thoroughly depressed that I missed this decade and that today I had no reason to wear fake eyelashes.

Before I started drawing, I decided to check in with the experts - my mother and her friends to tell me what it was really to be young and fashionable in the 1960s. Seventy five emails later, I was armed with so much new information about the '60s look that my head was spinning.

I had never really focused on how amazingly turned-out the glamor girls like Twiggy, Audrey Hepburn and Julie Christie were back then. I was so excited to have rediscovered these beautiful muses and to have found a new one I'd never heard of before - Jean Shrimpton.

Jean Shrimpton is by far my new favorite 1960's icon. Her face is almost too beautiful, her bone structure is almost so flawlessly symmetrical that I can barely look directly at her. But I found myself pouring over montages of black and white photographs taken of her painted with heavy black lashes and bigger hair than I thought humanly possible wishing there were more.

So I decided to do this quick portrait of my new historical model crush, if you'd like to buy a print, please click here!


I wanted to keep it soft because its such a reflective pose shes striking and because I worked from a black and white photograph. I loved discovering the feminine reserve found in Shrimpton that made the early part of the '60s such a beautiful time to be a woman.

But of course, as one of my mom's friend's emails pointed out "the 1960's were a decade in which hem lines went from below the knee to below the bottom!" So, while I'm here, I thought you all might enjoy a glimpse into how one woman transformed with the trends as she came of age in this radical decade. First, behold my mother at 17 as a dead ringer for Mary Tyler Moore...














And now please notice how indeed this decade was a revolution of hem lines for women everywhere, even my mom (now a college student, living life in the fast lane of Southern California)....