costume

The last time we talked about Olivia Wilde she was discussing the merkin (pubic wig) which she has to wear for nude scenes on her HBO show, Vinyl, set in the 1970s. I was surprised at how many of you had strong feelings about that issue, particularly Olivia’s embarrassment at having a hirsute nether region, even temporarily. I don’t think she was saying that hair down there is hideous, just that she prefers more grooming in that area. To each their own. Some people like their hair long, some like it short. Now Olivia is discussing the fashion on Vinyl, specifically the real vintage clothing they wear. She’s representing H&M’s conscious collection, so that’s part of the reason she’s talking about this issue as well. “I’ll walk around with the wardrobe assistant saying, ‘I want that one, I want that one.’ I really have been so inspired by all the wardrobe across the board,” Wilde told PeopleStyle at the H&M Conscious Exclusive 2016 Collection event in N.Y.C., adding that not all looks work on her: “I can’t fit into any of the pants because people in the ’70s apparently just didn’t have hips. I guess that’s all the hormones in our food, but I don’t understand it. You pick up the jeans and they’re straight — there’s no butt and there’s no hips. They’re for a straight body.” The actress added that there’s also a 2016 pants trend she has trouble pulling off: Boyfriend jeans. “I try to wear the trend, but it always looks terrible, because I have really short legs,” she shared. “Almost everything we wear on the show is real vintage. And that’s a lot of effort on the part of our designer and on the part of the team,” she shared. “We have a whole kind of workshop to take real vintage items and fix them — because when you buy vintage you sometimes have to do a little bit of tailoring and cleaning. We should just be buying things that already exist as oppose to trying to mass produce everything new. Plus, it’s fun to buy things that have a story so that you can say this is a vintage Halston, a piece that has been around.” Wilde has also been going to vintage shops since she was 12, so she’s now a pro at repairing old clothes. “Now I know what to look for and know what to do when I see something that’s messed up. You can buy it, take it to a seamstress and it’s not that expensive fix it, clean it,” she shared. “It’s much cooler to have something that has history than to just buy something new.” Her passion for recycling old clothes makes her the perfect person to partner with H&M on its latest Conscious collection, hitting stores Thursday. Wilde starred in the campaign last year, and this year she’s continuing to spread the brand’s message of eco-friendly fashion. “We think that we’re going to sacrifice style in order to be sustainable, and that’s not true as this collection proves,” Wilde said. “That’s what I love about what H&M’s done this year and last year. They are really good at showing that you can wear a piece that doesn’t necessarily scream sustainability, but just happens to be taking advantage of this new innovation that they’re investing in. I think they’re very smart about the whole process and pioneers within this movement, which I didn’t necessarily know before. I think I connected H&M with my idea of what fast fashion meant to the world. I didn’t realize how much work they were putting in to changing that.” [From People] While it’s true that people in the 70s were smaller than they are now, I think that saying that they didn’t have hips is like saying women in the 50s had pointy boobs. Straight legs were just the style. Plus when you’re talking about vintage fashion, the stuff that’s left is whatever people haven’t bought yet so of course it’s the outlier sizes. I haven’t watched this show yet but I have to say that I love the vintage fashion on The Americans especially. It’s set in the early 80s and their coat p0rn is amazing. I recently read a book by a costume designer for television called How to Get Dressed. The author, Alison Freer, says that fit is key to looking polished, not following trends. She emphasizes tailoring, which is exactly what Wilde is saying here about shopping second hand. You can really see the work that goes into the clothing on television and that book gave me a newfound appreciation for thrift shopping. It must be a blast to get to dressed up in period fashion for your job. As long as it’s not a merkin. Embed from Getty Images photos credit: WENN.com, FameFlynet, Getty and Pacific Coast News