Inspiration Monday – Christina Hendricks

It is the 1960′s; the music is great and the drinks are cheap. But for a sexy, sassy, independent female business woman like Joan Holloway, the everyday world is a battle.

It’s not so easy to be a successful career focused woman when you are the manager of an ad-agency full of misogynistic sexist pigs trying to find new ways to make a cigarette and their failing marriages sexy. But Joan comes out strutting, doing her signature walk. And Vancouver, Joan Holloway has got “Mad” style.

Now, welcome back to the 21^st century. Gas prices are at an all time high, everyone knows that they are one cute cat YouTube video away from being on the Ellen DeGeneres show and Joan Holloway is just a character, played by Christina Hendricks, on a little show named “Mad Men”. But what seemed to Hendricks’ manager as a disastrous career move actually turned out to be a way for a little girl from Tennessee, to inspire millions of “Mad Men” viewers to come.

Christina Hendricks’s character is invincible. She is a loving and providing wife who supports her family and friends while taking a no-prisoners kind of attitude towards her professional career. She will call the board executives out on their callous come-ons. She can do it all and she looks great doing it.

It seems too, when the wrong kind of attention follows this buxom bombshell from the set to her real life, Christina Hendricks handles her own like a pro. Coming with the 50′s, 60′s influence white collar theme, Hendricks was placed in every scene to be in a flawlessly tailored, body hugging, high-waisted skirt and cashmere top ensemble, or a striking dress that the whole production of “Mad Men” would have to notice. Eventually, viewers of Mad Men started to pay more attention to this natural blonde’s body rather than her acting merits. But never to back down, Hendrick’s found a way to be Esquire’s “Most Beautiful Woman” as well as fantastic empowering role-model for any woman of any size.

Inspired by more vintage silhouettes, the references “Mad Men” calls on for inspiration are more curvaceous screen sirens like Veronica Lake and Marilyn Monroe. The colours are more conservative and classic, usually substituting an eye-catching pattern for a more timeless solid.

To modernize this, Vancouver Fashion Week would recommend a trend like colour blocking. Fierce fashionistas can pair two vivacious solid colours like a honeysuckle orange skirt, where the hemline hits strictly at the knee or a bit above it, with possibly a silky hot pink blouse! Still maintaining the hourglass silhouette, pair the look with some statement jewelry pieces. The trick is to allow less to be more. Same goes for the shoes. Polished is good, but Joan Holloway always gets noticed for looking strikingly beautiful, not having strikingly beautiful heel-less Gaga shoes.

Also, for the ladies who like their lunches with a burger and a beer from time and again, Vancouver Fashion Week thought of you too. One-word. SPANX! Or any type of restricting undergarments is a Sunday-Best saver. Every celebrity wears them! So forget the Spanx-shame  or just remember to do a practice sit in your hourglass skirt to make sure the secret us kept between: me, myself and I.

There’s no denying it. Christina Hendrick’s is a gorgeous girl. This actress will only get cast in lead roles. Christina Hendrick’s is charming, powerful, irresistible and like she said in an interview on the Bonnie Hunt Show: “True confidence only comes from knowing you are beautiful.”

So take some style tips from this stunner. Take it to yoga, take it to work and take it home. Maybe next time when you are going to a fancy dinner date or to the office, ask yourself, what would Christina Hendrick’s wear? And she would whisper: “There’s nothing wrong with being a Mad woman is it’s a Mad world out there.”

With love and style, Leroy Wan