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A year before “Mad Men’s” Betty Draper and Joan Holloway first sauntered onto television screens in pencil skirts and curve-accentuating dresses, Salmon Creek designer Christa Taylor was building an eponymous clothing line spotlighting those same looks. The underlying philosophy behind the clothes in “Mad Men,” set in the 1960s, and Christa Taylor’s line is that it’s possible to emphasize a woman’s hourglass shape and be sexy while leaving something to the imagination.

Taylor started building her women’s clothing line right after completing high school in 2006. She launched her online clothing store, christa-taylor.com, in January 2007.

Her clothes are inspired by 1950s and ’60s icons such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lucille Ball, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn and Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver.

Taylor, who was home-schooled, started designing because she was frustrated by the lack of fashionable, feminine yet modest clothing options available.

“I want to feel classy, sophisticated and chic without feeling that half my chest is exposed,” the 22-year-old designer said. Sitting against a rack of her label’s dresses and skirts in her family’s home office, Taylor embodies that ideal with what she’s wearing. A black pencil skirt from Nordstrom paired with a polka-dot blouse and pin-striped vest from her own line, accented with faux-snake skin heels from Goodwill, create a flattering silhouette without revealing much skin.

Taylor’s rules for her line dictate no skirts above the knee and no dresses or tops that need to be layered under something more substantial (e.g., no lingerie-inspired camisoles).

“We created a line that is feminine and beautiful without compromising self-respect and dignity,” she said. “We’re catering to young women who do not want to cave to fashion fads that exploit them.”

Taylor used to sell her clothes at the Sameunderneath boutiques on Northwest 23rd and Mississippi avenues in Portland. When those stores changed ownership — and ultimately closed — she returned to a strictly virtual storefront. But now Taylor is poised to set up shop in collaboration with a nonprofit organization called Synergy that’s aimed at promoting Portland-area fashion designers.

Synergy, of which Taylor is director of scholarships, is working with the Portland Business Alliance to set up a temporary store in downtown Portland for the months of November and December. The retail space would feature clothing by local designers, and Taylor hopes to be among them. Being part of this endeavor would be a step toward her goal of having her clothing line carried in boutiques in the greater Portland area again. She hopes to be in two this spring and build from there.

Retail distribution would help boost revenues that right now allow Taylor to pay herself a small stipend in addition to covering the costs of the business. She does freelance photography and graphic design projects to help supplement her income, and keeps expenses down by living at and working out of her parents’ home.

With the present renaissance of ’50s- and ’60s-inspired fashion, the timing may be right for Taylor to break through, said Linda Arthur, professor and curator in the department of apparel, merchandising, design and textiles at Washington State University in Pullman.

In the past three or four years, there’s been increased interest in looks from the 1950s and ’60s, Arthur said.

“There’s a return to femininity, getting away from the hoochie mama look and seeing more of a prim and proper style. I think it’s a backlash to the amount of skin that’s been out there on the runway and the like,” Arthur said.

Dresses and skirts in the ’50s and ’60s usually hit just below the knee. They had nipped waists and, even if they bared the shoulders with a strapless neckline or spaghetti-straps, weren’t low-cut.

The degree to which a woman’s lower body was hugged by her clothing changed over the course of the 1950s. In the early and mid ’50s, skirts were fuller. The sheath first appeared in the late 1950s. Both slim and A-line silhouettes carried into the 1960s and met women of that era’s expectations of tasteful elegance, Arthur said.

“A ladylike look defined those periods. There was never an overtly sexual look like we have now,” she said.

Because low necklines and high hemlines have since become ubiquitous, people are getting bored, Arthur said. The theory of shifting erogenous zones states that people tire of seeing the same body parts exposed, leading fashion industry trendsetters to rotate which features they highlight. Clothes that spotlight cleavage, the butt and the legs have become common, making modesty intriguingly fresh.

“Fashion is usually just about novelty. What was ordinary in the ’60s is novel today,” Arthur said.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 10:47 pm and is filed under Modest Fashion, modesty, modesty movement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.