Cultivating a High Fashion Look When You're Not Tall, Thin, Young (or Rich)

Friends, I've been thinking about the Audrey Hepburn post of the other day and trying to identify exactly what it was that set her apart from the rest of us -- in particular, what gave her the high fashion look she was famous for.



(Even her dog looks chic.)

Don't let it be thought that women are the only ones who compare themselves to fashion models and feel they come up lacking.  There are many times when I scrutinize fashion photos and recognize that the clothes have the least to do with why those models look so great.





They're all tall, they're young, they're rail-thin, they have hair, plus they've been styled up the yin-yang.  Put me in that exact same outfit and I would look just like I always do, only in different clothes.  Attractive maybe, but definitely not high-fashion.  I don't have a high-fashion look and I don't think I ever will.  (I know, such first-world problems!)
 
If you read this blog regularly you've probably noticed that my everyday sew-at-home outfit is the same pair of jeans and either a (threadbare) sweater or flea-market Starlight Express sweatshirt (which I've come to understand would be quite the collector's item in Germany).  Underneath I'm usually wearing a t-shirt.   For around the house or running a brief errand, I just don't fuss.   As long as my clothes fit, what I'm wearing is not terribly important to me unless I'm dressing with a purpose.

Maybe I'm just too approachable.

Audrey Hepburn, on the other hand, looked Vogue-ready even when she was just going about her business.  You never see her looking slovenly.  As a celebrity groomed in the days of the Hollywood studio system, she'd been taught how to present herself.



She was also rail thin (and I'm talking a thin rail, not an ordinary rail), she was rich (so could afford great made-to-measure clothes), and while she was no Amazon, she looked tall.  She also was a trained ballet dancer, which helped immeasurably -- she knew how to carry herself.



It isn't her beauty per se that gave her a high-fashion look.  Marilyn Monroe was, in my opinion, more beautiful, but even when dressed elegantly, she never had a high-fashion look: she was simply too voluptuous, too warm (as opposed to remote).  You could say the same thing about other girl-next-door types of the past like Betty Grable, Judy Garland, and Doris Day.







Sometimes I think the use of fashion models to sell clothes is a bit of a cheat -- those clothes will rarely look as good as they do on the models, and most people will never look like the models do in the clothes.



Readers, your thoughts.

1) Are there any requisites for having a high fashion look I've missed?

2) Do you agree that it's not so much the clothes themselves, as it is how those clothes are worn (and by whom)?

3) Do YOU aspire to have a high fashion look?  How do you do it?

Have a glamorous day, everybody!