The Trojan woman

I was always kind of a quirky kid. Unlike most other little girls my age, I had no interest in participating in ballet or gymnastics. Instead of planning tea parties with the neighborhood children, I created fantastical worlds out of leaves and acorns and played in the dirt. When I got a bit older, I skipped right over the fluttery teenage crush phase most girls go through. My friend covered their walls in glittery, sticker-adorned posters of Andrew McCarthy, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp. I couldn't understand the practice of taping a magazine cutout of your teen dream to your bedroom closet door; the idea of waking up to some picture of a celebrity staring at me gave me the creeps. Instead, the focal point of my room was a gigantic bulletin board, on which I tacked vintage postcards, bits of fabric, vintage school jacket pins, a NYC subway map and old ticket stubs.

To be honest, I really didn't care much for the popular movies of my schoolgirl years. I preferred to spend my weekends watching old black and white films from the nineteen forties and fifties.Those actors had style. The spoke with affected accents, smoked through jewel-encrusted cigarette holders, and moved snake-like through Art Deco rooms. The men wore hats, the women fur-trimmed capes and New Look dresses with nipped-in waists. They didn't need computer-generated special affects or lighting technicians to look fantastic.

One of my all-time favorite film actresses of that time is Katharine Hepburn. Why her? Well, her background is fascinating: she was the descendant of King Louis IX and daughter of a suffragette. After an early spell of box-office success she endured a series of flops, leading critics to call her "box office poison." She had extremely progressive social views, giving fuel  to rumors that she was a Communist. In addition she possessed an extremely unconventional attitude as an actress of her time. Unlike other starlets, she was prickly with the press and often refused to grant interviews or be photographed, and denied requests for autographs. As my grandfather said, she had moxie.

In regards to fashion, Hepburn preferred a more androgynous, modern style that was a clear contrast to the cleavage and curves of her co-stars. She remains famous for introducing women to wide-leg, high-waisted pants, which she often paired with sharply tailored blazers, flat loafers or sneakers. Once, when RKO executives took away her slacks (to force her to wear a skirt), she walked around the lot in her underwear until they returned them. Kate’s pants became a symbol of independence for women, liberating them to be more active and have more choices.

I suppose I was channeling a bit of her when I dressed this morning. If she moved from Hollywood to Santa Fe, that is.

Thrifted Blues Heroes leather jacket; J Jill white shirt; Paige wide-leg denim pants; thrifted Fossil belt; Frye Billy cowboy boots; Lucky turquoise blossom studs.

My favorite part of this outfit has to be the boots. I've been searching for a pair of cowboy boots forever, and as luck would have came upon these during a spontaneous trip to a new consignment shop.

Maybe they're not perfectly suited to wear with such wide-leg pants. Other bloggers might showcase them with short skirts, or skinny jeans. But as Hepburn said, if you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.