What Wood Natalie Wear?

"At night, when the sky is full of stars and the sea is still, you get the wonderful sensation that you are floating in space."

-Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood was the classiest act around. Fuck Marni Nixon for slandering her name; fuck all the West Side Story haters who think she and Richard Beymer were too "flat." Her beauty was her talent, and she knew how to make the most of it - namely, but not forcing some nonexistent dynamism upon Maria, the quintessential naïf, or by romancing co-star Dennis Hopper, father to Wood's Judy, in between takes of Rebel Without a Cause. (Joke.) But she knew how to play up her sex appeal outside the studio, too, being the style diva that she was: paper doll book manufacturers have seized upon her penchant for jewel-necked, full-skirted tank dresses and yoked buttondown smocks. Of course, she looked fantastic with virtually nothing on at all (see above)!

The reason I so love Natalie is that she was fundamentally a very dark person. Audrey Hepburn may have been spritely and all, but Natalie's life was filled with so much sorrow, and her beauty was thus imbued with that much more sultriness and maturity.

So I'm starting this blog with a feature that will come back periodically: What Wood Natalie Wear? (Pun intended; duh. I know how to spell.) It will be as simple as a lovely Natalie picture and quote coupled with a few recent runway shots that bring her classic style up to the present.

(Nina Ricci S/S '09)