The last time we talked about Olivia Wilde she was discussing the merkin (pubic wig) which she has to wear for nude scenes on her HBO show, Vinyl, set in the 1970s. I was surprised at how many of you had strong feelings about that issue, particularly Olivia’s embarrassment at having a hirsute nether region, even temporarily. I don’t think she was saying that hair down there is hideous, just that she prefers more grooming in that area. To each their own. Some people like their hair long, some like it short.
Now Olivia is discussing the fashion on Vinyl, specifically the real vintage clothing they wear. She’s representing H&M’s conscious collection, so that’s part of the reason she’s talking about this issue as well.
“I’ll walk around with the wardrobe assistant saying, ‘I want that one, I want that one.’ I really have been so inspired by all the wardrobe across the board,” Wilde told PeopleStyle at the H&M Conscious Exclusive 2016 Collection event in N.Y.C., adding that not all looks work on her: “I can’t fit into any of the pants because people in the ’70s apparently just didn’t have hips. I guess that’s all the hormones in our food, but I don’t understand it. You pick up the jeans and they’re straight — there’s no butt and there’s no hips. They’re for a straight body.”
The actress added that there’s also a 2016 pants trend she has trouble pulling off: Boyfriend jeans.
“I try to wear the trend, but it always looks terrible, because I have really short legs,” she shared.
“Almost everything we wear on the show is real vintage. And that’s a lot of effort on the part of our designer and on the part of the team,” she shared. “We have a whole kind of workshop to take real vintage items and fix them — because when you buy vintage you sometimes have to do a little bit of tailoring and cleaning. We should just be buying things that already exist as oppose to trying to mass produce everything new. Plus, it’s fun to buy things that have a story so that you can say this is a vintage Halston, a piece that has been around.”
Wilde has also been going to vintage shops since she was 12, so she’s now a pro at repairing old clothes.
“Now I know what to look for and know what to do when I see something that’s messed up. You can buy it, take it to a seamstress and it’s not that expensive fix it, clean it,” she shared. “It’s much cooler to have something that has history than to just buy something new.”
Her passion for recycling old clothes makes her the perfect person to partner with H&M on its latest Conscious collection, hitting stores Thursday. Wilde starred in the campaign last year, and this year she’s continuing to spread the brand’s message of eco-friendly fashion.
“We think that we’re going to sacrifice style in order to be sustainable, and that’s not true as this collection proves,” Wilde said. “That’s what I love about what H&M’s done this year and last year. They are really good at showing that you can wear a piece that doesn’t necessarily scream sustainability, but just happens to be taking advantage of this new innovation that they’re investing in. I think they’re very smart about the whole process and pioneers within this movement, which I didn’t necessarily know before. I think I connected H&M with my idea of what fast fashion meant to the world. I didn’t realize how much work they were putting in to changing that.”
While it’s true that people in the 70s were smaller than they are now, I think that saying that they didn’t have hips is like saying women in the 50s had pointy boobs. Straight legs were just the style. Plus when you’re talking about vintage fashion, the stuff that’s left is whatever people haven’t bought yet so of course it’s the outlier sizes. I haven’t watched this show yet but I have to say that I love the vintage fashion on The Americans especially. It’s set in the early 80s and their coat p0rn is amazing.
I recently read a book by a costume designer for television called How to Get Dressed. The author, Alison Freer, says that fit is key to looking polished, not following trends. She emphasizes tailoring, which is exactly what Wilde is saying here about shopping second hand. You can really see the work that goes into the clothing on television and that book gave me a newfound appreciation for thrift shopping. It must be a blast to get to dressed up in period fashion for your job. As long as it’s not a merkin.
photos credit: WENN.com, FameFlynet, Getty and Pacific Coast News
1. this show is awesome. I tuned in specifically for the costume design but stuck around for the drama and overall show. very good.
2. SOME of us don’t have hips, and we aren’t from the past, so just b/c you have hips, girl, doesn’t mean all of us do here in the present…
3. I still don’t like Wilde, there’s something about her. I watch the show and she’s fine in it, but I’m not sad that when her character isn’t on screen.
Really? The show is good? I tuned-in to watch the first 2-hour episode. It left me vastly underwhelmed. I never watched another episode.
I agree. Watched the first episode last night and was extremely underwhelmed. I kept waiting for it to get better but it was just one cliché after another, imo. I did love the music and clothes, but I don’t think I’ll tune back in.
Skip the first episode. Or watch it just to establish characters and plotlines. Really, it was like Scorcese vomited all his tropes onto film and he ruined it. (Yes, I said it.) Subsequent episodes with different directors are vastly superior to that first episode.
Agree can’t get into it even though I’ve tried. Watched most of the season. Like punk music, always have and they managed to make it boring.
Vinyl is starting to find it’s groove, I think the last few episodes very really good.
As for Olivia, it seems I’m the minority here, but I think she is a lovely person. Just check her twitter and instagram for clues.
I love everything about the 70s so I think I’ll check it out. I feel the exact same way about Wilde as you do BTW.
I have to say though that even though she grates on me, she’s a really beautiful woman. She looks pretty great in that ridiculous hat.
I love this show! I can’t make up my mind whether it’s the worst or the best thing I’ve ever seen but it’s so full-on and bonkers and manic, it’s irresistible. I see why people hate it but if you just take it as a colourful nutty thing camping up the 70s, it’s fabulously fun. Bobby Whatsit is brilliantly unhinged.
Olivia Wilde is a very annoying woman outside of it, however.
What a silly remark. The hormones in our food? Look at women through the centuries. They had hips. I was there in 70s. So were hips.
They didn’t call ’em “hip huggers” for nothing!
I know…it’s a Cameron Diaz-like comment based on absolutely zero knowledge. I was there in the 70s as well, there were hips.
Agreed, silly comment indeed. If anything, the physical ideal in the 70s was more forgiving of women with more rounded hips.
Actually the physical ideal had no hips long legs and big boobs. Aka Farrah, Cheryl Tiegs etc. Booties didn’t really come around until Jlo. I am not a fan of the Lopez but I do appreciate the booty love. I have a big butt and it was always an embarrassment to me until the last few years.
I feel like I got to enjoy it before it fell around my knees!
@SJO: Booties (especially big ones) have always been appreciated, celebrated and in style in the Black community long before Jlo came around. JLo only made white mainstream culture start to take interest in having a butt.
@SJO check out some Ruebens nudes. Booties and hips have been around forever.
Look at the models of the 70’s. Cheryl Tiegs, Jerry Hall, Lauren Hutton, Beverly Johnson. They’re all long legged with boy hips. That’s what most jeans were styled for. I was skinny but still curvy. I wore a size 3, but the waist was huge on me. If I hadn’t had a butt I’d been fine with a size 1.
I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry. I MIGHT be able to get one leg in a size 3 now. LOL
People confuse the outer thighs for hips, and is really not the same. I think the outer thighs are bigger now than before for sure
Agree — the main difference I remember is that women didn’t work out as much and so had less thigh muscle, whatever their weight.
I remember the 70’s, and I couldn’t wear those jeans to save my life. Jordash was my enemy.
– used to be Crumpet –
Olivia isn’t really a curvy/ hippy woman, so what is she complaining about. I think she’s just talking to be talking.
She does have hips. Although she looks like the lanky type, actually only her upper body is that way. She has comperatively short thickish legs and protruding (lower) hips with a quite slender upper body. I think that style is really doing her no favours and she is aware of it.
Yep. I’m the same. Slender, long torso, short, thick legs. This style’s a nightmare unfolded and ironed. I think Olivia maybe isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box, but I’m glad she acknowledges her body type, and how some clothes look on it. Something to relate to in a world of leggy people.
To me it looks like she has narrow hips and that her thighs stick out a bit, but still not curvy.
Yeah she curvier in the hip area. She has a body a bit like mine, hips smaller but the upper thigh/but area pops out. Not saddlebags but a subtle pop out.
She’s a classic triangle. Because she’s skinny people don’t see it. Hrr hips are definitely wider than her shoulders.
Triangles always have bigger thighs. Any weight goes there first before any other part of the body.
I guess 30 years from now some actress will be telling the world that all the women in this decade had big butts.
This show is awesome and has overall a great cast. Not a huge fan of Wilde but she does a decent job. If you get a chance you should check it out, it’s a really good show.
Vinyl is great. Bobby is the hotness.
I feel like we are just parsing words and trying to nitpick. She was just making a joke about not being able to fit into clothes from the 70s. She also says she can’t fit into boyfriend jeans.
Stop trying to find a reason to be an angry mob.
Yes, this!
Yeah I am with you on that. She made a comment about fashion, folks, she did not bully your specific body.
Although, I find current jeans trends to be less hip-friendly than the 70s. Skinny jeans were designed for women who have straighter figures, and boyfriend jeans look like misshapen bootcut jeans on those of us with rounder hips.
I buy all my jeans custom-made from a local seamstress. I haven’t bought jeans in a store since I was in high school.
An angry mob? Because … Oh never mind. We all exaggerate from time to time, myself included.
Those kind of jeans look great on me. The high waist holds in my tummy, makes my legs look longer and the wide pant legs at the bottom balances out my hips. I can’t wait till skinny jeans are out of style.
I was a teen in the 70’s. We loved our hip huggers. I have been watching Vinyl for the music. What a historic time in music history, coming off the 60’s into the 70’s. I think Olivia is just imagining what it was like. I don’t think she meant any harm.
Dear Olivia, please stop making generalized statements about people. People in the 70s were not all the same. All women are all not the same. Thank you.
It’s not that women didn’t have hips back then, it’s that pants didn’t have as much stretch and sizing was different. If you ever try on vintage jeans you notice this. Olivia is probably a size 2-4 or 25-26 in current jeans, but when she goes to try on those sizes in vintage jeans (probably 100% cotton with no stretch) they are way too small.
Vinyl is an interesting show. I think it started slow, but in the last few episodes it really started to come together at least for me.
As for Olivia, she just made a joke. I don’t get why people find her annoying. She never takes herself seriously most of the time. She is a lovely goofball inside of a really looking woman’s body in my opinion.