It’s fun to play around with different styles, and to get the right 50’s housewife look it’s a good idea to have some sourcebooks lying around. Fashion recycles all the time, and I often find that turning to the real deal gives a more unique style, even though it’s still within the limits. The best thing would be to have stacks of vintage Vouge, but for all of us living in small apartments, a few good books will do the trick.

Decades of Beauty (Mulvey & Richards)
This is one of the most complete books I’ve ever come across. It explains the fashion from the 1890’s to the 1990’s, including celebrities, politics, cosmetics, designers and so on. It has lots of pictures, and is a real inspiration to flip through.

The 1970’s (Peacock)
Sometimes it’s needed to go more in debth, and then Peacock’s sourcebooks on different decades can be a good idea. These books contain drawings of different outfits for every year of each decade, including close ups on shoes, hats and other accessories. The downside about these books are that the drawings are in only one color. Luckily every picture has an explaination of fabric, colour and so on. But even though these are complete books, they are a bit hard to use.

Fruits (Phaidon)
If you are looking for even crazier looks, this book gives tons of photos of the japanese street fashion. Even though most of it is too wild for most people, there are many smart details you can steel and still look chic.

Wearing Vintage (Bardey) and Secondhand Chic (Weil)
These two books are nice for all you secondhand shoppers. They tell you how to shop smart, what to look for, how to get a good price and so on. The books are maybe more suited for beginners, cause most of these things you learn your self after a little expirience. But it still has some good tricks that I have used, like ways of checking if the garment is of good quality or not.

For the right look to go with the outfit, check out books like 1940s Hairstyles (Turudich) and Vintage Face (Turudich). Even though a good rule is to not look like you came directly out of a certain decade (so be a bit modest), it’s fun to once in a while let go of all those fashion rules and just play around.