A Style Dissection of "Dirty Dancing"

Blogger Elizabeth Sankey writes a blog titled Hi, You Look Nice, which includes a superb article called Style Dissection: Dirty Dancing. The article describes the fashion styles of 1) Baby, 2) Penny, 3) Lisa, and 4) Johnny. Everyone should read the article.

To give you a taste, Sankey's "style dissection" of Lisa begins as follows:

=========

LISA

I've always had a real soft spot for Lisa.  Baby's older sister, she lives in a completely different world.  She's from the rich side of the train tracks and she wants to get married to a Harvard man, live in a beautiful house, have four babies and be drinking gin and tonic by 3 pm on a weekday.  She's so eager to play the game.  Lisa is always wearing florals and pastels, preferably at the same time, and she is a big fan of hair adornments.  Bows, hairbands, bow hairbands, you name it.

She has a sort of young Jackie O thing going with her dark hair and cats eye glasses.  She's a sixties post-teen dream style queen.

This dress, below, is so beautiful. Big rose print worn with pearls.

Look how high her little ponytail is.

My friends and I always found this scene where she sings Hula Hana so odd.  Why is she singing it?  Why did she pick that particular song?  Does she have a connection to Hawaii? Did someone put her up to it?  Why didn't anyone in rehearsals say, "Um Lisa...what about singing something a bit easier?  Or less bizarre?"

Her outfit is great though.  Although I worry she'd be a little chilly.  I hope she brought a cardigan to wear through dinner.