Rookie

“If I fail, at least I will have failed my way.” —Jodie Foster

If the young Jodie Foster is thought of as a fashion icon, it’s usually for her role as Iris, the 12-year old runaway and prostitute in the 1976 film Taxi Driver. While Iris’s wardrobe of floppy hats, bright hot pants and cropped peasant tops was a great look, and undeniably influential to fashion designers, it feels kind of…not-quite-right to me to glorify the wardrobe of such a troubled character. Plus, Jodie played SO MANY characters (seriously, she was like the hardest-working kid in show business), many of them with style at least as amazing as Iris’s. So, although I love Iris and will think of her fondly every time I pull on a pair of hot pants, this is my tribute to the many other moods of Jodie.

As a guest star on TV shows like The Partridge Family and My Three Sons, Jodie was the adorable, messy-haired moppet to end all adorable, messy-haired moppets:

Her plaid game was tight:

With her Elton John shades, slogan tees, and Gucci horsebit loafers, she couldn’t be any more ’70s if she were voting for Carter on a pair of roller skates:

By the 1980s, in Foxes and Carny (“Where love is just another sucker’s game”), she had blossomed into full-on sultry babe-itude:

And she did the nonchalant, Annie Hall-ish menswear look incredibly well:

Channel Jodie’s ’70s look with beat-up old jeans, your favorite loafers, not a lick of makeup, and the messy hair left over from your own moppet days:

Left: via Tomboy Style. Right: tweed cap, $130, A Suitable Wardrobe; Levi's pocket tee, 48, Mr. Porter; vintage iron-on patch, $20, Iron-on Station; jeans, vintage Levi's, similar at Etsy; iron-on patches, $6 each, Swimport; Fjallraven backpack, $65, Modcloth; 50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays, $11, Amazon; The Ivy Look, $13, Amazon; knee socks, $4, Forever 21; Mantaray wrap watch, $25, Debenhems; Coppertone sunscreen, $2, Walgreens; Bass Wayfarer loafers, $88, Endless.