Sonoma County style

Petaluma (by Crissi Langwell)

Marissa Patrick, owner of Chick-A BOOM! Vintage in Petaluma. (BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat)

It’s a step back in time for Marissa Patrick, 32, the owner of Chick-A Boom Vintage Clothing in Petaluma. The bold fashionista wears many of the same retro styles she buys and sells in her store. On this particular day, she’s sporting an outfit straight out of the 1940s, from her felt pencil skirt and robin’s-egg blue cashmere cardigan to the hat adorned with a sparrow and feathers on her coifed hair. Her 1940s lace-up high heel pumps finish off her classy and edgy style.

“I don’t like to label myself, but I guess a lot of people would describe what I wear as rockabilly,” Patrick said, noting a style that was popular in the 1950s when the fusion of rock n’ roll and hillbilly music created the rockabilly movement. For women, rockabilly is also referred to as pin-up girl fashion, the same style the iconic Bettie Page was famous for wearing.

Patrick has her grandmother, a seamstress at I. Magnin department store in the 1940s, to thank for her original sense of style. Inspired by her vast collection of vintage clothing, Patrick became an avid collector of clothes that span the 1930s to 1950s while she was in college.

Of all the classic clothes Patrick owns, one particular piece stands out above the rest. It’s a pink ballgown embellished with ostrich feathers, from the 1920s, her favorite outfit.

“It’s very Jean Harlow,” Patrick said with a laugh. Admittedly, she has only been able to wear this outfit twice.
“It’s very fragile,” she said. “And it’s not exactly something you can wear every day.”

Santa Rosa (by Meg McConahey)

Johnna Gattinella, co-owner of Revolution Moto, in Santa Rosa. (BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat)

Like her fashion idol Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday,” Johnna Gattinella also manages to look cool yet hot while taking customers on test drives out of the downtown Santa Rosa scooter shop, Revolution Moto, she owns with husband Joe.

Work gear for this Celtic 30-something is a pair of snug Citizen’s of Humanity jeans, a charcoal gray jersey shirt, a leather belt with crystal “bullets,” a gray-green designer leather jacket seasoned to a perfect patina over 10 years. And always boots.

“You’re just tempting fate,” she says, “with five-inch heels on a Vespa.”

Or she might go for a 1960s mod look, with a black mini and white go-gos. She has a distinctive “thrift-store chic” style that can turn heads. At 5 feet, 6 inches tall with a size-4 frame, the Cazadero native favors vintage 1940s dresses with a fitted silhouette for dress-up.

“I put on what makes me happy in the morning and if it’s a funny hat and pink socks, I roll with it,” says Gattinella, who never wears the same combo twice.

Among her wardrobe staples are “crazy pants,” wild, wide-legged slacks ranging from orange paisley to hand-beaded.
She got her fashion sense from her dad, a buyer for the old Rosenberg’s department store, who also schooled her in proper fit. But her style is her own. For her 36th birthday last year she threw a flash-mob wedding party at the Snoopy Ice Arena with all her friends — even the guys — turning out in vintage bridal gowns.

No matter what life dishes out, every day for Gattinella is one big dress-up. Even when she found herself in the hospital last year, she “went into emergency fashion mode.”

“If I was going to be laid up in a hospital bed, I was going to look good – the Frette bathrobe, the Oscar de la Renta pajamas, the silver ballerina slippers. You don’t have a lot of control over what happens to you in life,” she explained, “but you can control how you look when it’s happening.”