Discover Houston's history
Mad Men meets Houston's past: Heritage Society adds a '60s touch to 50th annualCandlelight Tour
Margaret Justus, left, and Martha Williams found it easy to dress in '60s style— thanks to the popularity of the TV series, Mad Men.Photo by Deborah Duty
14 historic buildings will be aglow at the 50th annual Candlelight Tour thisweekend.
Margaret Justus, left, and Martha Williams showcase a head-to-toe '60s look.Photo by Clifford Pugh
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Houston Heritage Society's Candlelight Tour, Margaret Justus and Martha Williams decided to dress the part.
The two Heritage Society board members scoured their closets, searched for family heirlooms and roamed the web to come up with a look that would have been the height of style in 1962.
Jackie Kennedy, eat your heart out!
"It's amazing how the '60s era is in style. It's the Mad Men effect," Williams said, noting the popular television series. "The look is so elegant and clean."
During the candlelight tour, which takes place Friday through Sunday at Sam Houston Park in downtown Houston, the duo will greet guests at the 1847 Kellum-Noble House as if the year is 1962.
They will discuss the recent damage of Hurricane Carla, the new NASA facility in Clear Lake and recall that just three months earlier, in a speech at Rice University, President John F. Kennedy declared the United States would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
The two women found it surprisingly easy to come up with their ensembles for the big weekend. Williams ordered the chic blue satin suit from the Talbots web site and purchased the gloves online, too.
"It's amazing how the '60s era is in style. It's the Mad Men effect," she said, noting the popular television series. "The look is so elegant and clean."
Her faux pearl triple strand necklace and earrings — replicas of Jackie Kennedy's favorites — are sold at the Kennedy Center gift shop in Washington, D.C.
The modified pill box hat is a family heirloom that Williams' mother once wore.
Justus found the brown velvet blouse in her closet and accessorized it with a vintage pin from The Guild Shop of St. John the Divine. She is wearing her mother's white kid gloves and a vintage hat owned by Heritage Society board president Evelyn Boatwright.
Her brocade skirt, from New York and Co, was a mini, so she added a four-inch brown velvet band to the hem so it would be an appropriate length.
At each of the other historic buildings on the 10-acre grounds, actors representing such Houston notables as the Allen brothers who founded Houston, Rice University founder William Marsh Rice and Antioch Missionary Baptist Church minister Jack Yates (both as a young man and in his later years), will make history come alive as part of the holiday tour.
"Otherwise, it's a dusty old book in the library," said Heritage Society executive director Alice Collette.
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Mayor Annise Parker will join chair Shawn Stephens to kick off the Heritage Society's 50th annual Candlelight Tour Friday at 7:15 p.m. at Sam Houston Park, 1100 Bagby. Tour hours are 6:30-9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 5-8 p.m. Sunday. For ticket information, go to www.heritagesociety.org.
