i agree, even though i knew that anita was supposed to be in her twenties, she always seemed late thirties if not early forties to me just because of the vocabulary and her clothing...
it bugged me so much that i had to just block out the words (as you mentioned) "nifty" and all as i read so that i could continue picturing her as a twenty-something. and whenever the clothing was described, i always skimmed. 1 because it was overdone to begin with and 2 because it ruined my image of anita (and any of the boys for that matter-except sometimes jean-claude's appearance). the clothing sounds like something from the late eighties/early nineties and the later books (which arent from that time) just seem stuck there.