Question about the late 1960s-mid 1970s

[Lincsong]

I almost forgot about this guy who is a friend of my Dads. He's 88 years old, works out with weights a couple days a week, bronzed sun tan, gold necklacelol , tank top and muscle t-shirts. He still dresses like he did in the 1970's. I remember him when I was a kid, saw him recently and he still looks the same.

 

[Sleepy LaGoon]

The '30s and '40s as Filtered Through the '70s

Regarding hair and clothes from this era - do you ever wonder whether some of this was not by choice? I mean, how do you stay looking '40s and '50s in the '70s if all they're selling in department stores and barber shops are '70s clothes and haircuts?

Well, no one can say they didn't try.

While perusing through some old Life magazines, an issue from 1971 caught my eye. The issue title is "Everybody's Just Wild About... Nostalgia," and covers the "sentimental craze for the past" by example of Ruby Keeler's return to Broadway in "No, No, Nanette" supervised by Busby Berkeley, the Art Deco rage, etc.

But the fashion section made me expel my Twinings through my nose:

 

[bamabino]

In the 1970s, Wernher von Braun grew a beard.

 

[Widebrim]

In the 1970s, Wernher von Braun grew a beard.

But he still had narrow lapels and necktie...We have to keep in mind that, especially for men, the older styles were produced for some years after the advent of kipper ties and miniskirts. I've found narrow lapel jackets with dates as late as 1969 stamped inside a pocket.

My mother (born 1920) pretty much kept up with fashion (albeit not hippie fashion), and wore flares and shorter skirts. Her hair-length never got very long, though. She also become somewhat enamored with polyester.

My father (born 1918) continued wearing early 60s attire until about 1970, then took the plunge and began sporting wide lapels and ties (I don't recall him ever wearing bell bottoms, though). Although his hair got a bit longer on the sides, he continued to wear his 40s-style moustache for a while, and never grew sideburns. Yet he kept some of his narrow lapel jackets and slim ties, and would wear them from time to time as the mood hit him. (Now he basically puts on whatever is available, but insists on wearing his dress fedora almost daily...)

 

[Chasseur]

To echo some of the others it depended upon where you lived and what they sold in the stores where you lived. If all the stores started carrying 1970s stuff and you did not buy tailor made garments what choice did you have?

I say this because my dad has never been a clothes horse or interested in clothes or fashion at all. Never. But what always struck me was seeing photos of him in the early 1970s he had some very '70s clothes on. This always made me laugh (they were pretty loud clothes even by '70s standards) and think maybe he did get into fashion back then. When I asked him about it he always said, "Well that's all the stores carried, I didn't want to wear those stupid bell bottoms and shirts with big collars."

Later on in the 1970s when my parents went through some hard times my mom made most of their clothes and they still looked very 1970s. I asked my mom about this since in the 1950s and 60s she was quite fashionable in a Hawaii version of Jackie Kennedy way. I thought she'd never be caught dead in some of the 1970s fashions. She explained that the patterns she bought in the 1970s were all that way. She couldn't get "older or more conservative styles" and the fabric stores tended to carry the loud patterns in the prices she could afford.

Again, just what my folks always told me.

 

[Viola]

I think "middle class" might very well be an operative phrase in this whole issue -- I've always had the sense that trendiness is primarily a middle-class pursuit: working class people, such as those that made up most of the population where I grew up, tended to be much less preoccupied with keeping up with the Joneses, since the Joneses were usually in the same boat they were. The pressure to keep current was far less in such a social context.

On the other end of the scale, the upper classes, the folks who don't have anything left to prove, are also somewhat insulated from the need to follow trends -- hence the enduring popularity of "classic WASP style" which has changed little over the past fifty or sixty years.

I think that might be regional, too, Lizzie: that Yankee frugality... or a more rural mindset... here people who spend their whole lives scratchin' can be running up astonishing costs on VITAL ISSUES OF SURVIVAL... like hair products.

Things hipsters can revel in as "authentic" or "industrial" or "post-modern"... can't be done in that social climate because you're poor enough it might look like you have to have those things. You need the NICE things.

And, honestly, my grandparents saw the same thing so it's not just kids today. Its the same mindset that assures every blue collar working man here has his gold chain on as soon as he's off work or sometimes on if he won't actually strangle himself. You don't want people to think you're POOR, do you?

People are funny.

 

[ron521]

Somehow, this thread reminded me of Don Knotts character on "Threes Company" (although that was a little later in the 70's), basically an older guy trying to be hip, and failing.