70s Fashion

70’s Fashion – Bracelets, Hairstyle and Clothes

The fashion of the 70’s saw the full development of ethnic trends which started during the late 60’s. The fact that people could now travel much easier than before meant that there could be an exchange of fashion ideas and ideals like never before, and everything that came was heavily influenced by the self styled mish-mash of hippy fashion. People were finally prepared for a new style, maybe a little more extravagant than ever before and it surely gained popularity sooner than people expected.

The 70’s saw the introduction of such exotic clothes like kaftans, kimonos and muumuus, as well as other styles of clothing especially from India. These new designs were then worked in every fabric imaginable and became famous as glamour dressing when they were sown in exotic fabrics and then edged in silver, gold or other metallic embroidered trims.

These trends were so powerful that they actually revived craft skill from faraway places like the macramé bags from the Greek Isles or the crochet waistcoats and shawls from Spain. The poncho also had a short lived stint in the fashion limelight and gypsy tops with drawn up necklines were being made in cheesecloth or light cottons.

During the late 70’s Tibetan and Chinese quilted jackets started to become mixed and matched with softly pleated skirts and sometimes they had stylized patchwork print effects on them.

Another fashion trend that started in the 70’s is the friendship bracelet. They were initially hand braided bracelets made by teenagers with colored yarns, but then street sellers started weaving the bracelets to order while the customers waited. Back then the bracelets were only fine strips of yarn never being wider than six millimeters, but by the year 2001 they would become as wide as two centimeters.

The trouser suit became one of the most distinguishable characteristic of 70’s fashion. At first the pants were only gently flared and reached their maximum bell bottom proportion sometime during the half of the decade; after that they started to become narrower until towards the end of the decade they were back to their normal dimensions. The popular fabrics during this time were heavy crepes and wool jersey knits and the colors of choice in the early 70’s were emerald, apple and bottle green.

When it came to women’s hairstyle, Farah Fawcett helped with the popularization of a rough cut hairstyle which implied the constant use of tongs or heated rollers needed to make the hair flicks. Many women back then used to keep spare electric curling tongs or heated roller at their place of work in order to maintain the Farah style flickups.

Looking back at the 70’s, it is interesting to see how much the fashion world evolved in just ten years. All of the areas where modified, from bracelets to hairstyles and at the beginning of the 80’s, people were already prepared for other fashion tendencies. However, there are many persons out there who still like that 70’s look and you could say that some of this era has never left us.