Fashion Influences In The 70’s
You can’t talk about fashion without taking a look at what happened
in the 70’s. This was an important period a nd many people still look
back at it with a sense of melancholy. When people think about or start
talking about the 70’s, the first thing the springs to mind is disco,
and it’s indeed true because that was definitely the decade of disco.
The beginning of the decade was influenced fashion-wise by the late 60’s
and then started to evolve and mutate on its own spurred on by the
psychedelic nature of the decade. It was a decade of wildly varied
styles and it was probably the first time when people really got into
customizing their own apparel thanks to the bleaching and tie dyeing
methods they learned during the hippie movement. Not to say that the
hippie fashion disappeared once 1969 was over, nothing could be further
from the truth, people were still wearing the hippie staple of torn
jeans and t-shirts, but change was definitely in the air. The ethnic
influences that started toward the end of the 60’s exploded during the
70’s being most prevalent in the large pieces of jewelry that were
popular during that time. When it comes to men’s fashion, probably the
most well known and most referred to example of 70’s fashion has to be
John Travolta in the film “Saturday Night Fever” where people would wear
the noisiest colors they could find and wear flared pants and bell
bottoms. Nike, one of the biggest sports brands of today started
focusing on running shoes and sportswear in 1972. Even though running
wasn’t yet popular, it steadily started to become more and more popular
and as time moved on fashion started to adopt the training and running
shoes. One mustn’t forget that even if disco was the ruling genre,
this was also the decade when glam rock hit its peak with such well
known glam rockers like David Bowie and Alice Cooper making some very
powerful and weird fashion statements, especially in regards to make-up.
Where women were concerned, the 70’s definitely was the decade when they
truly started making themselves a part of the fashion, wearing all sorts
of styles one day a completely different one the next, experimenting and
mixing them as they saw fit. The success of Farah Fawcett in “Charlie’s
Angels” gave birth to the flicked end hairstyle while afro perms were
the hairstyle of choice of most African-American celebrities. Another
part of the fashion of the 70’s was the growing popularity of the sun
tan, a trend which lead women to start using fake tan sprays and started
visiting tanning parlors. One thing is certain. The 70’s was a period
when every person was interested about fashion. You didn’t have to be
rich if you wanted to get into the movement because these types of
clothes were affordable and most people liked the overall style. In
fact, the fashion world of the 70’s was so strong and vivid that it is
still remembered today, even by those who weren’t born at that moment.
In the end, the 70’s era was represented by a freedom in style and
many different types of clothing were accepted by everyone. |
