1970s Style Clothing

70s Style Clothing

MAY 8, 2012

1970s style clothing: a study in contrasts

Platform shoes, bell-bottom jeans and pants, Angel Flight suits, tube tops, disco, and glam rock made 1970s clothing styles very memorable. Trends influenced by the androgynous hippie look and miniskirts of the 1960s were a constant presence throughout the decade. The hippie look, with its frayed jeans, tie-dye clothes, and peasant blouses, was particularly popular in the early 70s. Clothing styles influenced by glam rock were in vogue in the first half of the decade, whereas disco defined late 70s fashion for both sexes.

The length of skirts and dresses has changed from mini to midi and maxi. Ankle-length maxi skirts were often paired with platform shoes. Although platform shoes were not an intrinsically new concept, they were popular like never before during 70s. Women and girls wore dressy and casual shoes, sandals, boots, and espadrilles with two to four inch platforms. When the disco style clothing became mainstream in mid- to late 70s, men wore platform shoes with Angel Flight suits and other disco style clothes. Famous glam rock musicians of the day, David Bowie, T. Rex, Gary Glitter, and Marc Bolan further popularized platform shoes. Vivienne Westwood re-introduced platform shoes to high fashion in the 1990s. The designer used five-inch platform shoes as statement accessories in her collections.

Shiny fabrics and lots of glitter, defining many of the early to mid- 1970s clothing styles, can be attributed to the influence of glam rock. Rhine-stone decorated satin pants and denim were paired with sequined, lurex, or metallic colored tight-fitting tops. Lame suits for men and dresses for women, silver or satin jackets, and fitted blazers dominated the mainstream clothing.

In addition to platform shoes, the early 70s clothing styles included hot pants, very short and tight shorts. Although their popularity was brief, hot pants are still available online nowadays, featured among corky vintage clothes.

The first half of the decade is also notable for Diane von Furstenberg’s jersey knit wrap dress. The front-closure dress was an instant hit and had a tremendous influence on the dress styles of the 70s and 90s. Apart from the wrap dress, the 1970s style clothing styles offered Empire dresses, maxi dresses, and loose-fitting, high-necked dresses referred to as ‘granny dresses’. Stylish maxi dresses and caftans designed by Thea Porter had a distinct bohemian vibe.

Dresses and blouses often featured wide sleeves without gathered cuffs, or ‘angel sleeves’. Angel sleeves were originally introduced in the 1960s and are still used in the mainstream clothing nowadays. Disco music inspired design of halter and one-shoulder dresses devoid of zippers, buttons, and movement-constraining elements. Pioneered by Halston, such draped dresses were perfect for disco.

Glamorous party dresses, embellished with ornate beading and fashion-forward cut outs were a trend of their own in the elite circles. Loris Azzaro introduced and developed this style of colorful daring clothes. Their popularity has not declined since the 70s. Original Azzaro’s pieces are coveted vintage items.

Male fashion experienced a brief popularity of three-piece suits. The suits included a vest, fitted jacket, and flared pants. The extreme disco version of the suit was called Angel Flight suit. In order to realize its potential, Angel Flight suit had to be paired with a shiny, preferably satin, shirt with a big collar.

Emanuel Ungaro introduced a more structured, tailored, and timeless take on suits in his 1973 line for men, Ungaro Uomo. The line, high fashion in quality and novelty, was very wearable.

Apart from the disco trend, clothing styles of the second half of the 70s were influenced by the peasant motives presented by Yves Saint Laurent in his 1976 collection. Embroidery, floral patterns, tiered skirts, and peasant blouses were in vogue.

Frayed, flared, hipster, or straight jeans were worn with custom t-shirts or tucked-in shirts and platform shoes. Lee, Levi’s, Wrangler, Jordache, Gloria Vanderbilt were very popular brands.

Thus, 1970s clothing styles experimented with numerous novel and edgy elements. While not all of them experienced the longevity of a wrap dress, they certainly succeeded in making 70s a unique and memorable decade.

Azzaro, Ungaro, Yves Saint Laurent, Diane von Furstenberg, Lee, Levi’s, Wrangler, Jordache brands are available through their websites.

The fashion of the 1970's was a time when fashion was evolving in many ways. Women at that time had more freedom of wearing what they wanted when they wanted to. Fashion was also spreading around the world and was also culturally spreading and bringing new fashion styles to the U.S. as the years went by. Here are some of the major fashion fabrics and garments famously used in the 70's.

Micro Mini, or Maxi: Skirt lengths of the 1970's

The 70's was a time when women chose who they wanted to be and if they felt like putting a short mini skirt one day and then the next day a maxi dress, midi skirt or some hot pants the day after- that is actually what every women did in that era.

For nightwear women usually wore full length maxi dresses, night trousers or glamourous halter neck catsuits. Some dresses had Motown style, others less.

For night in the beginning of the early 1970's it was either straight or flared Empire line dresses with a beautiful shiny sequinced fabric bodice and extravagant sleeves were the style for a night out of party and fun.

One mostly worn style was the Granny dress with high neck. At times the stand neck was pie-crust filled, or lace trimmed. Often they were created from a floral print design in a warm brushed fabric or viscose rayon crepe which draped and put together well into empire line styles.

Another largely successful evening style of the 70's was the halter neck dress, it could be either maxi or above the knee.

At a Disco dance party, girls might wear hot pants. Instead of women usually wearing a mini dress, a women would suddenly confuse men by covering her legs completely, it was rather a liberation of women to want to start wearing pants just like men did.

Convenient Travel Made The Fashion Mind Grow

The growth and influence of the self styled hippy clothes and the 1970's fashion from every place of the world made its way into the world of fashion. Convenient travel meant that others were able to bring ideas and accessories from other places around the world. Other people looked for designers to provide styles that matched the feeling of an era, that had come back to nature and was Anti-Vietnam-War in perspective.

Caftan or Kaftan

The Hippies of the 60's brought with them clothes fro other cultural backgrounds that has never been seen before in the west. Nehru jackets and loose flowing robes that came from humid hot countries made its way to other cities around the world and made its way to fashion, developed of course by designers such as Yves St. Laurent.

From the mid late 70's, Caftans, Kaftans, Kimonos, mummus, djellaba (a Moroccan with pointed hood) or jalabiya (loose eastern robe) and several other styles from every part of India and Africa, were in turn transformed into home style robes for casual wear. They were done in every fabric you can think of, but were especially best worn as glamour dressing when sewn in exotic fabrics and edged in silver, gold, other metallic sewn trimmings.

Flared Trousers, Bell Bottoms, and Trouser Suits

One type of fashion that was the rage back in the 70's was the use of Trouser and Trouser Suits. Pants started off gently flared and grew into wide bell bottom proportions by 1975. these pants were slowly decreased to straight and wide until the end of the 70's they were back to narrow once more. Some famously used fabrics include Heavy Crepes, Wool Jersey Knits, Courtelle Jersey Jersey and Woven Polyester suiting like Trevira. The favorite fashion colors of the 1970's were:

• Emerald green

• Apple green

• Bottle green

Famous celebrities of that time such as well known actress Farrah Fawcett from the series "Charlie's Angels" helped popularize flared trousers, and rough cut hairstyles that required constant use of tongs, or heated rollers to make the hair flicks. It is easy to see how many women at that time modeled Farrah's style during that era.

Also heavy crepes that were used to make wide legged trousers often would look exactly like the chanel trousers of the 1930's. They were either worn with small knitted short vests or scoop neck tank tops. Waistcoats were also inmensely popular in any length, from hip length to maxi.

The Platform Soled Shoes

By the early 1970's platform shoes started with a slim sole that moved from 1/4 inch up to about 4 inches when they increased in popularity. Once they were high enough, people would look for handy and helpful shoe repairers to take off the cheese holes from their sole base shoes. A typical platform shoe with a 1 inch sole was a little bit comfortable that would stop at the development of hard skin and would make you have the feeling of having stones in the soles of your shoes.

For women who still loved to show their legs, it became even more sweet in the early 70's to see women wearing creamy white tights with black patent shoes

1970's Tank Tops and Mix and Match Knitwear

The Tank Tops of the 1970's was a garment that would later follow

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