40 cringeworthy examples of 70s mens fashion
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I've always disliked the condescension involved in tattoo-phobia -- a holdover of the days when tattoos were for convicts, bikers and sailors and were the object of classist derision, coupled with a bizarre assumption many of its adherents still have that it somehow never occurs to people getting tattoos that they're making a serious decision -- but at any rate part of the reason tattoo culture has flourished beyond precedent in the 21st century is that tattoos are actually getting steadily easier to remove. Which will probably mean that tattoos become more common over time, not less (but also that they lose a lot of their remaining counter-culture cachet, insofar as they still have that).
Allow me to rephrase the above a bit:
"What is it about the subject of '70s fashions that makes people think it's ok to be so obnoxiously judgmental about something that has zero effect on them? It's bizarre. You'd think someone was holding the complainers down and forcefully putting them in bell bottom pants, platform shoes, and colorful shirts and suits the way they're so passionate about the wrongness of it. If you don't like them, more power to you, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the hell people care so much if others wore them? If it's not causing anyone else harm, mind your own business.
"It's a bad thing." Like '70s fashion destroyed America or something."
Locutus, please understand that when people mock the '70s, they are literally mocking a whole decade of some peoples' lives. There were a lot of personal things about the '70s I'd far rather not have happened (my parents' divorce and subsequent custody issues being top of the list, followed by some of the crap that happened in school). It's ridiculous to judge a time by the fashions, and if I were younger I'd happily go back to that. There were some things I missed out on simply because my family couldn't afford it.
I remember one of the girls in my Grade 7 class saying, "We don't like you because of your clothes. We'd like you if you wore blue jeans." So I concluded that anyone who judges a person's likability solely on the basis of what they wear is shallow and not worth my time. I didn't cave until high school, as I wasn't willing to go through another three years of snide digs and ostracism, so I asked my grandmother if I could get some jeans for school. I fit in more fashion-wise, but the clothes didn't suddenly transform everything. I was still that kid whose favorite part of the school was the library, and whose extracurricular activities included anything to do with writing, editing, and publishing. And Star Trek, of course. The teachers in junior high and high school didn't know what to do with a girl who was into astronomy and science fiction. The current teen fashions didn't help that problem.
So I get really tired of people judging on the basis of clothes. I wear whatever the hell I want to now, and have since my second year of college, when I noticed that other people around the campus did, whether students or instructors. If people don't like it, they have my permission not to look. I dress for comfort, not fashion, and the only person I care about pleasing is me.
As far as tattoos go, they're not my thing. I don't even have pierced ears (I've met maybe half a dozen women in my life whose ears were never pierced; it seems like some kind of uniform and those who don't wear earrings are the odd ones). I've seen women with rings in their noses, and I've wondered how they cope when they have a cold; doesn't it get rather messy? (honest question)
The dress is lovely. And some snaps worked well; others didn't, and sometimes needed to be replaced. Just about any package of snaps included a few that wouldn't work right.And (since I'll take any excuse to show off a great vintage find) I bought this dress at a thrift store just yesterday! Definitely '70s with this print and collar. It's 100% silk, though -- no polyester here! The fit is what blew my mind. It's as if it was tailored. Aside from a minor zip repair that took me all of ten minutes, the condition is mint. I may replace the snaps at the cuffs because they don't hold that well, though:
But I don't remember anyone wearing shoes like those in the '70s. They're from an earlier decade, aren't they?
My grandfather was a sailor for a brief time in his younger years, before coming to Canada. He had a tattoo of an anchor, but the only people who knew about it were family and casual friends (it was usually covered with a long-sleeved shirt).
Many people do give it serious consideration when getting a tattoo. But some people did it on a whim or they'd been drinking at the time they'd made the decision, and so were not able to give it serious consideration. Some have said they regretted getting the tattoo.
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You weren't trying to be rude? I guess it comes easily to you, then!
Now, it is absolutely okay for you to state your opinion. I didn't say that you can't. I just said that it would be classier if you kept your remarks to yourself.
You're right, the saddle shoe style has been around for ages, and I've been obsessed by them my whole life. I went through a period between the ages of 3-6 when I refused to wear anything else! This particular shoe is definitely more '70s styled, though, with a chunky, flared heel and squared toe. Here is a better shot of it so you can tell:
I try to mix and match, though. Often my accessories will be from different eras. I love vintage clothes but I don't go for the whole period dress, she looks like she just walked out of 1976 or 1953 thing.
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A bad thing is drunk driving, it can have lethal consequences on other people. Tattoos have none for anyone else. You haven't simply expressed an opinion your making a judgmental comment on something that has no effect on you.
That judgmental attitude above is pretty rude.
And that sums up much of the issue over tattoos, really. Bad folks, the lumpen untouchables have tattoos. Some folks regret getting them one day? Well, that's easier to live with than regretting driving drunk and killing someone.
Life would be better for everyone if busybodies would take Beatrice Campbell's advice that so long as it doesn't scare the horses in the street there's nothing to bother with.
I'm at a loss why I'm the subject of this reply or why my words were turned around on me as if to catch me in a hypocritical argument, since I never mocked the 70s, 70's fashion, or any fashion in this thread for that matter.
That being said, someone else criticizing the 70s or 70's style as an abstract concept is not in any way making a personal attack on you or your family or even your current fashion choices, which were not mentioned. They don't know anything about you or your family, so why even go there and make that connection when no one brought it up? I've lost a lot of people and suffered through personal and family health problems galore since 2010, but I wouldn't think for a moment that that means people shouldn't mock or criticize the 2010s, because it's not about me.
No one should be mocked about their clothing in an unsolicited and vicious manner, but there's miles of difference between people in this thread mildly and jokingly mocking the fashions of forty years ago and people hyperbolically and insultingly mocking and criticizing current (but by no means new) style choices like tattoos and piercings when they know there are people posting in this very thread (not me, so it's not a personal argument before anyone makes that accusation) and reading this forum who have them.
While tattoos and piercing scars aren't nearly as permanent anymore if you want to remove them as the scaremongering of the two people I replied to earlier in this thread would suggest, they are a lot more difficult to change than articles of clothing which can be changed at any time, so one should take even greater care when commenting on them to avoid alienating people.
Tattoos and piercings also tend to be a lot more of a personal matter for a lot of people, and tend to have greater meanings behind them than do what clothes they're going to wear that day, so again, greater respect to their choices should be maintained over and above the respect due to everyone anyway.
People mocking 70's fashions do not have a long and obnoxious history on this forum (in fact, this is the first time it's been done that I recall), while people mocking tattoos and piercings do, hence my response. Any time there's a tattoo or piercing thread a collection of concern trolling busybodies come out of the woodwork and feel that it's their absolute duty to lecture other adults who are well aware of the potential issues about the terribleness of their decisions, as if anyone solicited their advice. If the thread was called "What are the potential risks of getting tattoos or piercings?" than they are more than welcome to chip in with their two cents, but if people are just sharing their personal ink and piercings, then they should mind their own business and keep their negativity to themselves.
There's even a poster who bizarrely starts a bunch of rambling, incoherent, and insulting anti-tattoo/piercing threads almost every year, like several at a time in this forum that have to be shut down. There's something about this subject that makes people weirdly defensive and hostile about something that doesn't affect them in the slightest.
The topic was about 70's fashion, so bringing up their complaints about tattoos and piercings weren't even on-topic, and the rude and hyperbolic manner in which they presented their opinions didn't help. You said something along the lines of "Tattoos aren't my cup of tea," which unlike the others, is a perfectly polite and acceptable way of expressing that opinion so long as it's not being directed at another person in particular (which you were not). It's all about the context. If someone started a thread to share their tattoos and people said even something as relatively mild as that, it would be rude and hijacking the thread under those circumstances.
Anyway, so now I've strangely had to defend commentary on the 70s and 70's fashion that I never even engaged in, which is weird, but whatever. I hope I've explained my position on the matter and why those prior posts I replied to were out of line in my opinion.
To clarify, I wasn't criticizing you personally. You just happen to be the person who brought up the line of commentary about tattoos that is very similar to the situation when people mock the '70s fashions. I'm in the habit of saying who I'm quoting, so I can see why you might think I was upset with you. It's the mockery itself that annoys me, not you.
As for tattoos and piercings... well, I was raised by old-fashioned grandparents who raised me to believe that quite a lot of things were inappropriate. I'm still deprogramming from some of that, and they've been dead for decades (30 years for my grandfather; 18 years for my grandmother). My grandmother was in her 60s before she wore pants in public, and then she was amazed at how comfortable they are and that she no longer had to freeze in winter. She couldn't get her older sister to give up dresses, though.
So it wasn't the fact that you said the words; it was just the words themselves that annoyed me. I've encountered people who think the whole '70s decade was just awful and the world would have been better off if it had never happened. It's irritating when some of those people turn out to not even have been born then.
I think women's fashions in the '70s were great. Men's fashions, not so much.
Kor
I don't mind a bit of a laugh together at some of the extreme fashions of the past. That's one of the delightful things about fashion: how sensibility can change so much so that what looks wonderful to us one day looks downright silly a few years down the line. I don't really understand how lighthearted and mutual mockery equates to shallowness. I look back at some of the trends in which I partook in the past, and I can only laugh. I have fond memories of the '80s and '90s, but boy, some of those looks were horrendous.
I mean, come on: '80s hair?
I mean, come on: '80s hair?
I was referring to my classmates as shallow. Their comments to me were definitely not "lighthearted."
I imagine my children will happily mock the things I loved wearing as a teenager.
It's a circle of life thing.
However, I still think polyester is an abomination.
It's a circle of life thing.
However, I still think polyester is an abomination.
Polyester is a handy thing for those of us who are allergic to wool.
That's true. Us Floridians don't really have to think about such things, as we almost never need any warm clothing.
I think the mistake is viewing tattoos as a trend. People have been tattooing themselves for thousands of years, and they will continue to do so. It's just become more acceptable these days to have them visible.
Some people might end up regretting their tattoos, especially those who get them when they're young. But I know plenty of 40 and 50 year olds who are still getting new ink. It's not just some thing they did when they were 18 and now they're stuck with it; it's a lifestyle choice they're continuing to make well into adulthood.
You may not personally find them attractive, but that's really not important to the issue at hand. There are still plenty of un-tattooed people out there.
As for 70s fashion, I don't really have a problem with the colors and patterns. I take issue with the cut and fit of the clothes. Everything is so tight and, in the case of some of those onesies, way too revealing. Nobody wants to look at hairy man thighs.
Some people might end up regretting their tattoos, especially those who get them when they're young. But I know plenty of 40 and 50 year olds who are still getting new ink. It's not just some thing they did when they were 18 and now they're stuck with it; it's a lifestyle choice they're continuing to make well into adulthood.
You may not personally find them attractive, but that's really not important to the issue at hand. There are still plenty of un-tattooed people out there.
As for 70s fashion, I don't really have a problem with the colors and patterns. I take issue with the cut and fit of the clothes. Everything is so tight and, in the case of some of those onesies, way too revealing. Nobody wants to look at hairy man thighs.
Oh how I beg to differ! I'll take a man in bell bottoms over skinny jeans any day, and the clothes were just so much more fun -- so much more interesting!
Sure, a Brady Bunch sing along special might induce a glittering paisley polyester seizure, but damn, the rockers of that era?
I mean, daaaayum.
And then of course, there's:
Imma need a minute to cool off after that post.
Keep your hairy man thigh fantasies to yourself.
I was just confused about the equivocation to what was going on in this thread.
Hairy man chest fantasies.
I've got some selfies with your name on them.
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