Flashback : If You Slept Through the ‘70s, Wake Up! They’re Back
It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times.
It was a decade when our nation’s red, white and blue was replaced by rust, mustard yellow and olive green.
It was an era long on sideburns and short on taste.
It was . . . the ‘70s. And guess what?
They’re baaaaaaack.
Advertisements in Vogue magazine are featuring models in bell bottoms, and shoe stores in Los Angeles malls are selling modified versions of platform shoes. In the Valley, vintage clothing stores are reporting an increased demand for authentic items from the era, including polyester shirts, patchwork vests and suede fringe jackets.
“I was appalled,” said Jeff Thompson, who selects the merchandise for Claudia’s Boutique at 11930 Ventura Blvd. in Studio City, one of several vintage clothing stores in the Valley that carries clothes from the ‘70s. “I get in the ugliest things, and they go right away. There’s a whole culture of people who like these things.”
Anyone who claims to have forgotten the ‘70s can get a dose of hippie history in “Drugstore Cowboy,” the movie starring Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch as a pair of junkies from Portland, Ore., who rob drugstores in the early ‘70s.
Beatrix Pasztor, the movie’s costume designer, said she found most of the clothes at thrift and vintage clothing stores in Portland and in the Valley.
“In Portland, they’re so laid back, that people are still wearing these clothes,” she said. “And it was appropriate to shop in the Valley because the look of the movie was a simple, low-class background, and when you go to the Valley, it’s not fashionable.”
Pasztor said she had a tough time persuading Matt Dillon and the other “Drugstore” actors to put on the polyester. “It wasn’t so easy,” she said. “But after a while they were pretty open. I guess you have to be pretty open to wear that stuff.
“The ‘70s was a very strange, very untasteful period. It was anti-fashion.”
Nevertheless, the stuff is available. The cheapest items can be found at thrift stores run by Goodwill and the Salvation Army, but you have to sort through hundreds of other clothes to find them. It’s much easier to find the items at vintage clothing stores, which organize their clothes by period and offer a better selection.
Perhaps one of the largest selections of platform shoes in the Valley can be found at Claudia’s, which has dozens of pairs with 4- to 8-inch wedges. For $15, you can walk away in a pair covered with imitation cherries, lemons and oranges.
The store also specializes in polyester photo-montage shirts. “You can’t keep them in the store,” Thompson said.
La Rue Vintage Clothing at 5320 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood offers a, well, wide variety of bell bottoms, including an orange-and-brown striped cotton pair and a corduroy pair with a maroon, olive and yellow Oriental rug pattern. They cost between $8 and $20.
Some of the pants at La Rue managed to escape the clutches of the ‘70s buyers and hang on the racks, unworn, with their original tags.
“Male Bell Bottoms are guaranteed to fit better than anything you’ve ever worn,” reads the tag of one rust-and-black striped corduroy pair. “They ride your hips and bell at the bottom. Tailored from exciting, rugged rawbone fashion fabric. You’re more of a man in Male.”
La Rue owner Joan Lussier also carries vests, platform shoes and blouses with wide lapels, as well as love beads and metal chokers with peace signs. But she draws the line at polyester leisure suits.
“I won’t go that far,” she said.
Suede fringe jackets are popular, Lussier said. “And what’s really big is the ruffle blouses, the romantic look from the ‘70s,” she said.
For two-piece ensembles from the ‘70s, the place to go is Grubb & Grubb General Store at 18523 Sherman Way in Reseda. The selection isn’t big, but they’ve got a few choice suits, including a wool outfit with a mustard, gray and creme geometric design.
Grubb & Grubb also carries mohair and wool sweaters, with patterns of chartreuse, brown, olive and orange.
Owner Maryse Grubb said many vintage clothing store owners won’t venture into ‘70s clothes. “I know some dealers who won’t touch it because it’s so ugly. They’re too high class. . . . It was such an awful thing, it really was.”
Not to Jacqui King.
King, a clothing designer for such rock bands as Cinderella and Poison, said she owns 10 pairs of platform shoes, including a 6-inch pair covered with silver glitter. “I wear them all the time,” she said.
King, who lives in North Hollywood, said she often goes to the supermarket wearing bell-bottom jeans with patches of embroidered flowers. “People come up to me and tell me I look really cool,” she said.
King buys a lot of 1970s clothes and tailors them for the band members. “A lot of my guys are so sick of looking costumey. They seem to want to go back to a more earthy, Gypsy look that’s not phony looking.”
Hip-hugging bell bottoms are “real sexy on guys that have nice, tight stomachs,” she said. Velvet jackets and blousey shirts with Indian prints are also flattering on her clients, she said.
The fashions are becoming more popular, King said, because the families, friends and fans of the rock bands want to imitate the members. “It’s really starting to take off,” she said.
Young people also want ‘70s clothing, she said, because they’re symbols of a romantic era. “It’s going back to a time when people had a common goal--wanting to stop the Vietnam War. . . . Kids need direction today, and everyone had direction back then.
“It’s not just a fad,” she said. “It’s a serious fashion trend. It’s coming back really strong. “
Pasztor doesn’t buy it. “Probably for another 30 years, you’ll still find the stuff in thrift stores,” she said. “It won’t disappear because it was so ugly in the first place.”
Lussier said she doesn’t expect the fad to last. “As soon as the stores reproduce the vintage clothing, the appeal wears off.”
