Late 70s/early 80s New Wave fashion question

This man talked in my church once and mentioned that he left on a mission to Bolivia in 1979. When he returned in 1981 to his old wardrobe, everyone made fun of him for having bell bottoms & c. The main thing about this that blows my mind is: when since then has fashion changed so dramatically in a two-year period that your entire wardrobe would be a laughingstock?

Sorry this doesn't answer yr question.

I guess a similar shift happened in the early 90s from tight to baggy. Not quite as sudden or dramatic, though.

bell-bottoms and flares were losing popularity around the time punk first broke. by 1976 I was wearing straight leg levis pretty much exclusively. didn't start cutting my hair short til 1980 though.

Or were there people working in the fashion industry that couldn't have given a shit about punk, but still liked the idea of going back to pre-hippy cuts?

Disco really introduced the idea of pre-hippie style and elegance, well before new wave

Did they rely on stockpiles of second hand stuff from the 50s/early 60s that was suddenly cool again, or did clothing manufacturers pick up on the trend pretty much straight away?

second-hand clothing stores were GOLDMINES thru the early 80s. in the city anyway. mass-market new wave duds were strictly suburban.

That's funny, because I always assumed that disco fashion was very typical of flamboyant, wide-fitted, brightly coloured 70s style. Not hippy, but definitely not looking ahead to the 80s, either.

Yea even in the late 80s op shops were where you got cool stuff - this trend of buying off the rack alternofashion is a really new (and horrid) thing.

xpost

both I think -- disco was very "70s" in the way you describe but also retro-elegant (see Chic) and futuristic (euro disco)

I remember as a teenager a lot of the hip indie kids were really into pre-punk second hand stuff: donkey jackets, flares, kinky boots...Drugstore Cowboy seemed to be a big influence.

I had a mate who as a 15 year old in '96, got stones thrown at him by casuals for wearing flares and a brown suede jacket. That's what you get for being a Pulp fan, I guess, lol.

Bumped once more for some specifics.

There was a good deal of late 50's/early 60's nostalgia going on in the late 70's/early 80's.

Where I grew up, second hand clothing/DIY was very big and it was primarily 50's/60's stuff. There might have been some people making New Wave clothes, but I wouldn't have touched them at the time. I do remember getting my jeans and sometimes, trousers, pegged by the lady at the dry cleaners.

Yup: punk in itself got a lot of energy out of late-50s/early-60s musical nostalgia -- hence the leather jackets and greaser looks, and then the Buddy Holly hiccups. The 70s were full of 50s nostalgia, per the 20-year cycle, and in loads of different ways, straight up to Happy Days and M*A*S*H and Grease. Early new-wave was definitely an extension of that. (See: Elvis Costello)

Early 60's and 50's stuff was so far from what was being worn then that it just looked stunning. Growing up in the 70's, I found a lot of mod culture stuff looked weirdly futuristic, stark colours and hard, clean lines. And of course, all of it was available really cheap second hand.

'Revolt Into Style' discusses a similar obsession for Victoriana and Thirties stuff in the sixties: loads of it still available second hand, and starting to look really weird.

Yea even in the late 80s op shops were where you got cool stuff - this trend of buying off the rack alternofashion is a really new (and horrid) thing.

-- Trayce

So true.

Haha but it's so much more efficient and market-spurring if you pay a premium for someone to curate your retro fashions FOR you

The invisible hand, wearing fingerless gloves

I seriosuly lol'ed when my gf's younger brother started buying ready-made punk clothes: tartain plaid stovepipes with built in black suspenders, etc.

But the rebel who invented the ascot LOLs at you from beyond the grave

"You can't possibly do that," they said to him, "that's entirely the wrong way to wear a kerchief."

"DOWN WITH THATCHER," he replied

"Don't worry, Michael Foot is a shoe-in this time."

When ever do I wear an ascot?

I like to call it "the poet tie."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYofzucaS6g

While I'm not suggesting that the experience of the missionary who came back from Bolivia did not happen, I find it hard to believe that in 1981 his clothing from 1979 could have been seen so awkwardly, because 1981 (especially the early half of the year) wasn't all that different from 1979. Levi's jeans was still making bellbottoms in 1981, and the last pair of bellbottoms was bought on Dec. 27, 1981. There was no big drastic change in style those two years.

A lot of people I know were still wearing bellbottoms in 1981. And just look at TV and movies made in 1981--still very 1970s looking. I was just watching an old clip of a 1981 Soul Train episode, and almost everyone in it had a big afro and bellbottoms.

To answer the question, there were too many factors affecting the change to just pinpoint one. To begin with, the show "Happy Days" started a nostalgia for the 1950s in the 1970s. Then came punk, then the new wavers, and, let's not forget, in 1981, we got Ronald Reagan, who was very reminiscient of an earlier--more cleancut--time. All those played a role. also, quite simply, ALL trends wear out after enough time passes.

The 1980s really did not become the 1980s that we know them as until 1983, I would say.

Suburban chainstores like Merry Go Round disseminated mall-worthy watered down versions of "new wave" clothes to the midwestern/flyover masses by 84 or so; if I recall you could get your parachute pants and "Members Only" jackets and such there, and that seemed very modern and au courant at the time (anybody old enough here to remember when knockoffs of that red Michael Jackson "Thriller" video jacket were everywhere?). Flip and Fiorucci were not in the mainstream, and weren't affordable. Judging from what I have read and seen and studied, disco was kind of fragmented fashion-wise anyway. The NYC rich people wore Norma Kamali and Halston and a lot of faux 20s styles and Annie Hall-esque tweed outfits, while the gays rocked leather and Levis clonewear, and suburban folks aping Linda Ronstadt and Olivia Newton John album covers wore atrocious satin gym shorts and long socks. There wasn't one "disco" look, I don't think . . .

Fiorucci had a line at Target a few years ago!

^^^^^Oh really? That's cool. Their stuff was soooooooooo expen$ive back then. (but came with a cool sticker)

Where did New Wave kids get their straight-legged trousers and skinny ties?

The mod kids I knew shopped for their designer clothes at ye olde factory outlet. That kind of thing really blew up in the 80s, I think.

It is kind of bizarre to think there are developers nowadays in the business of planning and building entire malls of outlet stores (and franchising and promoting chains of malls of outlet stores), considering that outlets were originally for mistakes and overruns. Do they do this outside of North America?

I remember that by 82-83 the mainstream designers had caught on to New Wave and started making frilly miniskirts, etc.

In the mid 80's the paisley came back, and the presence of a lot of used 60's stuff in secondhand shops helped it along.

Merry Go Round began as a chain-store for suburban underage hippies, I remember buying "US Male" brand bell bottoms there in junior high around 1971. hip-huggers w/horizontal slit pockets, just pre-glam rock.

^^pestering my mom until she let me buy jeans @ incense-burning hippie store hahaha

Y'all are forgetting The Designer Jeans Wars, 1977-83. I served at the battle of Klein v. Vanderbilt.

Hey babe! I fought Jordache v. Sergio Valenti.

(and Jordache won)

That is a relief to hear, yo. Mail me! By the time they got to Guess? v. double-dyed Sassoon, I was audi. Also Felicity I thought of you, reading Exurbia by Molly Mcgann, LA circa '85 and the preps are all in Ton Sur Ton. Eurgh,

"the last pair of bellbottoms was bought on Dec. 27, 1981"

Wow. Did Reagan outlaw their sale after that exact date or something?

What's your email addy?

That sounds like a good read. Gah, my old high school pictures are such a mixture of Limited Express and hardcore Lake Forest.

double-dyed Sassoon

Wow, time machine. I had pink and turquoise. My mother wears the pink ones to garden in.

It is kind of bizarre to think there are developers nowadays in the business of planning and building entire malls of outlet stores (and franchising and promoting chains of malls of outlet stores), considering that outlets were originally for mistakes and overruns. Do they do this outside of North America?

The UK has "outlet villages". I think they started out cheap for seconds and overstock and are now basically just out-of-town malls with not many bargains to be found. They're the sort of thing where relatives insist that if you're looking for clothes you really MUUUUST travel for 2 hours to get to their favourite one, but I've never managed to find more than a single item worth buying on any trip round one. I know less about fashion than anyone else on ILX though and find clothes shopping horrible in that way that fat people with no dress sense do, so I guess I wouldn't know.

"Did Reagan outlaw their sale after that exact date or something?"

Good question, but no, Reagan's influence was strictly on an indirect level. He simply reminded people of how neat the 1950s were.

As to why THAT is the particular date, I think, first, bellbottoms' popularity had seriously waned (but was not completely gone) by the end of '81, and second, stores just stopped selling them by '82.

If the missionary from Bolivia incident is accurate, I can only imagine he must have returned to the U.S very late in '81.

Writing was on wall back in '78 when first rumblings of OMG DESIGNER JEANS went through my school and you needed to also have satin jacket. I joined the seventh grade in 1980 and point-blank refused any sort of flare/boot-cut trouser. Those I was stuck with I tapered to the point of today's skinny jeans, or actually past.

Felicity I am on yahoo.co.uk - just cram suzy next to my surname and follow with an @ and you're there.

Thanks, suzy. Yeah, who really invented the designer jean. Wikisays Jordache but I don't think that's right. Was it Gloria Vanderbilt for Puritan?

Esprit, Rugger, Boast.

Yes, it was probably the woman Anderson Cooper calls mommy but also on the high end, Yves Saint Laurent.

^^^^^^^^ very much in character. :)

Check email.

¤f