Friday, March 27, 2015

a little bit of history repeating... and repeating

Repeating like something you've eaten keeps reburping itself to the surface again....

Viz, the Seventies revival, or re-revival, or re-re-revival

pieces in the Evening Standard, Daily Mail, New York Times, and god knows where else



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/fashion/the-70s-are-back-in-fashion-again.html?_r=0



"Who can help but plunder fashion’s past when its imagery is everywhere? The epoch was captured on film in “American Hustle” and, more recently, in “Inherent Vice,” the hemp-saturated reimagining of the Thomas Pynchon novel. It’s vividly present in rock memoirs like “Just Kids,” Patti Smith’s recollections of coming of age in downtown Manhattan, and in trips through the decade by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and by Joni Mitchell, muse to the designer Hedi Slimane, who highlighted the singer in his Saint Laurent spring marketing campaign.

A wealth of pop ephemera is but a click away on Pinterest boards that worship at the altar of Ali MacGraw, looking womanly-provocative in the plunging silk dress or suede trench coat she wore in “The Getaway”; or Marisa Berenson vamping for Vogue in high hippie caftans, turbans and multiple rings; or Lisa Taylor, legs splayed suggestively as she poses for Helmut Newton in a Calvin Klein dress.

Clearly the period retains an emotional pull. In retrospect, the decade that spawned the DVF wrap dress, maxi-coats worn over hot pants, and Ladies of the Canyon in battered jeans seems a garden of earthly delights.

“We didn’t have the consequences that we do for our actions today,” said the costume designer Mark Bridges, whose film credits include “Boogie Nights” and “Inherent Vice.” “People smoked without pause; you made out with who you wanted to; and on all fronts we were in an experimentation mode. 
Why not? The stakes weren’t as high.”

That age before AIDS and drastic budget shortfalls, Dr. Arnold said, “seems like the most exciting period of decadence ever. There’s an element of the ’70s that can still seem somewhat outré, kind of glamorous, but a little bit sleazy as well. It’s got an edge to it.”


see also

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-2993223/


Macrame, the art of decorative knotting which was once the preserve of home-spinning hippies and later a Seventies staple, is the latest retro trend enjoying a resurgence in interiors. 




2 comments:

Julian Bond said...

Do you think we could just have some reruns of "that 70s show"?

And since when did 55-65 year olds become a target demographic to sell things to?

simon biddell said...

Doesn't any decade - certainly those seeped in youth culture - seem more alluring than our own? In 20 years time what would you revive of now?