The 1970s was in many ways a decade of fads and crazes.
Whether in fashion with bell bottoms, hot pants, and mood
Rings , exercise jogging, aerobics, or dance as 1970s disco fashion, people picked up new activities
and products. It is unlikely that anyone will remember the 1970s for the quality
of its innovations in fashion. In fact, many of
the favorite fashions of the 1970s
are now remembered with
humor. Hot pants, polyester leisure suits, and mood rings.
The fashion excesses of the 1970s can be partially blamed on the widespread
use of polyester. Polyester clothing designers latched onto synthetic polyester fabric
and offered people brightly colored knit polyester shirts with a silky sheen, wild hot pants and
mini skirts in an array of chemically enhanced colors, and comfortable polyester
leisure suits for wearing to the disco. The sheer novelty of the styles and colors drew
people to the polyester clothing and clothes.
Hot pants were part of the flamboyant, sexually open style of 1970s fashion that produced
the mini skirt in the 1960s, hot pants were dressy, ultra short women’s shorts made of
a variety of fabrics from velvet to leather.
The design of hot pants allowed them to be worn shorter than the shortest micro
mini skirt and still provide some degree of modesty. However, in the extravagantly
flashy climate of the early 1970s fashion trends, many young women wore the new 1970s fashion. Hot pants soon
went out of style and are largely considered an embarrassing reminder of 1970s fashion excess.
Fashionable during the 1970s, the polyester leisure suit for men was a mainstream response to the casual
dress style of the 1970s hippie movement. Made of polyester fabric, often in bright colors and
plaids, the leisure suit consisted of polyester pants and a matching polyester jacket, styled with an open collared.
The polyester men suits helped make men’s fashion less conservative. The suits also were a forerunner of modern casual
Fridays, when less formal 1970s clothes may be worn to the office. Although polyester leisure suits represented
somewhat of a breakthrough in mens 1970s fashions, polyester leisure suits have
often been used as an example of a 1970s fashion mistake.
However, the 1970s mens polyester leisure suits have left
their mark on modern culture.
Like nylon, polyester heralded a brave new world of fabrics and fashion. Woven in bright colors and
strange textures, polyester was the defining fabric of 1960s and 1970s fashion. As a result,
when polyester went out of fashion in the late 1970s, it all but disappeared from view. Memories of the
convenience of wash and wear, minimal iron polyester shirts, were tinged with the shame of body odor
and fashion tragedy. It was only with the rise of outdoor chic that polyester, in the form of
polar fleece, garnered popularity again. As the technology advanced, polyester was blended
to make polyester fabrics that looked and felt like cotton as cotton polyester fabric or wool. In the early 1970s, polyester was
the height of cool suburban fashion. Flared slacks, knit polyester shirts, and pant suits graced the
barbecue party, the workplace, and malls. By the late 1970s, polyester was everywhere. It
flooded the market in such quantities that it lost its fashionable edge. When that happened,
people began to notice that polyester made them sweat.
Reference: “1970s The Me Decade”, Gale University publication.
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