The anti-aesthetic era

Usually, when you grow up, you don't say "Gee, the fashions of my youth sure are ugly." The glaring exception to this rule is the mid-1970s. Even as a child, I knew that my own era lacked that certain something when it came to fashion, an awareness that may have contributed to my lifelong obsession with fashion history. I mean, let's be honest: any other decade in 20th Century fashion looked better than the 1970s.

If you don't believe me about the massive hideousness that was the 1970s, you clearly need a refresher course, which you can get by checking out Jancee Dunn's reprint of a few pages from a 1975 J.C. Penney catalog. My favorite is the Superfly trio, a reference you'll understand once you've checked her site out. The same hideous blast from the past shows up at 15 Minute Lunch which, in slighter bluer language than Dunn's, analyzes Penney's 1977 offering. All I can ask is, "What were they thinking (or, do I mean, smoking) in those days?"