MGP+Bo

= Fashion in the 70s What was fashion like in the 70s and how did it affect American? =

Preface: I ended up choosing my topic that I am really interested in and enjoy to research more about. This topic talks about 1970s fashion which was a remarkable fashion decade and had a huge impact on American. The reason that I particularly chose fashion of the 70s is that nowadays, 70s fashions are coming back. It became popular again and people starts to dress like 70s. Therefore, I asked a question to myself that what factors made 70s fashion so special.

Introduction of Genre #1: My first genre is a research paper that contains information in order to answer my question. This paper will simply answer the question by showing examples of 70s popular fashion trends and how these fashions were appealing to American.

Genre #1 The 1970s was a decade of freedom. Since numbers of major events occurred in America, Americans started to emphasize on world peace, and the symbol of peace used into clothing and accessories such as earrings or necklaces. During this time, Americans were free from express their opinions and this led more varieties of fashion in 70s. It was an era of do what you like and wear what you want. It was fun, exciting and completely clueless. If everyone looked like Willie Wonka and the Gypsy Queen that was because they could (Kavanagh). People wore whatever they want and made their clothes using by such unique materials. Unexpectedly, these fashions were made by bunch of materials, got a lot of attention and spread quickly. Trousers were used to only popular between men however, since beginning of the 70s, women started to wear them more freely. Fashion designers were busy making various new styles of trousers. At the end of the 70s, trousers slowly became straight and wide. Moreover, many sorts of green colors became popular such as apple green, Lime green, and Emerald green were widely used.

One of the biggest changes in fashion were American began to wear shorter and lighter clothes than in the 1960s. The mini skirts by Mary Quant, eventually led to a new fashion fad. Also, medium and long sized skirts were popular too. The mini skirts remained popular in the early years of the 70s, but women could chose between, mini, midi, (mid-calf length) or maxi (full length) skirts (Steven). During this time, fashion continued to emphasize legs. In early 1971, “hot pants” spread to America, which means short pants, now we call it as shorts. "hot pants" were dressy, ultra-short women's shorts made of a variety of fabrics from velvet to leather (Gianoulis). Because of its style and name, it became a new category of style for young women. At that time, women usually wore short skirts but not short pants. Therefore, "hot pants" were a huge shock to Americans when it first appeared. It was also worn in weddings, in offices and even airlines' uniform. Not even in America, hot pants were even popular in Europe. Twiggy, one of the greatest model of the century, wore hot pants and spread to United Kingdom. Public response about these fashion were divided either agree or disagree, because some people were really conservative. They thought that hot pants are inappropriate. Another trend during the 70s was called Trash culture. Trash culture focused on new styles and a celebration of bright colors. For example, they printed commercial pictures such as can soup from famous brand on clothes and their clothing were made by various types of nylon filament. There were several reasons why “trash culture” became popular. The latest technology helped invent many new kinds of plastic, which could be more easily used and wearable than before. Moreover, they were new textures, weights, and various color effects. Some examples of trash culture were Plastic jeans, padded satin jackets. At first when the Trash culture were introduced, people felt it strange and awkward, however, after few years, it took a huge place of fashion trend.

Probably the most powerful and longest fashion trend were platform shoes. Platform shoes swept 70s fashion industry. During this time, platform shoes attracted Americans right away. It was very exaggerated if we compare to today’s shoes, however, at that time, women liked to emphasize their legs and platform shoes were perfect for their trend. Platform shoes were worn at work, supermarkets, and just about everywhere else. Platform shoes had at least 2 to 5 inches heels. Unexpectedly, Men also liked to wear platform shoes with trousers. It was during these years that experimentation with fashion, not only drugs and sex, broke all kinds of rules of the pretentious 50s. Men, as well as women, adorned platforms (Missy, J). Elton John, famous pop singer during 70s and John Travolta, from the movie __Saturday Night Fever__ liked to wear them. The shoes had many designs and the color were most likely vivid and primary colored.

American had always been center of the fashion trends and it naturally spreads into Europe and Asia. Especially 70s was a huge fashion decade for Americans and remained marvelous trends that still have effects on fashion industries. These days, retro fashions from 70s are becoming popular again and famous designers are relaunching new collections of vintage, retro fashion from 70s. This shows how fashion in 70s were modernized and respected.

Works Cited: www.fashion-era.com/1970s.htm http://www.bookrags.com/research/1970s-fashion-bbbb-04/hot-pants-bbbb-04.html (Gianoulis, Tina) http://www.helium.com/items/882486-1970s-style-and-fashion-ideas (Kavanagh, Gail) http://missy-j.blogspot.com/2005/04/fashion-through-ages-1970s.html (missy,J) http://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_britain/70s/70s_fashion.html (Steven)

Introduction of Genre #2 Since my first genre was about how fashion in 70s affect Americans, for genre #2, I want to write a diary of a ordinary women who has a great interest in fashion and write about how her life is related to fashion fads. The diary is in first person narrative.

Genre #2  12.01.1977 It is finally the weekend and my friends and I went to watch a movie called __Saturday Night Fever__! I'm super excited about it! I heard about this movie from my coworkers and they were so fascinated by this movie. This movie came out like a week ago but it's already so popular. My friend and I were talking about this movie whole day!! Famous teen star John Travolta is such a great dancer and he is only eighteen! I think he is awesome! This movie is awesome because it showed brand new outfits from the latest fashion! Their outfits were marvelous..! Especially the dress that Karen Lynn Gorney was wearing! I wish I could have one of those outfits..

12.06.1977 Today is my worst day ever! I will never wear my mini skirt again until the Spring comes..! What happened was, I was way back home from a shopping mall near by my office and I had to take a bus because my car broke due to the cold and snowy weather. It was freezing cold and my legs were almost naked because I was wearing short mini skirt..! moreover, I was waiting for the bus about twenty minutes. I couldn’t afford Taxi because I lost my wallet at the shopping mall. Now, I think I caught a cold and I have to see a doctor tomorrow!

12.15.1977 Guess what today is..! MY BIRTHDAY! Fortunately, I have my birthday on the weekend and I invited my friends to my place and it went great! I didn’t want to go somewhere because I am still having a cold.. Probably the best thing about having a birthday party is I get to have bunch of birthday gifts! My friends know that I am interested in clothing and shoes, so I got all these latest fashion designed shoes and clothes. I got Lime green platform shoes. Lime green!! I always wanted to have one of these! I used to think that green is really hard to match with any color and I was totally wrong! These days, I see so many green outfits or green accessories. Anyways, I'm so happy that I got so many gifts from my friends! yay!

Introduction of Genre #3 For my genre #3, I realized that visual aid is necessary for my topic, since my topic is about fashion, which can be described the best with visual aspects, I am planning to make a newsletter about fashion in 70s, and actually show how to dress like 70s. In Genre #1,2, I did many describing or naming fashion items, therefore, I couldn't get a chance to make connections between the visuals and my descriptions. The newsletter won't containing a lot of written information, however, more focused on visuals.

Genre #3

Works cited: http://www.wmagazine.com/images/fashion/2007/10/faar_ilist_70s_02_h.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dan_Ahlquist_et_al.jpg http://theshamelist.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/730809saturday-night-fever-posters1.jpg http://cathyofcalifornia.typepad.com/cathy_of_california/images/2008/01/28/poodleprint.jpg http://www.70sfashion.org/disco_fashion_of_the_70s.htm http://www.retrotogo.com/2007/11/marimekko-to-te.html

Epilogue: At first, I had no clue about how I am going to answer one question in to 3 different genres. Actually, I didn't even know what kind of question should I throw to myself. However, I was thinking that maybe asking a question that I'm really interested in will drag my attention. I think I chose a great topic that I'm interested in because if I had to write a research paper about something that I don't want to know about or care about, It would be a boring assignment. However, I was having fun during this whole multi genre project and researching about this topic made me to learn more about the fashion in the 70s. I hope not only me, but others could find some interesting facts about my topic.