70's Clothes

70s Fancy Dress Ideas

Call me a silly American, but when I first heard somebody talking about 70s fancy dress, I assumed they were talking about something that would have been worn to a big wedding before going home to watch Charlie's Angels back in the 1970s.  I kept on seeing the phrase popping up though as Halloween approached and I noticed that it was getting mentioned in the same context as 70s costumes.  It was then that the light bulb finally went on.  It was another one of those weird "English" phrases that never quite made the translation to Americanized English!  I've got this website devoted to talking about vintage 70s items that has a 70's store attached to it, and I didn't know what the phrase means.  I'm pretty disappointed in myself.


Here I am writing about 70s clothes and disco outfits, and I didn't even realize what I was missing.  I may still misunderstand, but it seems to me that when you hear someone from across the pond talking about fancy dress, they have some type of costume in mind.  So, Halloween fancy dress is like saying Halloween costume...  Got it, I think.

OK, so moving right along, what I noticed as I started looking more into this was that people are not just looking for this stuff during the time leading up to the end of October.  There really is a market for these items all year long.  Fancy dress shops selling fancy dress outfits and fancy dress wigs are in demand no matter what season it is.  People just can't seem to get enough of that 70s magic.

This whole thing got me thinking a bit.  I mean, I look around the internet trying to see what kinds of things people are interested in and every once in a while something jumps out at me.  This whole English/American language barrier is much bigger than I realized however.  I was trying to research what kinds of items were being searched for around Halloween and it seems that just about everyone with a computer in English speaking Europe searches for things like 80s fancy dress, 60's fancy dress, army fancy dress, you name it.  I have never even heard the expression before, referring to costumes.  I must live under a rock.


This year, it looks like a lot of people were looking for hippy fancy dress, ABBA costumes and James Bond costumes.  Both very much related to the 1970s as they helped to set clothing trends and fashions at the time.  007 was always impeccably dressed and ABBA was just one of those perfect storm type of things.  I remember hearing their music constantly for a few years back in the day although I was not old enough that I actually cared very much about what was playing on the radio.  Then they were gone.  Actually, the whole 70s vintage clothing movement seems to be extremely popular in England from what I'm seeing online.  Once again, I could certainly be wrong and it wouldn't be anywhere near the first time.  It is just my perspective as an interested American observer that 70s fancy dress costumes look like they are pulling some serious interest overseas year round.  As I was investigating, there were a lot of fancy dress phrases that kept popping up.  The list was quite long.  So if you are from England and reading this, please, leave a comment.  I'd love to hear if I've got the description of what the phrase means.  Meanwhile, I hope you find some 70s fancy dress items that you like while you are here!