I sometimes like to take a look at what people bought the week or two before to get an idea of where the demand is at the moment.  I try to keep up on what 70s trend is carrying the day, but there is simply too much stuff!

This past week saw a big rush of bids on a pair of vintage Adidas shoes.  The ebay listing was actually for Adidas France Tahiti shoes.  Those shoes went for over five hundred dollars.  One of the things I try to do if I can when I look at what is selling is remember what was up with that particular item back when it was actually in its prime.  For these shoes, I do actually remember owning a few similar pairs.  I can guarantee that my Mom didn't spend anything near five hundred bucks for them.  If I recall correctly, these actually sort of fell out of favor when other brands came along with the fancy white leather look.  All things Adidas seem to be popular right now as another Adidas item, two shirts also went for over five hundred.  One actually sold for 706 bucks.

For the past week, the biggest vintage 70s clothes seller was a Seven Arrows East West leather jacket.  It wasn't even really close to be honest.  A couple of people must have really wanted that old beauty.  Its final selling price... $3,250.

I kid you not when I say that might be worth more than all of the clothes I've worn so far this year put together!  It's a pretty cool coat though.

No one really ever wore bell bottom jeans during the 1980's or 90's.  Well, I'm sure somebody did, but it didn't catch back on until this decade.  The flared jeans and bell bottoms you see come from your ancient ancestors back in the 1970's kids.  Maybe some inquisitive kids found an old suitcase filled with them in Aunt Suzie's attic or something.  Actually, the real history goes back to sailors wearing the original bell bottom back the latter part of the 19-teens and the style did start reappearing in the 1990's, but the wider bottoms were referred to as being "flared", not bell bottoms.

There are a lot of 70's clothes popping up on places like eBay.  If you choose to go the eBay route and grab yourself some genuine vintage fashion, be aware that today's bell bottoms may be a bit different than the ones your Mom wore.  In the 1970's people tucked in their shirts more often and wore their pants up higher.  That sounds rediculous as it's written, sorry, but I just mean that there weren't as many low riders in the jeans crowd.  Hey, they put their kids in colored Tuff Skins too, remember?  You can try to compensate by throwing on some platform boots!  The look will rock!

Really, you can find some decent prices (sometimes) on vintage clothing on eBay, but remember that you are buying vintage.  The pants will generally have a higher rise and might feel like they are hugging your mid-section if you are used to wearing low rise jeans.  If memory serves correctly, you might also expect to have your legs and undergarments stained blue if you make the mistake of not washing them first.  (I've seen a lot of deadstock items listed).  If you do go for purchasing deadstock jeans, ask if there is any fading on them.  I never would have though of this, but I did get my hands on some authentic 1970's jeans with the original tags still attached about a year ago.   I noticed immediately that there was a definite change in color where they had been folded and stored for 25 years.  They were still very sturdy, but there were permanent lines of differing color from such a long period of storage.

If you are shopping and just read all of that anyway, thanks for your patience. Check the bottom of the page for Vintage Bell Bottoms!

Put On Your 70 Style Clothing!

I think we should have a 70 style clothing day.  Think about it.  Kids in school do things like that to have fun and it is usually pretty amusing (even the older kids like it).  I know it sounds silly to have a 70's day, but it could be one in a series of special, one day theme holidays.

I don't even turn on the news anymore because all you hear is economic gloom and doom.  Declaring a 70 style clothing day could be a fun distraction and might actually stimulate the economy a bit as people looked for the old fashions in unorthodox places!  Wouldn't it be great to see the anchors on all of the nightly news shows donning 70's fashions?

We could make it really fun.  Politicians in every town could drive around with our tax break money and give a dollar to everyone dressed like a hippie or a disco queen on the special day!  President Obama said he wanted to "spread it around", didn't he?  Once you received your dollar, your hand would be stamped with a special seal and you could get a free chunk of government cheese or something.  Remember eating that in the 80's?  Good stuff.  Really.

Why stop at 70 Style Clothing Day though?  We could come up with new incentives (or just do it for fun) and have dress like an 80's Prep Day and then prepare for 90's Seattle Grunge Eve!

Maybe we could even have competitions between towns and cities.  Instead of having professional sports teams wear those ugly throwback uniforms, they could face off wearing bell bottom jeans and tie dyed t-shirts (just on the special day though; they get paid enough to dress decently).  I'm a Pirates fan, so what have I got to lose?

Personally, I think it would be kind of cool to see the dress up day for the early part of last century.  Everyone in the country walking around in vintage fashions would be pretty neat to see.  I always have a hard time imagining what the country looked like back then in color.  That must be a condition of growing up watching re-runs in black and white.  Even when I see the rare color film footage on the History channel, it freaks me out a bit.  The 1940's and earlier were in black and white as far as the pictures in my mind are concerned.  Why not raid the vintage stores and attics of the country and let us re-live our country's history a bit?

I apologize for this random bit of silliness.  Every once in a while, I drink too much coffee and my mind starts zipping around outside the box.  I think I'm OK now.  But I'd still like to see a day devoted to 70 Style Clothing.

70's Vintage Clothes

For whatever reason, 70's clothes have gained in popularity of late. Perhaps it is a longing for what seems to be a wilder, more carefree time that has people wanting to wear and buy vintage clothes. People might be wearing 70's clothing as a way to escape the complications of every day life when all you hear about is the terrible economy.

1970's clothes were a diverse mix as the decade progressed. The 1970's started with the sloppy hippie look and then moved on after the decade's mid point to a much different look with disco clothing. Disco clothing was of course very shimmery and daring. While anyone could get away with the sloppy seventies fashion (you just dressed like you were bumming around the house), not everyone could pull off disco fashion. Form fitting clothes made of unforgiving fabrics that would show every bulge really put the emphasis on the superficial. Women went to outrageous lengths to get Farrah Fawcett hair as if that would make the men stare at them the same way they stared at "the bathing suit poster."

I do not really know what has fueled the retro clothing surge. My guess would be that people hit a point of wanting something "different" in their lives. Dressing in hippie clothes is different. Slipping into a disco costume is different. The extent that people today will go about their normal routines in 70's clothing is not entirely clear. In the late 1970's the disco look actually made its way into the business world. A look back at the business styles of the day, particularly for women will show that what was acceptable then, might not quite fly today. Seventies clothing for professional women was often designed to make them look like they were ready to hit the dance floor at the drop of a hat. I don't think most professional women today could live with that. That isn't to say that a business woman of the 1970's was any less professional. It is more that the culture was more accepting (or at least use to seeing) of the disco fashions that were popular among so many.

There is also a false belief that everyone in the 1970's wore clothing that made them look like they were either ready to head back to Woodstock or dance the night away. Any veteran of 70s fashion would probably tell you that you could go back to the 70's era wearing jeans and a t-shirt with no danger of standing out. In the same way, the retro clothing we as a culture often think of as 60's clothes or 80's clothes don't entirely define an entire generation of people, it should not be thought that everyone woke up and dressed in a stereotypical 70's costume.

It sometimes seems, when looking back at retro clothing that the book ends of a decade's start and finish are often quite different. It should always be remembered that every person was still able to "do their own thing" however. There are many men who probably made it through the entire decade of the 70's without ever putting a silk shirt across their shoulders. Likewise, some women went for and kept "short and sassy" and never went for Farrah's feathered hair. There will always be those who follow the fashion trends more closely than the rest of the people. There will also always be people who completely ignore fashion sense and, instead, aim entirely for comfort. Some people will rebel and do the opposite of whatever is popular at the moment. It always will come down to the individual and what they can live with. I suppose my point is that there is no one set example of 70's clothes.