I was reading an SDMB thread from a few years back - it was about judging people’s fashion choices, but in it some posters agreed that the current decade (that is, 2000-2010) was the worst clothing-wise in the history of English speaking countries. While it’s a pretty big claim, I can’t say it’s too crazy; the 21st century has been great in many ways, but fashion isn’t high on the list.
Still, “worst fashion decade” isn’t an easy contest, and it got me thinking. So: which, in your opinion, were the best and worst decades for fashion? Although most people will probably focus on the 20th and 21st centuries, if you have a particular hatred or love for dresses in the 1730s, go for it. You can also choose different decades for men or women. Personally, I think the 70s wins the worst with both genders, but it’s a tight contest. For women, the best was the 20s; for men, I’ve always liked the trenchcoats of the 40s (plus, cool hats!).
I can’t think of a bad era for men’s fashion besides the 1970’s.
It’s not just the avacado terrycloth shorts and safari jacket with fun fur trim, seersucker leisure suits with platform shoes, etc. that everyone points to. The fashion plates of male models in flared suits with wide ties did look stylish, but they failed utterly in real life. That gap is what made the 70’s such a disaster.
In military fashion, the mid-19th century is the low point. It lost the elaborate styles that had made the uniforms of the Napoleonic era stand out, but it hadn’t adopted the utilitarian badass look that would come in the 20th century.
I’m hardly an expert, admittedly, but most of the Georgian-era English fashions I’ve seen made people look like they were dressing for their own embalmings.
1970s fashions, I guess in contrast, made the wearer look like they were attending their own open-pyre cremation. Generally looking kind of hot, and oily, with a general orange glow on everything.
I always thought Elizabethan age clothing of the late 1500’s was especially ugly. Those big, stiff ruffs around the neck! Those hideous padded square skirts - farthingales?
The mid-1800’s Victorian heavy dress-and-petticoats, and corsets! Those heavy skirts dragging in the dirt, spot cleaned when necessary, must have smelled pretty bad. How did they manage to get through a hot summer in those getups, with no air conditioning? The southern belles on plantations, wearing hoop skirts, in the hot Georgia climate…No wonder women fainted all the time.
Late 1950s/early 1960s casual wear was pretty bad, too - think golf attire. But the 1970s, style-wise, need to be locked away in a vault.
Other than that, though, men’s fashions simply haven’t changed much in the last century. You could wear a suit from almost any era in any other and only get curious looks from some small number of those who see you.
Hoop skirts are actually fairly cool, particularly when made of cotton. The hoops hold out the fabric away from your skin, pantalettes absorb sweat and act as anti-chafing devices and you quickly learn a little wiggle that allows fresh air up into your legs and nethers, and the skirts provide shade. If I didn’t have to do work, I’d far rather wear the hoopskirts than the heavy field skirts that stick to your skin. (My years working at Renaissance Faires are my cite; the times I dressed in the Noble Class were so much more comfortable than the Peasant Class times.)
The 1880s were probably a high point for men’s fashion. The women’s of the same time period isn’t bad either.
Elizabethan England and the 1970s are certainly low points.
The Roman era was never particularly good for men. A proper toga, even on a well-built, muscular fellow still only ever looks a bit drab. Nor does a tunic do much better. The military garb doesn’t have enough style to compete against a Scottish kilt, on the bottom, and the fancy chest plates are just garish. Only the helmets were pretty reasonable.
Japanese fashion, for noble women, was pretty awful. They would shave off their eyebrows and paint on fake ones, midway on their forehead, and dye their teeth black. Neither is a great look, and I can’t imagine that they were any better combined.
I’ll defend the 70s a bit. Hey, at least there was fashion then. Today? I don’t get the OP’s claim that 2000-2010 could be considered a bad era for fashion. I think it was nothing more than an extension of the Neutral 90s. And that continues today.
Also keep in mind that fashion was changing very rapidly in the 70s. At the start, it was similar to the 60s (which for some reason does not draw criticism, but that’s when nasty polyester got its start. A lot of women’s fashion from the late 60s looks cheap and ugly). Then every year was different. Leisure suits were not around for very long. Then by the late 70s, it really was a very different world with a sort of sleeker, more urban look.
Here’s a cool site of old Sears and JC Penny catalogs:
Compare 1977, 1978, and 1979, and they are very different.
I would also say there was a lot of variety in the 70s. The odd thing is that sometimes you can watch a 70s movie, and pretty much everyone looks stylish, and you can watch something else and everyone looks like shyte. But here is a video taken at a pub in 1975 (a great song by Dr. Feelgood, too). The bnd looks pretty cool, and the people in the crowd hardly look bad (the video has an oddly modern look to it too. The banner behind the band looks like something a radio station might put up today.)
Sure, with the 70s, you can point to excesses and fashion atrocities, but is your definition of good fashion "mistakes were not made"? If so, then the 70s flunks, as it was a decade of trial and error. 1994-2014? Twenty years of not trying at all.
Its kinda hard to view the seventies strictly on clothes alone. Part of the seventies looked like a continuation of the sixties, something out of austin powers with the mau suits and the mini dresses, and all the trippy hippy stuff. When I was watching life on mars on the other hand, none of the clothing was what I would call too out of the zone.
But the big afro’s and the side burns, completed the look for most guys. I was a kid in the seventies, so it was either jeans or tough skins for pants and some no name sneaker that my mom picked up in the bargain store. Addidas track suits were in vogue, as leisure wear. Not that it did not occur, but growing up in Toronto, most of the attire was conservative in nature, guys still wore suits and ties, or sports coats and ties.
The hippy types, tended if anything, to wear turtlenecks with sports jackets or that frumpy professor look, jackets with patches on the elbows.
I’ll defend the 70s too. It was my decade for being in high school and then university. Two trends that have either remained till now or have been revived are the woman’s tailored suit, so thank YOU Yves St Laurent, and the high waisted pant, which is on trend the past season and this one too, IIRC.
I still wear a tweed hacking jacket I bought at Eatons in 1977 and it looks fresh since it is tailored. It had a pair of pants but they wore out long since.
Oh, and let’s not forget the wrap dress? Probably one of the strongest fashion influences having been translate to tops and skirts and jackets. Diane Von Furstenburg is brilliant for that innovation. I have at least 2 wrap dresses and a few tops as well. I actually sewed a wrap coat for myself in 1979.
The monochromatic look for women was also quite an innovation. Separates from the same colour palette put together in an ensemble.
I thought the 90s were particularly bad in that there was no “fashion” to speak of. At least nothing that stood out as particularly distinctive of the decade. Unless you count the oversized jeans, T-shirts and plaid shirts everyone wore that made them look like a Seattle hobo.
The Iggy Azalea video for Fancy references the 90s film “Clueless” heavily, but if I hadn’t seen that film, I would have no idea if this video is supposed to be retro 90s, 80s, 2000s or contemporary. I feel like people have been wearing the same generic and garish Gap / Banana Republic / Express / pick any mall chain clothes for the past 20 years.
Although people in the 70s looked like they came from freakin outer space, at least it was original and distinctive.
The Directoire and Empire, definitely. The best decade-and-a-half of all is the one from 1795 to 1810. Madame Récamier and Dolley Madison, for example. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Admittedly, I was busy being crippled by mental illness at the time, but I do distinctly remember the women’s khaki cargo pants and (what I believe is called a) “cami top” style around the far late 90s, likely inspired by Gap ads.
That observation also represents a huge percentage of my collective record of awareness of contemporary fashions. Yay.
You know, I came in here to bag the 1970s, but I agree with this. On the whole, I feel like the '70s is the decade in which aesthetic style in general went to hell in a handbasket – not just clothing, but interior design, graphic design and typography, even automobile design – but, it’s true, at least it had its own look. Fashion has been feeding on itself for the past 25 years. I mean, JELLY SHOES are being made and sold (AND WORN) again, what the almighty fuck.
But to get my digs in re: the '70s…I work at a university and have spent some time working on a project involving our yearbooks, from 1910 to the present. Looking at the photos of the students and the campus from 100 years to now, you can see pretty dramatically that 1969 was the threshold year between “looks good” to “…and society has never recovered.”
I still have some saved files on my computer. Compare these students from 1965 and 1975, and look on that goatman in the bottom row and wonder what the hell happened to America.
My favorite decades for fashion are 1920s-1950s, and I also love the graphic design styles of those eras, too.
I have mixed feelings about women’s fashion in the 20s. I love that hemlines went up, but a lot of those drop-waist dresses were pretty unflattering and made women look like they were wearing potato sacks. I like 40s fashion much better.
The 80s were a terrible decade for both men and women’s fashion.
