Clothes question for guy and gal dopers who were American teens during the 1970s

In My Humble Opinion
1

There is a prequel to The Sopranos coming out in September called The Many Saints of Newark. It is set between 1967 and the 1970s in likely a two act structure, with the latter half featuring James Gandolfini’s son, Michael, playing Tony as a teenager. However, some of his outfits seem “off” and I was curious to see how accurate you feel they are. My dad turned 18 in 1972 but he can’t really remember the 70s, but most photos of him he is wearing combo of jeans, denim jacket and t-shirt, or at best a self made Kurta style shirt with jeans.

Anyway, here are the pictures so far:

https://nyppagesix.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/190409ss1.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&strip=all

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/vrDU6TDJN6j-KI9FiSbhkHK7-Yx5434uMLJYcEV4UbVOmB6buK1zasL2SCgafMWonWk2U3MY05ll4RFYzAAr3wfuqhuDkoXAjmtqeNcByH_4_RKLKaN_Sg5k7Ws5Q0vw5lmjWIjfjDtR5a3yjaUvPOiZMjTdEtCAF_qjUTf9K5Mj1UrbRGOMtZ-Lfct03draHxzbEOy4Y1qgpSU-W_kMlWJqGJslR1diHZBvvRTgMSRYx6eGzhW3

2

I was a teenager in the early 1970s. One must remember that there was a wide range of fashion for the young people of that time. Many of my classmates dressed as parents dictated and were wearing styles that the cool set thought were years out of date. Those given the freedom to choose often had the latest clothes and hairstyles. For example, in 1971 I was not allowed to wear jeans to school. This by order of the parents and the school. My father made sure I was wearing a bra and that my skirt was not more than an inch above my knee. My brother was not allowed any facial hair or wide lapels or bell bottoms. Two years later Dad had given up all those restrictions except that he still would not allow brother a beard. We wore as close as possible the fashions we saw on our rock and roll stars. We tried to look like hippie college students before we even got to college. Now there were some classmates that still choose button-down shirts and plaid pants. The girls who didn’t want to look like Janis Joplin, still in makeup and processed hair. Look at photos of Nixon’s daughters and the men they married. Also, there were differences by geographic region and class.

3

I don’t remember anyone wearing denim jackets or polo shirts at the time.

4

Jeans and a denim jacket were my go to in '73.

5

My dad practically lived in double denim. I have photos of him from age 17 in 1971 and he’s wearing a denim jacket, jeans…and no shirt.

But I’ve never seen photographs of anyone besides musicians wearing the wilder stuff Tony is pictured wearing in the photos, hence the thread.

6

Nothing odd about them, really.

But people in different groups wear different clothes. Joe Preppy and young Tony Soprano wouldn’t dress the same. (Nor would I dress as either.)

7

Shirt and jacket collars were bigger, pointier. Fabrics were cheaper, shinier, more obviously polyester. Sneakers similar but shoes were thicker, platform soles. Pants were slimmer at the hips with bell bottoms. Bigger, wider belts.

8

The shirt with the wide horizontal stripes looks like something I would have worn in the 70s, but I was under 10. I don’t remember much red in the color palette, though. The black-and-white shirt seems off color-wise too. One can always hand-wave away anything unusual about mob-culture clothing on TV or in the movies, however, as they’re so often presented as garish.

9

Bob Dylan

Graham Nash

10

In a moment of boredom the other day I was looking as some of the audience reviews of Mindhunter. Similar to the OP, some of them were claiming that the characters’ clothing and hairstyles didn’t look very '70s. Except the two main characters are straight-laced FBI agents. Of course they’re not going to be wearing wide lapels and mullets. They’re going to be wearing conservative black suits and conservative hairstyles. Other peripheral characters are police officers, who I’m guessing would have dressed about the same. Others are working class people in a rust-belt town who probably wouldn’t have cared all that much about popular fashions. The one character who maybe would have dressed a little more “70s” would be agent Ford’s girlfriend, a young post grad student.

11

Striped bell-bottoms, first pic, no later than about 1973 or so. Grade-schoolers wore them by that time

12

Please keep in mind that Seventies clothing styles began with Sixties fashions and morphed into Disco crud before ending with other fashion trends. Someone who was a teen in the late Seventies dressed differently from a teen in the very early Seventies.

But assuming you’re talking early 70s:

Shirts:
Pale blue cotton work shirts
tie-dyed shirts
tee shirts
peasant shirts (girls)
turtlenecks

pants were hip-huggers and bell-bottoms, later flare-legs:
blue jeans
solid colors in various fabrics (velvet, suede, polyester, etc.)
plaids (more conservative kids)

Jackets:
denim
suede, usually with fringe
army jackets (BIG trend)

Dresses:
empire waists (BIG)
Maxi or mini, generally
prairie or gypsy (Sorry–70s parlance)

Shoes:

boots: many styles, including work boots, granny boots
sneakers
mocs
rustic-looking sandals (We called 'em “Jesus shoes.”)

For men, a popular look was shirt unbuttoned partway, with medallions. (Think Donna’s dad on That Seventies Show.)

13

And fads and fashion changed with time during the 70’s. I remember wearing hip-hugger bell bottom jeans , the lower cut the better, during most of high school, but during my last year the higher waisted boot cut Levi’s , sometimes in colored denim, not just blue, were the trend.

I don’t remember polo shirts in the early 70’s, but they became popular among some of my fellow college students in the last half of the decade - this inspired polo shirt hate among among other students. I remember some nightclub that would allegedly make anyone in a polo shirt cut out the alligator or polo player as an entry requirement.

In general, the long unkempt hair and ripped clothes hippie look ramped down a bit during the last half of the decade, and our styling became a little more conventional. But that just might have been part of growing up.

Personally I was a big fan of embroidered kurta style shirts and peasant blouses with jeans. And a lot of vintage and vintage look clothes for dressing up, especially Victorian style underwear as outerwear.

I remember scoring a whole bunch of the Victorian clothing from my grandmother, who was an antique dealer. She laughed when she gave it to me and warned me it might not be as wearable as I thought.

The blouses and slips were great, but I had never seen split drawers before. So I didn’t get the pantaloons I was hoping for. I guess if I had though about the logistics of trying to pee while wearing full Victorian garb I might have gotten it, but I was surprised to discover Victorian women wore crotchless undergarments.

14

Polo shirts were an older man thing I think. I’ve seen photographs of my grandfather as early as 1960 wearing one, and my other grandpa wore them often in the early 1970s on a summer day as opposed to the usual button down shirt. I’ve never seen any photos from that time period of young men wearing them, unless they were conservative Italians.

15

Arizona: I never remember the stripes at all. And of course the padded denim jacket wouldn’t have been worn in Arizona. Solid colors and denim: the later it got, the more denim, and the quieter the colors became.

16

My father (who was in his 40s in the 1970s) would wear that style of shirt as a casual shirt in the '70s, as well. I don’t remember them being called “polo shirts” back then (that term, as I remember it, became more common when Ralph Lauren’s Polo shirts became popular later in the '70s and into the '80s), but they were the sort of shirt that men wore for golfing or tennis. I remember my father wearing Munsingwear shirts (with the little penguin on them), though similar Lacoste shirts (with the crocodile) were definitely also around.

17

Arizona: Solid colors and denim (and cowboy shirts): the later it got, the more denim, and the quieter the colors became. I never remember the striped trousers at all. And of course the padded denim jacket wouldn’t have been worn much in Phoenix.

18

What are you considering wilder?

In the first photo, everything is spot on except for the pants. Would have just been jeans in my neck of the woods.

In the second photo, the guy on the left is stuck in the 60s. There were some guys like that, but the 70s were more about being casual. He looks too formal, and his 60s haircut is too clean-cut. Definitely possible for the 70s, but not the most common look. I did have a leather jacket that looked a lot like that one, but I usually wore it with jeans.

In the third photo, the only thing that seems off to me is that it all looks too new. Should have been well-worn. You were supposed to look casual and comfy, not new and stiff. Could have recently bought the outfit though, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility for back then.

4th photo is spot on. I had a similar shirt back then.

5th photo also spot on.

6th photo the guy is wearing blue with brown. The shirt looks off to me too. Nobody I knew wore a shirt like that. The girl’s shirt looks off to me, too. Shouldn’t be so square at the waist, should hang down more and maybe have some frills at the bottom and on the sleeves.

7th photo if you were just wearing a plain T-shirt back then you were usually just being casual, and it was usually an old T-shirt. A nice new T-shirt seems a bit off. Again, not completely unrealistic since he could have just bought some new T-shirts, but not the most common look.

8th photo the guy in the middle looks out of the 60s. The guy in the right is also definitely out of style. If the guy works for some very conservative company (or the FBI or something) then sure, as those guys were typically still wearing 60s style suits. More fashionable guys were wearing more earth-toned suits.

Overall, hairstyles are spot on.

My take on it is that while some of them weren’t the most common looks back then, and everything needs to look a lot more worn and abused, but otherwise nothing is really out of place for the time period.

19

I was a teenager in the 70’s in the same neighborhood as the Sopranos was based in. I don’t remember guys dressing like that.

20

In fall of '69 one of my friends returned to the dorm with his denim jacket in a plastic dry-cleaning bag. Word quickly got around and he was an object of derision. (Good-natured derision.) “Ha-ha, you dry-cleaned your JEAN JACKET? You ironed it?” “It was my mom–my mom did it…I couldn’t stop her…”

Because at that place, in that time (Oklahoma) the idea was that your jean jacket looked as beat-up and worn as possible. Like you had it since forever and you’d never washed it. Also you didn’t want your bell-bottom jeans to look too blue. Holes were okay, so were patches. If you got a new pair you might hang them out in the sun for a week or two to get them a little seasoned. (But you did not purposely make holes in them. The holes had to be organic or you looked like a plastic phony.)

There were still preppy-looking people on campus, but mostly not. If anyone wore a polo shirt–and I don’t remember–it would have been these preppy people and it would not have been worn with a jean jacket.