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Even the interior decoration was horrid!:
Every decade could be considered a tacky time depending on one’s viewpoint.
Do you think skinny jeans (the models’s physique not withstanding) are somehow more flattering or less stupid looking than bell bottoms?
Or that neck beards or these stupid haircuts look better than feathered hair and mustaches?
I can’t say much in defense of classic 70s decor but I bet there will come a time when future generations will roll their eyes at our institutional looking stainless steel appliances (I know I already do).
Trends come and go and then come back again. That’s how, well, just about every industry stays relevant.
Just out of curiosity, specifically which of today’s trends do you think are superior to yesteryear’s?
None, in all honesty. I tend to favor the Mad Men look in fashion (for men, turtlenecks, polos, henleys, slacks; women dresses or jeans); simple. In interior decor, I tend to prefer the 1950s-mid 1960s “Populuxe” aesthetic. I think trends have gone steadily downhill since the early or mid 1960s.
Okay, I happen to agree with you there. Where I live it’s hot as Herculaneum and I’d still willingly wear stockings and foundation garments if those beautifully cut dresses were in fashion. However I bet plenty of people here, especially the younger ones, would say the complete opposite.
I think a good deal of the fashion of the last couple of decades has been awful and at least as unflattering as anything in the 70s.
1970s fashions, hair styles, interior decoration, etc. were still influenced by what happened in the late 60s. Around 1967 the counterculture exploded and, a short time later, the establishment started appropriating it in modified form for mainstream middle American consumers thereby resulting in a weird hybrid that is best described by the overused word “tacky” (although “eye-bleeding” and “nausea inducing” also work).
in the 90s when they still sold records on late night tv one record company started the "70s preservation society " and my mom wrinkled her none and said " who the hell wants to preserve any of the ugly crap from back then? only good thing from them was you kids and that depends on the time of day you ask me … "
ern nose …
Everything becomes tacky at some point. I look at pictures of myself from the 80’s and 90’s and cringe. What was I thinking? In 20 years I’ll look back to 2017 and wonder what I was thinking again. Same goes for household decor/colors. How much mauve and country blue could a person get into one house!!
I love the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s. But I was born in 1961, so I’m guessing that’s why. I have great childhood memories. I loved watching Mad Men and looking at the decor, clothing, and background to see what I could recognize from my childhood.
I’ve noticed a lot of the '70’s styles are coming back. LOVE it.
The country went on a binge in the 60s, and the 70s were the hangover.
Or maybe more like: the world went crazy in the 20th century. World War One. The Roaring 20s. The Depression. World War Two. The prosperity of the 50s. The social upheavals of the 60s. And the 70s was like the country trying to wake up from all the change that had happened over the last 60 years.
From the 80s to today we’ve had quite a bit of social continuity. Fashions have changed, but not the whipsaw changes of the previous decades. The generation gap is over, that was how the people who came of age in the prosperity of the 50s and 60s couldn’t relate to the people who came of age in the suffering of the 30s and 40s.
So the 70s were sort of the last gasp of the rapid fire changes, when ordinary everyday people would look at “what was in fashion” and start wearing that sort of thing.
Now we’ve had a couple decades of “the new normal”.
Wasn’t the '70s when t-shirts and blue jeans became causal attire? Those weren’t ever hot couture, but they’ll never be gauche either. Can’t think of anything analogous to that, really.
What I find most tacky about the 70s was the color palette. Harvest gold, avocado green, burnt umber… It’s as if the Western world decided to get back to nature by using every natural color at once.
As others have said, things come and things go and styles change. What will really bake your noodle is when, in 30 or so years time, people start doing their houses and apartments in retro-2017 styles. 
Why were the 70s so tacky? Because they’re about 40 years in the past. The curator and fashion historian James Laver formulated Laver’s Law, which shows, in very broad terms*, how the perception of a style changes as it moves further into the past. Note that according to that chart, the 70s are well into “Amusing” and moving into “Quaint”. Which seems to be the common reaction to the 70s now. The 60s, though, are moving into “Charming”; witness your and WOOKINPANUB’s comments about Mad Men fashion.
*Broad terms, because of course mileage varies. For example:
Oh, dear Og, “Mid-Century Modern”. I loathe that style, absolutely loathe it. But I have friends who adore it. Laver’s Law, again.
Advertising and colour television played a big role. The world wasn’t black and white anymore, and people loved grasping onto different colour palettes, all completely brought to them by TV commercials and marketing.
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I was one of those guys “hot-combing” my flowing locks, wearing the mock turtleneck under the Stars ‘n’ Stripes leisure suit with the bell bottoms that hopefully hid your vinyl boots.
We did it because we were raised with identical crew cuts, white button-down shirts and narrow ties. Anything less than total conformity was viewed as “sinful hippie commie stuff”. We couldn’t wait to break free… and go waaaaay overboard.
Do check out James Lilek’s “60s Interior Desecrations”
So much ugly, so much snark. I linked to the room with the caption that starts:
Imho men had the BEST hair in the 70’s.
We normally choose an easy, no fuss hair style. We go to barber shops.
I went to barber shops until I was 11. Suddenly barbers went to special workshops to learn how to cut long hair. Barber shops got remodeled. Hair salons for men opened with a entire wall of hair products, hot combs, and blow dryers.
I had a beautiful feathered shag. It took 30 minutes to get my hair styled. My old haircut took 10 mins.
It took me a half hour every morning to put in the product, hot comb it and blow dry. It took me another 20 mins to carefully select my clothes for the day. I got up at 6 AM to get ready for school. Looking sharp really mattered.
I was very pleased with my hair and look. I can’t think of a time in modern history when men put this much time and effort into their style.
I reverted back to a simple man’s haircut ten years later. Throw on a polo shirt & jeans. I’m out the door in 10 mins.
I gave my hot comb to my daughters 15 years ago. 
I do have a lot of respect for the effort that women put into their hair.
Any one else remember when their barbershop became a 70’s style salon?
Mine closed for almost two weeks. They remodeled. Put in all the new signs and products. Even the two barbers changed their hairstyle. They called themselves hair stylists.
I don’t think the 70s was a tacky period…overall. I loved it in the 90s, and dressed in vintage 70s clothes when I could (Qiana shirts, wrap dresses, culottes with fisherman sweaters, denim flares with halter tops and Dr Scholl sandals, etc. plus Farrah Fawcett waves) and I still appreciate the best of it today. I think all stylistic eras from the late 1700s on have their high points, which makes it so hard for me to narrow down a personal style because I love it all! I’ve honestly seen little to recommend in the past couple decades that isn’t just a rehash of one decade or another.
There is no definition of tacky there are only the vagaries of fashion, which change over time.
The only strange thing is the way people feel so clearly that there is objectivity behind their feelings about how what is in right now is good, and what is out right now is bad.
Also, bear in mind that the 70’s fashion shoots to which you link probably bear as much resemblance to reality as fashion shoots do today: they tend toward the eyecatchingly extreme, and the number of fashion tragics who actually follow the fashions closely and to the max are massively outnumbered by those who do not and at most change their dress and decor only somewhat towards the fashion.
Acid
