What Can the 70s Teach us about Style?

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The 70s, God bless them, didn't teach us so much about style as they did about what's not style. It may have taken awhile, but we finally accepted that neither Elvis Presley's sunglasses, nor John Lennon's look good on anyone else. We learned that a warehouse full of polyester leisure suits burning down would poison a 50 mile radius. (Actually, I just made that up, but it certainly sounds plausible, huh?)

The decade started out with cheesy ballads on the radio like "The Way We Were," gave us thinky-feely stuff like "Horse with No Name," (I like writer Dave Barry's take on how annoying that song was: "You're riding across the desert. You have nothing to do. Name the freakin horse!") and had us all getting down to "Dancing Queen" (at junior high dances in my case). Was it any wonder that the decade wound down with "God Save the Queen" and closed with Sid Vicious dying of a drug overdose? How could it not?

But I contend that there really were some positive style concepts in the 70s. They just happened to be mostly executed in double knit polyester.

The 70s - more so than the 80s in my opinion - gave people permission to develop their own style. It's not the decade's fault that most people did this very badly. But if you look back at the silhouettes, many of them celebrated the varieties of the female form in its glorious non-shoulder-padded, non-silicone-augmented state. Same with guys.

But like a steady drumbeat throughout it all, the Ray Ban Aviator and the Ray Ban Wayfarer went along for the fashion ride, creating a small zone of style and taste on the faces of those who wore them, regardless of what else they had on.

Sure, the Wayfarers at that time were more the sunglasses that your Dad wore, but nobody can dispute their awesomeness. And the Aviators? They have always looked great on 99.9% of the population and always will. It doesn't matter if you're a happenin' grandma on a Vespa or a college football player in a pick-up truck: Aviators work for you.

All of which is a roundabout way of telling you to be brave enough to create your own style, whether that means Dolce & Gabbana or Spy. Hey, if it doesn't work out, you can always fall back on the Aviators and Wayfarers.

Labels: classic style, Ray Ban Aviators, Ray Ban Wayfarers