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The hippie look was paradoxically a very deliberate look. But the hippie look was definitely subculture--it did not define the look of the 60s any more than Goth defined the look of the earlier 2000s. The larger youth subculture was the pop look, not hippie. The pop look was also very deliberate.
I'm not religious, so I don't keep up with church life today, but my next door neighbors are this elderly couple, and they always seem to be out at the same time for a while on Sunday mornings, and they wear their usual retiree uniform of visor, Hawaiian shirts (we don't live in Hawaii), shorts and flipflops. Do some churches today allow that attire?
My grandfather, born in 1863, would not go to town without dressing in a 3-piece suit with pocket watch in the vest pocket and a gold watch chain. His idea of casual was to take off the suit coat. Men even wore ties while playing baseball.
My ggg grandfather had the nickname "Gentleman John" because he never left his house unless he was dressed to the nines. He was born in late 1700s. I don't remember seeing my dad in a suit till I was in high school.
I was a teenager in the 60s and college/career in the 70s.
Spent the weekend visiting family and going through photo albums. amazed at how dressing style evolved to the more casual colorful style into the 70s. But the album told the tale. I really prefer the dressed up version and find myself migrating back to that in bits and pieces.
Maybe it is just returning to your youth, but I like the 60s and early 70s look still. Neat and polished.
This thread made me look at one of my albums. I have two pics of me, at 14 mos. and 3 years, wearing a dress. Every single pic of me till about age 6 is wearing jeans or overalls. I spent those years on a ranch so I suppose pants were better for kids. Dresses always once I started school.
I was in my 30s in the 70s, worked in offices and dressed nice. I was something of a 'clothes horse' really. The days of polyester pants suits, nice heeled sandals, mini skirts and, at one point, Hot Pants sets. Loved those! Oh yeah, and don't forget the Go Go boots. I had three pairs. lol
Folks generally owned fewer clothes. The ones they owned often went from dress clothes to work clothes and once they were work clothes were patched and mended until they were shot. Women used an apron as regular apparel to keep their dresses better longer.
Shoes cost more, but they were built to last and could be re-soled and re-heeled until the leather was completely worn out. Men's shirts were collarless; on Sundays, men used a separate celluloid collar to make it a dress shirt, and very often a shirt front made of celluloid or starched cotton replaced the shirt entirely in hot weather. Long underwear was worn by both sexes year round; the summer underwear was cotton, and the winter underwear was wool.
Most clothing was more expensive compared to today's, but was made with durability as a big factor. There was no such thing as casual clothing, except for the very rich.
There was no such thing as casual clothing, except for the very rich.
That was true until quite recently, is still true to a bit of an extent. Wealthy people had clothing exclusively used for different purposes, including clothing reserved for leisure.
Of course, when the comparison is made between the incomes of the people wearing the clothes and the incomes of the people making the clothes then and today...it's still the wealthy who have clothing reserved for leisure.
When you look back at old videos of crowds of people from, say the early 20th century it seems as if almost everyone, man or woman wore something nice, or at least pretty decent, not lots of the ghetto-type stuff you see lots of people wearing today. And considering how large the crowds are I doubt everyone was really that well off, so did people back then just have an overall finer sense of fashion and things were more affordable, or what? While I'm not trying to imply every man should be wearing suits and top hats or women wearing nice dresses I always am amazed looking at what seemed to be the daily ware for people back in the day from watching old videos not movies just videos of large crowds and real life stuff.
When I see the newsreels circa 1900 and see males in their long sleeve shirt, jacket and bowler or similar headgear with occasional vests...I have a theory that being by today's standards undernourished, overworked, and continuously active required people to be clothes more fully than now particularly in Northern climates purely for bodyheat and comfort as men carried around much less bodyfat.
I grew up in NYC during the 1960's, and always had to wear a dress when we went into Manhattan. I remember being facinated by the cool hippies, with their long hair and brightly colored clothing. I'd come home, and tell my mother about the clothing other people wore, and she would roll her eyes. I guess the Bohemian influence captured me when I was around the age of nine.
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