People who lived through the 70s- why was everything ugly?

[stnmtthw]

So I was in the hospital earlier this week, and I'm recuperating at home. I found a channel that shows nothing but old TV shows from the mid 20th century. Right now they are showing reruns of Emergency! Which was a decent show, but... why was everything so freaking ugly?

All the colors are either puke green, dehydrated pee yellow, or brown. Everything was wide- the collars, the ties, the pant legs. Every third man has a John Holmes porn stach and everyone looks like they need a shower, like they just crawled off the Manson Family compound or something.

Please tell me it wasn't like this in real life. Please tell me that my parents had some sense of taste and decency.

I was born in 1980, so I've seen my share of butt ugly trends, but man...

 

[Esquire Jones]

One man’s ugly is another man’s…luxurious shag carpet?

 

[Buckaroo65]

Good taste had not yet been invented. But at least we didn’t have to wear helmets all the time.

 

[Blue Bill]

They used up all the good colors in the '60s.

 

[Peegoo]

Person from the 1970s, viewing the future: "Why are women in the 2000s dressed like sausages and men wearing huge oversize shirts and pants? Those NBA shorts are cartoonishly big. And what's with all the bowling shirts when nobody goes bowling anymore?"

 

[Boreas]

The women weren't - but apparently I was...

 

[Killing Floor]

My dad wore the most amazing suits when I was a little kid. They looked like caterpillars. Brown and green and weird. I wore a couple on stage in the past for fun. Lapels as big as your head.

 

[Engine Swap]

You had to be there.

 

[loco gringo]

Hmm.

 

[bottlenecker]

So I was in the hospital earlier this week, and I'm recuperating at home. I found a channel that shows nothing but old TV shows from the mid 20th century. Right now they are showing reruns of Emergency! Which was a decent show, but... why was everything so freaking ugly?

All the colors are either puke green, dehydrated pee yellow, or brown. Everything was wide- the collars, the ties, the pant legs. Every third man has a John Holmes porn stach and everyone looks like they need a shower, like they just crawled off the Manson Family compound or something.

Please tell me it wasn't like this in real life. Please tell me that my parents had some sense of taste and decency.

I was born in 1980, so I've seen my share of butt ugly trends, but man...

Fashion is just cycles of people getting sick of something, then doing the opposite, then getting sick of that, etc. Ugly colors can look cool and interesting, but when everyone jumps on the same trend the amatuers and kooks screw it all up. I think the real start of the ugly was actually 1965. By the late 60s the good style was gone, so may as well get wacky.

 

[bgmacaw]

 

[dented]

Los Angeles man. That fire Station is still there and visited regularly by a friend of mine. That is what it looked like then as a water starved area that was hot as Hades. In 1971 we had 200 straight days of 80 degrees or warmer with no rain. Everything was brown or yellow and John Holmes lived in LA.

 

[notmyusualuserid]

Like all who spent their teens and early twenties in the 70s, I yearn for the return of chalk-stripe suits and trilbies.

 

[1stpitch]

You think people in the 70's lacked "taste and decency"? You really need to get out more.

People of Walmart

 

[loco gringo]

Current fashion is so much more tasteful.

 

[rand z]

Expression.

Look at pics from the early 20th century.

Most men wore fedoras and baggy suits, to a baseball game.

Women wore dresses... everywhere.

In the 60's, peeps loosened up to experiment with everything, including clothes.

Women wore pants and jeans... everywhere.

Granted, not all looked attractive.

However, pants sliding down below someones butt, with their underwear sticking out, as a style, is not particularly attractive, either.

But, at least us oldsters' helped open the door...

for EXPRESSION.

imo.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

The decade that taste forgot.

If you think the 70s looked bad, the smell of the 70s was even worse.
The 70s also reeked of stale tobacco.

And there was also this stuff that every other adult male stank of...

 

[schmee]

Yeah, the colors were atrocious with today's eyes! Brown, Gold, puke green! Even appliances.

Just part of the "Flower Power fighting our conservative overlords" thing I guess! I used to have band pants made from a wall tapestry! At least they were not those colors!

 

[uriah1]

Better than in the 80s when everything turned to Miami vice colors.

 

[stnmtthw]

You think people in the 70's lacked "taste and decency"? You really need to get out more.

People of Walmart

Yes. Yes, I do.