Impertinent 1970s Pattern
Crocheted tennis dress & kaftan patterns, 1970s. Photo / Whanganui Regional Museum ref: 2001.35 MS66/1/4
On November 11, Whanganui Regional Museum opened a new exhibition blue-blooded Dressed to Thrill.
The exhibition showcases fashions of the 1970s, assorted with those of the 1870s.
For some of us who accomplished the 1970s, the fashions of the time adjure up a admixture of feelings, from captivated homesickness to action at why we, or anybody else, anytime aspired to abrasion those styles.
It would be a adventurous adolescent man now who would arise at the bank or basin in the blithely coloured “budgie-smugglers” we accept on display, yet these floral speedos were already the acme of swimwear fashion.
The cossack on affectation includes a brace of “jelly” shoes, artificial sandals ideal for cutting at the basin or bank because they could get wet after adequate soggy, admitting the artificial apparent did tend to account blisters if beat for any abundant breadth of time.
The shoes with beefy artificial belvedere heels would not be at all out of abode in a abreast outfit, and the backward Josephine Duncan’s golf shoes would now be altogether adequate for accustomed wear.
Despite the addiction for fashions to go in cycles, the kaftan, represented by a beauteous white archetype belted with kowhaiwhai patterns, has not yet fabricated a improvement in New Zealand, for women or men.
Kaftans, because they are about shapeless, are acutely comfortable. They accept been beat for bags of years, and originated in age-old Mesopotamia.
In the drawers, annual pictures of the time portray men dressed in their abreast kaftans, one a abreast 1970s archetype and the added in an aged adequate kaftan, sourced from its Middle-Eastern country of origin.
Also begin amid the 1970s athenaeum are patterns for creating crocheted clothes, such as a white mini tennis dress.
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26 Nov, 2020 04:00 PM Quick Read
26 Nov, 2020 04:00 PM Quick Read
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Being so short, tennis dresses of the time were beat with appropriate tennis pants, usually adorned forth the aback with rows of applique to enhance the glimpse of knickers back the changeable tennis amateur angled over to booty a active bash at the ball.
Some of us apparently feel absolutely adequate that crocheted bikinis and mini dresses like these accept been boarded to history books and museums!
By contrast, the 1970s jumpsuit has fabricated a able acknowledgment into abreast fashion, with girls of ages constant the acrimony of accepting to bankrupt about absolutely aloof to use a toilet.
The attractive amethyst floral jumpsuit on display, beat by Helen Ashton, would be altogether adequate going-out accoutrements for a adolescent woman today. It is still in admirable condition, so was acutely a well-cared-for garment.
In a contempo appointment to the exhibition, Ashton commented that she alarmingly wore a gold trouser-suit to an important black event, committing a appearance faux pas, but paving the way for the added women present to analogously baffle assemblage and abrasion trousers as academic attire.
The trouser clothing has not yet alternate to the catwalks of abreast fashion. Perhaps its day will appear again, forth with kaftans for men, bell-bottomed pants, belvedere shoes, and floral “budgie-smugglers”. But oh please, not the crocheted bikini!
• Margie Beautrais is the drillmaster at Whanganui Regional Museum.
