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The 1970s - The Decade That Taste Forgot?

  • 27-09-2020 1:38am
    #1
    Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 12,472 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Now, I’m reckoning that that the vast majority on the boards here won’t even remember the 1970s - I myself only vaguely remember the very end of that decade as I was born half way though it - but does it really live up to its reputation as a decade of appalling taste?

    The evidence:
    Flares
    Platform shoes
    Bathroom carpet
    Fabric/wooly toilet seat covers
    Avocado, pink and chocolate colour bathrooms
    Garish, bold patterned wallpaper
    The all-electric house
    Urban motorways
    Mock Georgian style suburban houses
    Wood paneled pub interiors
    Bungalow bliss (blitz, more like)


    Anyone else agree - or beg to differ?


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Comments

  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,306 ✭✭✭bobbyy gee


    in years to come they will say the same about today

    even now every other year platform shoes and flares are brought out no 70s no disco


    https://people.howstuffworks.com/8-funky-fads-of-the-1970s.htm


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    JupiterKid wrote: »
    Now, I’m reckoning that that the vast majority on the boards here won’t even remember the 1970s - I myself only vaguely remember the very end of that decade as I was born half way though it - but does it really live up to its reputation as a decade of appalling taste?

    The evidence:
    Flares
    Platform shoes
    Bathroom carpet
    Fabric/wooly toilet seat covers
    Avocado and chocolate colour bathrooms
    Garish, bold patterned wallpaper
    The all-electric house
    Urban motorways
    Mock Georgian style suburban houses
    Wood paneled pub interiors
    Bungalow bliss


    Anyone else agree - or beg to differ?


    Platform shoes have stood the test of time...well especially the stilletto ones for women in porno movies.



    I always thought that women's fashion in the 70's was very sexy. ABBA style blue eye-shadow, jeans inside suede knee-high boots, fur coats (I know....not cool), etc.


    Also if you look at some of the sportswear from the 70's such as Adidas Rom or Adidas SL 72 trainers.....absolute class. More stylish than anything from the 80's, 90's or beyond. And the Cold War era tracksuits worn by the likes of Johan Cruyff and Nadia Comeneci were too cool for school.



    Super Ser heaters were pretty decent and I even thought they looked kinda cool. Chopper and Grifter bicycles......Ford Cortina, Granada, Capri......taste on wheels.


    I suppose taste is a subjective term. Does it mean refinement?

    Plenty of things from the 70's looked really naff with hindsight but you could say that about the 80's too and even the 90's


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 548 ✭✭✭JasonStatham


    Hah, last century, who cares. It's the twenties now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    Men's hairstyles and facial hair in the seventies were absolutely hideous. More than the clothing, or interior design (only really, really posh people had the coloured bathroom suites) men's hair was truly awful, particularly in the earlier part if the decade. Women's hair wasn't much farther behind in ugliness. People looked like they'd been given punishment haircuts. How anyone managed to get laid is beyond me. Unlike the OP, I was born at the start of the decade so my memory that goes back to about 74/75. Apres punk (which deliberately tried to disgust but was probably more visually attractive than what it was trying to destroy) clothing and hair became much more appealing before the OTT styles and subcultures of the 8Os hit and if course music in the late 70s was fantastic. One of my favourite eras musically - post punk/ New Wave.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,862 ✭✭✭un5byh7sqpd2x0


    What urban motorways??


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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,131 ✭✭✭✭TheValeyard


    Fabric/wooly toilet seat covers


    How?


    Why?

    Fcuk Putin. Glory to Ukraine!



  • Registered Users Posts: 17,195 ✭✭✭✭gammygils


    Agree 100%. Men's hairstyles and sideburns. And men's fashion. Flowery patterned shirts. And everything was big.
    Big collars and lapels, bell bottomed trousers and big platform shoes and boots. Definitely the decade that taste forgot


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,631 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    At least the music wasn't shyte, like now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,836 ✭✭✭Gregor Samsa


    I was born in the first third of it, so only have vague recollections of the tail end of it too. Looking back, though, it was a pretty shîte decade, and the only reason anything from came back in subsequent decades was for the irony factor.

    It’s amazing the difference between the 70s and what came after. Since the 90s, there hasn’t been such a marked difference between neighbouring decades, despite the massive technological advances that have been occurring in the last 30 years. 1995 doesn’t seem as far away from now in terms of fashion and culture as 1985 did to 1975.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,830 ✭✭✭tabby aspreme


    Can't forget the Bay City Rollers, and the Red Tartan they inflicted on people


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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    Fabric/wooly toilet seat covers


    How?


    Why?

    These lasted til well into the 80s. Not to forget the toilet roll covers which were dollies with large skirts that you placed over the bog roll that was kept on top of the cistern. Unless, of course, you still had a toilet with an overhead cistern that you flushed by pulling a chain. If you had one of those your bog roll sat on the floor. It took a long ime for toilet roll holders to become standard.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    gammygils wrote: »
    Agree 100%. Men's hairstyles and sideburns. And men's fashion. Flowery patterned shirts. And everything was big.
    Big collars and lapels, bell bottomed trousers and big platform shoes and boots. Definitely the decade that taste forgot

    Shorts weren't big. *shudder*


  • Registered Users Posts: 34,284 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    JupiterKid wrote: »
    Now, I’m reckoning that that the vast majority on the boards here won’t even remember the 1970s - I myself only vaguely remember the very end of that decade as I was born half way though it - but does it really live up to its reputation as a decade of appalling taste?

    The evidence:
    Flares
    Platform shoes
    Bathroom carpet
    Fabric/wooly toilet seat covers
    Avocado and chocolate colour bathrooms
    Garish, bold patterned wallpaper
    The all-electric house
    Urban motorways
    Mock Georgian style suburban houses
    Wood paneled pub interiors
    Bungalow bliss


    Anyone else agree - or beg to differ?


    I don't think the 80s or 90s were exactly paragons of good interior design and taste either.

    I know we're we've just gone through a bit of an 80s aesthetic revival and some of it is pretty cool with all the synth playing while Lamborghinis driving by neon sunsets, but Ireland definitely wasn't like that in the 80s.

    In the 90s we were also wearing clothes about twenty times too big for us and houses were full of flowery patterns and pine wood, it was hideous.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    Can't forget the Bay City Rollers, and the Red Tartan they inflicted on people

    Three quarters length tartan flares. Sooo attractive.


  • Registered Users Posts: 596 ✭✭✭bigar


    At least the music wasn't shyte, like now.

    Absolutely! Also some very beautiful cars around.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,235 ✭✭✭BrianD3


    I was born towards the end of the decade so don't remember it - but in general would Ireland not lag behind the fashion of the day. No doubt there were some attempts to be fashionable but I'd say that the 70s in Ireland weren't exactly the "decade that taste forgot" just as the 60s weren't exactly "Swinging". This was one (TV) channel land for much of the 70s. The Church was still massively influential. RTE 2 didn't start until 1978 and I'm not sure how any people would have had the UK channels.

    I did grow up in a Bungalow Bliss house built in 1975 and yes the carpets were strongly patterned but that was probably because my parents thought they wouldn't show the dirt. The house wasn't well insulated and I well remember the cold during the cold winters of the 80s. Also, septic tank piped to the nearest drain which was common bad practice at the time and probably up until the 90s.

    My impression of Ireland generally is that it was a miserable backward country until well into the 90s.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,836 ✭✭✭Gregor Samsa


    At least the music wasn't shyte, like now.

    While there were obviously some exceptional classics, there was a lot of absolutely diabolical music in the 70s. There’s also some really good music being made now.

    We only really remember the good stuff.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,824 ✭✭✭✭Rothko


    Surely the 80's were worse.


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 12,472 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    The music in the 70s was superb - Bowie, Elton John, Queen, T-Rex, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac all at their very peak - Billy Joel, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Suzi Quattro, Blondie, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, brilliant timeless pop from ABBA, the biggest band of the decade, disco music etc.

    But in terms of clothing fashions and interior design it was truly awful. I was born in March 1975 so I only have memories of 1978/79 - I just about remember the really ancient cash registers which were mechanical and cars with chokes that you had to pull out before driving.

    And yes, Ireland was pretty miserable, repressed and poor - but it was modernising andindustrialisng and was far better than the utterly grim 1950s - there was a booming economy just before the oil crisis of 1973/74. Emigration was in reverse and the population grew very fast between 1971 an 1981 - coupled with a baby boom between 1972 and 1982. There was also a construction boom in housing and offices which peaked in 1974.

    Inflation in the 1970s was through the roof and the post WW2 economic boom for most of the West came to an end with the oil crises. The telephone service was diabolical according to Dail debates from that decade.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,350 ✭✭✭corner of hells


    Platform shoes have stood the test of time...well especially the stilletto ones for women in porno movies.



    I always thought that women's fashion in the 70's was very sexy. ABBA style blue eye-shadow, jeans inside suede knee-high boots, fur coats (I know....not cool), etc.


    Also if you look at some of the sportswear from the 70's such as Adidas Rom or Adidas SL 72 trainers.....absolute class. More stylish than anything from the 80's, 90's or beyond. And the Cold War era tracksuits worn by the likes of Johan Cruyff and Nadia Comeneci were too cool for school.



    Super Ser heaters were pretty decent and I even thought they looked kinda cool. Chopper and Grifter bicycles......Ford Cortina, Granada, Capri......taste on wheels.


    I suppose taste is a subjective term. Does it mean refinement?

    Plenty of things from the 70's looked really naff with hindsight but you could say that about the 80's too and even the 90's

    Adidas Rom , jayzus that's after bringing back some memories.


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  • Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 10,364 Mod ✭✭✭✭humberklog


    Rothko wrote: »
    Surely the 80's were worse.

    Definitely.

    The 90's are looked back on well and fairly stand the test of tíme. But the 90's took so much of the good stuff from the 70's.

    The 80's fashions however are mostly best forgotten.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,361 ✭✭✭Charles Babbage


    What's not to like
    image.jpg


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat



    Marquee Moon - absolute perfection

    If anyone wants to give a child nightmares show them a picture if Dave Hill from Slade. He looked horrifying. And he was a schoolgirl heartthrob! God knows I loved Slade and still do but when they came on Top of the Pops I hid behind the couch. He was like something off Dr Who.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,389 ✭✭✭Badly Drunk Boy


    I'm sure you're not from there, but I read your last post in a Wolverhampton accent! :D I'm a Wolves fan, by the way...

    And I agree about Marquee Moon.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I think the 2020s are worse..

    Have you seen the state of the young lads these days with the tracksuit bottoms that are too small?..

    And the women with the eyebrows?..

    And as for the music..


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    People will look back on the interior decor now and be like "absolutely everything was grey.. what was with that?.."


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    CQD wrote: »
    I think the 2020s are worse..

    Have you seen the state of the young lads these days with the tracksuit bottoms that are too small?..

    And the women with the eyebrows?..

    And as for the music..

    D'ya know, I was only thinking recently that this decade will be looked back on like the seventies in terms of style. The short trouser, no sock combo on men and some of the clashing women's clothes and yes, the eyebrows and the collagen trout pouts on 22 year olds....


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    I'm sure you're not from there, but I read your last post in a Wolverhampton accent! :D I'm a Wolves fan, by the way...

    And I agree about Marquee Moon.

    I do hail from the Midlands but not a place where they say 'yow' for 'you'.

    I shoukd have said Dave Hill looked liked something off Dr How!


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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    CQD wrote: »
    People will look back on the interior decor now and be like "absolutely everything was grey.. what was with that?.."

    I'd take a bright pink bathroom suite over a grey living room any day.


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