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Jayne Dawson: Spot the era
APRIL 1974: City Square, Leeds.
We love the Seventies even more than usual in Leeds right now.
The clothes and the music have been popular for ages, but now Leeds City Museum has taken the interest up a level and is holding an exhibition devoted to those years.
To be honest, speaking here as Seventies Girl, it’s always surprised me how much today’s young things have taken to what was once known as the Decade That Style Forgot.
Those years didn’t feel as if they had much that was distinct about them at the time, and there was actually a lot of nostalgia for times past floating about – at least until punk came along.
Though I don’t know that any decade ever does feel very distinct while you are living through it. It’s the wonder of hindsight that makes things neat and tidy.
But an interesting point, in view of the Leeds exhibition, is how much life changes over the course of ten years. Can we really neatly sum up any one decade?
Life for me in 1970 was very different from 1979. But then it would be, since in 1970 I was worrying that the other girls would laugh at me because my new gymslip was too big and in 1979 I was worrying that the guests would laugh at me because my wedding dress was too big.
It was too. I must be one of the few brides whose dressmaker decided to make her dress stand off her shoulders by an inch, to make sure she could move her arms freely to eat her meal after the ceremony.
So as not to leave you hanging by a thread on that one, I will just quickly let you know that I did not walk down the aisle garbed as Leeds’ first wide-shouldered, power-dresssed bride. No, I stood my ground - and made my mum tell her to alter it.
Back to the ‘70s in general. In popular culture, there were massive changes. The era began with flares and ended with skinny jeans, and a change in fashion silhouette can tell you a lot about the way society is heading. if you didn’t know that before, know it now.
Drippy
Back at the beginning it was all hippie hangover: drippy songs, tie-dye T-shirts and sewing extra triangles of material into the seam of your flares to make them even wider.
And shortly after there was David Bowie - did I mention I saw him as Ziggy Stardust at Kirkstall Rollerena...? Allow me my small and often-repeated boast.
By the end of the ‘70s, everything had gone skinny, apart from hair, which had gone big. All those people who said they would never be seen dead in straight-legged jeans- and they did say that - were trying to forget their words. And music was short and sharp to match the clothes.
In the serious world, there was a massive divide between 1970 and 1979. Everything was a bit post-war in 1970, but by 1979 Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and the consensus that had existed between Labour and Tory, that the middle way was best, was about to be smashed.
As for consumer stuff – there just wasn’t that much of it about. The height of technology was an automatic washing machine ...how I dreamed. if anything The 1970s were more about a change in attitude than a leap in technology.
So I will visit the exhibition, which is on until April, and enjoy seeing the things I used to see, but as for really getting a handle on an entire, complex decade – that’s always going to be too big an ask.
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