Pictured here are Tiffani's Dad and a number of his friends in the late seventies. Fashion of the seventies straddles a strange line. The tight cut and clean lines of sixties mod fashions and the beat revival fashions of Yves Laurent in the late sixties melded with a greater interest in tribal and "foreign" fashions to create a decade with a truly unique palette, strange prints and lots of sequins. The men in these pictures epitomize a restraint and coherence of style in their clothes not usually associated with a decade that introduced some of the rowdiest and shiniest clothing of the 20th century. While their whole-hearted endorsement of platform shoes is somewhat disheartening, the juxtaposed patterns and subtly matched earth tones are incredibly intelligent. Take note of the bellbottomed sailor with a polka dotted shirt and clashing sweater vest managing to look real cool, standing next to a prep living under a professor who happens to be wearing a tie from the 1940's.

The seventies kicked off thrifting and vintage as we know it today. Deliberately repurposed fashion has its true origins in the mid sixties with hippies, yippies and various other counter culture types. In order to express their anti-establishment views publicly they would dress themselves in dated cheap clothing from thrift stores; the more outrageous the better. Our views of sixties fashion formed by movies or fashion books we come across rarely show exactly how weird it could be, see here. The seventies retained the sense of collage and lack of boundaries the weirdos in the sixties epitomized and added to them the novel idea of actually looking good. What makes these pictures and outfits so fun to look at is their seemingly effortless mash-up of prep, mod, forties and black sixties fashions into a genuinely unique and wearable look.

Dylan