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Olivia Schmitz
Trook
Writing 10 Section 14
16 th
March 2015
The Rebirth of the Flower Generation
Since every personality, interests and morals are different, there is only an assumption that an individual’s sense of style correlates in them yet differs compared to another individual.
Out of the approximated seven billion people in the world, several ideas will clash with another.
Meaning at one point, similar ideas like silhouettes or patterns in the fashion community will collide. Since clothing designs are produced by the artist’s imagination, straining their brain to think of new inventive “looks” becomes a rigorous challenge. Naturally, borrowing a similar style would be accepted as a form of appropriation. After all, fashion is wearable art so it is easy to appropriate for the sake of reforming outdated clothing. Older clothing maybe seen as outdated, but some designers still see a potential outfit created from any decades’ old garments.
A lot of designers in the post modern time as a result reflect on the 1970’s era for inspiration.
During the 1970’s the fashion scene became a revolution full of colors, cropped blouses, and high waisted jeans. Eventually, this all became a product for the fashion community to reuse and manipulate, like any other appropriating artist would do. Through imitating the free spirit of
1970’s era, fashion designers encourage an individual’s self expression essentially to provide similar styles from the decade.
1 ST BODY: Foreign Countries (Talk about isolated countries pulling through and relating back to the world through fashion example, North Korea and Portugal): Looking back in the past, the fashion industry of the 1970’s decade decided take certain key components from the 1960’s, but with a fresh take. North Korea had become a desolate country, cutting off ties from the world since 1948. Since the country hardly relied on other resources such as trade, it was rare to even see equivalent fashion trends. By the late 1960’s, early 1970’s, North Korean women wore the same trends of the business attire genre. Usually, when business attire is mentioned, suits and sophisticated clothing instantly comes to mind. During the 1970’s the bright array of colors was still used even in the office apparel. Essentially, not even North Korea, one of the most isolated countries on the globe could resist the fashion trends (Kim 12-22). The significance is the universal language of fashion trends, speaking to the world on a safe basis.
Another example includes the aftermath of the Portuguese revolution. The citizens of Portugal reconnected with their trades to the world, mainly through exporting fashion (Da Coasta Soares
4-8). With the help of foreign countries, the United States used certain foreign styles like “mod” and “hippies” creating relevance and turning the 1970’s into one of the better fashion decades.

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For instance, movies released in London during the seventies majority of the time wore a mod wardrobe (Smith 11-19). Mod fashion was iconic enough to be shown to an audience in a movie once, and having a demand for a similar closet to the actors in a movie. Today, mod is appropriated for minor yet significant aspects pertaining to taking an old fad and dusting it off, sold as a new start. Likewise, hippie apparel carried over from the 1960’s into the seventies, and continues to be a prevalent sense of style. For example, tie-dye has been passed down for generations used in clothing and accessories. The psychedelic waves of tie-dye are still practiced, continuously used as a fun activity to individuals. Certain “accent” styles hippies had worn like fringe vests, bell bottomed jeans, and thick heeled shoes are not seen as much with the whole
“look” (Welters 14-17). These pieces are made into accent pieces, complementing an individual’s outfit, enhancing the outfit of the day. Like Mod and “hippie” styles being appropriated, it is common for fashion designers to resell old looks to a young public.
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POSSIBLY BREAK MOD INTO ITS OWN SECTION.
Talk about how Hippies and Mod dominated… than transition into the sub-unit categories of the 1970’s that were still a stylish fad used into modern times as well.
3 rd Body: Sub-unit dominance The natural instinct for future generations was to eventually pass on well known fads to the following generation. In our modern time society, the huge influence of the 1970’s is still significant even if there is a simple portion. Like the sub-unit known as “punk”, other minor styles reflected into bigger fads to modern times (McMahon 21-
49). Essentially, the so called “sidekicks” that did not have a dominant voice in the fashion industry never died. In fact, styles like “punk” are well known in the current fashion community.
Once a trend is started, even during a focused theme like the seventies, it never dies due to specific audience’s interest. Therefore, designers recreating even the small scaled styles are dusting off the lint and presenting to a younger consumer. Designers know there is a factoring agent of appropriating the era. Their work through appropriating past garments is made for various reasons, except some parties cannot accept appropriation for their own multiple reasons.
Presumably, there will always be a fighting argument against the defending opposite end of the spectrum known as the appropriating designers. One of the main arguments against the
1970’s enthusiasts would be the inauthentic essence in their design. Meaning, since designers produce the 70’s style in modern times, the consumers are usually wearing the ode are using history as an accessory. For the people who had the decade embedded into their childhood or even spent a significant time as an adult during the time, feel robbed of their past. Even if history is repeated for a good cause, in other words injecting some old trends into post modern times, some doubtful individuals are willing to accept the past. During the 1970’s period, the “natural look” was ubiquitous (Welters, 15-16). The current (and even past decades) saw this as an opportunity to insert the importance during their time period. Appropriating from the 1970’s is only a respectful reliving of the great qualities lived during the seventies. A consumer is a major factor to what currently trends. If an audience enjoys older styles for their own form of self expression there is nothing to stop the fad.

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Self expression is labeled primarily through how an individual dresses. Consequently, fashion designers live to make a production, hoping to please an audience. Ties with the seventies coming back into fashion could be through an older designer recreating their own past.
If not, the resourceful use of younger designers includes a genuine interest in fashion’s greatest achievements. Essentially, once old fashion is reintroduced, new generations can easily see this as a new statement piece to stand out of the crowd. Self expression is practiced through testing an assortment of styles. One of the main styles still practiced in terms of self expression is through androgynous designs. Back in the 1970’s it was clear that men and women both wore illfitting pants in comparison to their loose blouses (Suterwalla 10-16). In our post modern time, androgyny has evolved into more than slight similarities. Androgyny has become literal swaps for the opposite sex to partake in a different silhouette. For instance, women are accepted to wear more suits, dress shirts, and/or slacks specifically made for them. Regardless of repeating the seventies there is an essence of freedom when a designer can pour their hearts out into encouraging self expression to a crowd.
DO WORK. THIS CONCLUSION BLOWS ASS: The 1970’s era was one of the most colorful decades in its early times from the transitional phase from the 1960’s. Although the
1970’s had a stage of bright, popping colors, around the mid seventies, the brightness trend died and colors became more muted and almost matured (Welters 27-28). Proving that trends come and go, this never means trends will officially die. Fashion repeats like history does at some point. Appropriation of the seventies fashion is an intelligent move on the fashion communities’ part. Designers not only making a profit on their own resourceful instincts, but they’re contributing to an individuals’ self expression. Dusting off the aged bell bottom jeans and tight dress shirt has demonstrated any reference to seventies can be a new and exciting take the fashion industry can redo like they had created in the past.

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Works Cited
1.
Da Costa Soares, Paula. "Portuguese Fashion Design Emerging Between Dictatorship and Fast Fashion." Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture 15.2 (2011):
225-38. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
2.
Kim, Suk-Young. "Dressed to Kill: Women's Fashion and Body Politics in North Korean
Visual Media (1960s - 1970s)." Positions 19.1 (2011): 159-91. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
3.
Manzano, Valeria. "The Blue Jean Generation: Youth, Gender, and Sexuality in Buenos
Aires, 1958-1975." Journal of Social History 42.3 (2009): 657-76. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
4.
Mcmahon, Marci R. "Self-Fashioning through Glamour and Punk in East Los Angeles
Patssi Valdez in Asco's Instant Mural and A La Mode." Aztlan . Vol. 36. N.p.: n.p., 2011.
21-49. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
5.
Smith, Justin. "Calculated Risks: Film Finances and British Independents in the
1970s." Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television 34.1 (2014): 85-102. Web. 8 Mar.
2015.
6.
Suterwalla, Shehnaz. "Cut, Layer, Break, Fold: Fashioning Gendered Difference, 1970s to the Present." Women's Studies Quarterly . Vol. 41. N.p.: n.p., 2013. 267-84. Web. 8
Mar. 2015.
7.
Welters, Linda. "The Natural Look: American Style in the 1970s." Fashion Theory: The
Journal of Dress, Body & Culture 12.4 (2008): 489-510. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.