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Some may find it fitting that this photo of me was taken at the San Francisco Zoo. I remember having striped pants in the 70s, but this total ensemble comes as a surprise, since I'd never seen this photo until a few days ago. It turned up in a box of forgotten slides at my friend's house. I attribute my expression to having just spotted him aiming his camera at me. For my part, I'm clutching my first movie camera, a Super-8 GAF job with an 8-1 zoom lens. View full size.
If I didn't know better, looks like a spitting image of Eric Burdon of The Animals.
I was in elementary school in the early 80s. My big brother is 6 years older than me, and yes, I was forced to wear his hand-me-downs. While everyone else was wearing current fashions and dressing like Billy Idol and Cyndi Lauper, I was the lost member of the Partridge Family. Paisley shirts with big collars, bell-bottoms and Hush Puppies.
tterrace...I like your choice in " Wallpaper" trousers. In the late 60's and early 70's I worked in a computer center and, usually, wore very conservative clothes. One day a workmate of mine said, " You know? If you ever die on the job they won't have to take you home to get a change of clothes. They can just bury you in what you are wearing". I decided to change my wardrobe and ended up buying double-knit, bellbottom trousers with a large square tartan pattern, a shirt that you could see a half mile away, and a tie with a psycho-funky-delic pattern. The first day I wore my new clothes into work the same person took one look at me and said, " Sorry to see your curtains died" and walked away. That was the last time I ever even considered what people thought of my attire.
I had some red, white, and blue vertically striped pants in the mid-70s. My Mom gave them to my wealthy, but cheap, Uncle. He still wears them occasionally to this day at age 80+!
Was that a Vidal Sassoon commercial? You look like a young Sid Vicious before he spiked his hair. I wore an outfit like that to a Halloween party a few years ago and it was a big hit, but now you might see it on the streets of Manhattan at any given moment!
Okay, gotta say the trousers are a little hard to take... BUT not as bad as mine: gray and red herringbone polyester flares, topped with a dark blue double-knit polyester blazer/sports jacket. Said jacket was fully capable of standing up on its own, it was about 1/4" thick. Like wearing a suit of blue foam rubber. "Draping " the figure? Not hardly.
You look like a young Leonard Nimoy in this photo.
your fashion came out pretty well. I've seen many photos where the guys are wearing leisure suits, or Nehru jackets. This is one era where the men's fashion was worse than what the women wore.
The 70's were kind of sketchy for fashion but you nailed the rock star look. My being ~10 years younger left me under my parents influence which made my portraits from that decade sort of buryable. Ugh.
Back then, the rest of us looked like that too!
Forgive us our past tresses.
The eccentricities of the 70s look quite mild these days, don't they?
Considering the styles of the time you are dressed quite nicely. That outfit wouldn't be embarrassing to wear today.
Don't worry, I've seen worse. Including what my parents put me into when I was a kid (late baby boomer myself) and what they were wearing at the time. And thankfully they even never subscribed to the psychedelic craze.
Apart from that, it would still be correct from a pattern point of view today (plain and plaid or plaid and plain).
What always gets me are those gun license grade shirt collars.
As the guys say, nothing can disfigure a handsome guy! ;-)
[Edit: One "b" too much in "boomer"]
Used ten of those GAF Super-8 cameras to teach film-making to my classes in media studies at about the time you were photographed.Not very durable cameras, most expired within three years.
To be replaced with another ten; students were never careful with hardware it seems.Had more success teaching black and white photography with Pentax SLR's!
The classic blue blazer never goes out of fashion.
America, a country that reduced speed limits to 55 mph to save enough petroleum to make double knit polyester suits! I hope none of my photos show up on Shorpy.
[Not sure those trousers are; I never intentionally got polyester double-knit anything. The blazer I remember having had for years and years at this point. Shirt's probably a standard cotton-polyester blend. n.b. This is not intended as an apologia for my past fashion choices. -tterrace]
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