“As threatened (promised) here are some more ravings about how happy we would or would not be if we could live in the ‘golden age’…
“The first point that occurs to me is that one can’t take fashion/clothing in isolation. I was born in 1958 and have memories of working and living in the ’70s. Specifically, I spent my childhood in the UK and migrated to Australia in 1973. My memories of the ‘good old days’ are of fuzzy, black and white TVs, music from a mono record player or hissy tranny, (or a ‘Stereogram’ with the speakers about two foot apart!), noisy uncomfortable cars (Hillman Imp, Cortina, Escort, etc), prejudice, and women kept in total subjugation. (You could be a waitress or bus conductress but NOT a manager!) Stockings or girdles or slips are all very well, but would you want to be trapped permanently in the past if it meant adopting all the other trappings of 1950, 1960 or 1970 along with them?
“Second point: I can’t remember the 1950s or 1960s, but as far as the period 1970 on goes, fashion wasn’t all that feminine or sexy! Just as now, women wore trousers (including that abomination, the ‘trouser suit’) or calf-length loose print skirts. Only older women wore girdles, and stockings. Tights were almost universal through the ’70s. Very young girls wore mini dresses, often with bare legs.
“Stockings did not really come back into the mainstream until the Punk movement. At the extreme end it was ripped tights and safety pins, but the less daring girls soon picked up mini dresses, black hosiery, stockings, etc, and the latter enjoyed a real revival through the ’80s. In fact, stockings are more common TODAY than in the mid ’70s!
“Third point, and most telling: In those days, if you had a sexual fetish about stockings, you had to keep quiet about it! You were a ‘pervert’ and ‘sick’… in fact, information about ANY minority interest, even quite non-sexual was hard to come by. I was a fan of British stock car racing and would search in vain to find any information. Unless your local library had a book about whatever you wished to read about (and it usually didn’t) then tough bikkies! Today, we can just log onto the net and find out about anything we wish, and meet friends from the other side of the world.
“Going back to 1950 for a visit might be cool! Living there for all time – forget it!”
