What was wealthy life like in the 1970s and before?

[Ozgirl75]

I was just pondering today, I can imagine and picture what it was like to be wealthy in the 1980s; a Porsche, holidays in Europe, gold fittings etc. But if you were quite wealthy (say earning 500k+ as a business owner, working in the city, banker etc) in the 1950s or 1970s, what was your life like? What did you spend your money on? What was your house like? Where did you live in fact?
i grew up in the 80s and 90s so it’s just hard to imagine proper wealth (not aristo inherited, more like earned money) earlier than that.
Anyone here grow up in wealth from the 40s onwards?

This is social mobility in action and not nouveau riche, I'm afraid. Grammar schools and apprenticeships led many of our parents into middle class, well paid jobs from more humble beginnings. Mine too. Nouveau riche is strictly reserved for the millionaire class that earned their vast riches vs inheriting them, and not your dad, nor mine that got a nice managerial job with a good salary and an Audi Quatro

money was people who inherited or whose family were in professional jobs eg Law, medicine and had been for years. Regular ski holidays to Verbier or St. Moritz ie glitzy resorts. You see these people in news film from the 60s. Rees Moggs mother was a secretary who married the Editor of The Times.

Well each to their own. I'm happy with my understanding of the phrase.

In the 1970s even the wealthy people, had a Radio Rentals TV and the same BT telephone

I remember this. The Post Office had a monopoly on phone lines and there was only one kind of phone. Nobody at the time felt their freedom was infringed by having the same phone as everyone else, but it does seem very strange now.

Foreign currency controls (which I don't remember) lasted for 40 years from the outbreak of WW2 until Thatcher abolished them in 1979. You had to get your passport stamped by the bank when you changed money.

My parents was wealthy like really wealthy back in 80’s and 90’s. I’m not from the UK though. I’m indonesian and my parents was wealthy. We hired private jet couple of times to go on holiday with family. My childhood home its near the sea and we got our own yacht. I got around 10 staff working at home. I remember i learn how to cycle inside my house because its soo big that i can just cycling inside the house. We often went to singapore for the weekend. My childhood was in 90’s. I was born in 89.

i got pony, riding school, learn how to play polo. Private school. Parents had some membership to private club in london and other countries. My parents business was in oil and logistics and face bankruptcy in 97.

@Arraminta mine was similar, although a few years later. My parents both left school at 15 and my dad was a mechanic. He always wanted to do well though, he grew up in a 2 up 2 down council house and always wanted more. He moved into sales and then set up his own business in the mid 80s which was very successful by the mid 90s when I was around 10/12.
They weren’t exactly ostentatious but they travelled first class everywhere (still do), my mum loves her Asprey jewels, my dad loves sports cars and although they’re not designer flashy, all their clothes are designer (but no logos!). I reckon my dad would have logos but my mum won’t let him 😁
They used to fly to the Caribbean on Concorde and they love places like St Tropez and Cannes.
I didn’t go to private school although my parents asked if i wanted to but all my friends were going to the local comp so I did too!
Our Christmasses were an absolute show of consumption though - I had so many lovely things, basically anything I wanted. My parents were also up with all the technology - the flat screen TV, the newest phones, as well as all those symbols of wealth like the Mont Blanc pens and my dad has an actual collection of watches.
Putting all that there it does sound pretty flashy, but my mum also drove a mini as her main car and shops at the local village and they’re perfectly happy at Pizza Express and they aren’t snobby in the slightest.
I was also the first in my family to go to University. I’m quite reserved with money. Our kids are at private school but I never buy designer clothes and I drive a Nissan!

"Older generations never followed fashion, but younger generations born in the 60s and 70s very early adopters of American styles (denim jeans, frisbee-playing, etc)."

In England at least that would have been younger generations who were teenagers in the 60s and 70s - people born in the 60s and 70s are generation X and we weren't early adopters of American styles like jeans, they were bog standard in England by then. I think jeans as fashion started more with teenagers in the 50s if anything.

Came across some housing adverts from the early sixties - big houses in central London (Chelsea, Pimlico, but also Belgravia) going for £10,000. Checked on a historical inflation calculator, that’s not even £200,000 in today’s money! Yes, yes, wages were lower but it’s still completely out of whack with today’s prices.

I was interested by the PP who noted that in her gang of kids the houses might be bigger or smaller but the things - phones, TVs etc - were all pretty similar. This was roughly my own experience growing up, and I have seen statistics that show that income equality was at its highest around the mid-seventies. Things have become a lot more unequal since then.

Some of my family were wealthy when my parents were growing up in the 60s.

They lived in large apartments off Baker Street, Selfridges was basically their local shop.

Someone got married at the Dorchester in a dress covered in pearls.

Tailored clothes from Italy, foreign holidays, fur coats.

I've seen videos of kids birthday parties where all the kids are in formal clothes and each has a nanny behind them! Babies in massive silver cross prams in Regents Park.

I've inherited some diamond jewellery designed for my grandmother by my grandfather, and they had a cocktail bar made bespoke for them too.

Their wealth seemed to fluctuate a lot and apparently my great grandmother when she was older was much poorer and struggled a lot - didn't even know how to make herself an egg for breakfast.

In spite of the comfortable lifestyle my mother was very unhappy. Her mother died when she was 6 and she was sent off to boarding school as her father couldn't cope. The other pupils were very racist towards her as she wasn't white British. She has her diaries and they are really upsetting.

My parents were both very 'counter cultural' as students, probably in response. They are both in professions now which are socially useful and sour pay particularly well - although they have benefited a lot from house price inflation!

Yes, 'teenager fashion' as we know it now (jeans!) began in the late 40s early 50s - kids born just before for during the war, not those born when the Swinging 60s were at their height (if that had been the case, who would have swung?). But that wasn't the first youth fashion. Remember flappers?

And fashion isn't only for the young. It's mainly since WWII that it's been also for the young, and that they've had different fashions from older people. Before that, fashion was expensive and for adults. But adults certainly followed it if they could afford to. And young adults have had different fashions from older adults for centuries. There are Medieval records complaining about young men wearing ridiculous shoes and silly, unmanly hairstyles. And look at portraits from the Tudor Court - older statesmen in full length robes, young bucks in doublet and hose with massive codpieces (and Henry VIII dressed as a young buck even when he plainly wasn't, because who was going to tell him he was a bit old for that sort of outfit?).

So - back on topic, adults who could afford to do so in the 50s/60s/70s definitely followed fashion. Haute couture or pret à porter depending on budget.