How men used to be able to dress in the 60s

[thatdamnwoman]

I came across some photos on this Twitter site:

twitter.com/StuartHumphryes

Scroll to the third lot down, after the women in mini skirts to the groups of men and women. Men in yellow jacquard silk pants and pink and green velvet with chiffon shirts and hair bigger than the women's. Men could wear pretty much what they wanted and express their 'feminine' side. How narrow our bandwidth has become in terms of clothing. Every time some young woke person implies that people of my generation are old fuddy-duddies I'm going to send them these pix. Fags, no underpants, green velvet —shocking.

I know. Just what's happened? You walk round any men's store and the colours are so dreary.

Well a few people dressed like that, but mostly not. Arty hipsters maybe but not ordinary working people while they were at work.
My friend's brothers who were musicians had a great line in green velvet trousers, but our dads and teachers, not so much!
In fact I think clothes were generally more formal, heels and stockings and gloves for women, and ties for men a lot of the time. I can remember people commenting on my grandfather, who wouldn't wear a tie or footwear other than sandals, he really stood out, eve n in our fairly relaxed area of London.

What about the New Romantics in the 80s? And how beautiful was Adam Ant?

I was a teenager in the late 70s, early 80s. I had short hair, dungarees and Doc Martens, I hung out with boys with long hair, platform shoes, shirts with massive collars, flowery ties, afghan coats, eyeliner, Oxford bags. There was punk, there were the New Romantics.

I was recently given one of my gran's photo albums after she passed away - I was the first grandchild in the mid-seventies. It's a real time-capsule. There are lots of pictures of my dad and granddads, and yes, my granddads were often quite smart, as ex-army men were wont to be. Not my dad, though lots of colour and patterns. And my clothes are all bright, comfy, mucking-about clothes, other than the odd party frock.

Sharp contrast to my DH, who wears nothing but jeans and a black t-shirt every day.

I agree with Delphinium; it wasn't usual to see such flamboyance on the streets - unless it was Carnaby Street or 'Top of the Pops'. And our elders definitely judged those who did wear it.

The FWR rose tinted glasses have put in an appearance again. I agree with Delphinium Blue - a small minority of people dressed flamboyantly then and in every decade since. Most, from the 70s onwards go for the terminally dreary jeans.

My father wore plain button down shirts with pocket protectors, if he was feeling wild he wore a muted plaid. These were always tucked into polyester trousers.

Generally speaking though, coloured shirts and flowery ties were quite acceptable. Sales of white shirts plummeted during the sixties.

I do think that gender is more strongly enforced today than when I was younger. The pressure system from social media telling people how to look. The pressure from big business to get people into narrow catagories to maximise profit which social media makes easy

.the more people wear a narrow range of clothin the cheaper to mass produce, the simpler the marketing, the more people think alike easier it is to manipulate them. Capitalism and patriarchy benefit. People who diverge suffer.

when you suffer failing eyesight as You age you will welcome the Rose tinted glasses. And the fact you can no longer see your wrinkles .

I could be wrong but I think the view of how a man’s body should look was different then too - you could be sexy without a six pack. Supercharged muscles is another box for men to conform to.

And of course n the 1980s, there were lots of men in make up and ruffles (of the New Romantics)

Fashions change.

(Especially as men were generally so much more flamboyant before the death of a Prince Albert)

It's very difficult to definitively pin any other aspect of life onto what is fashionable at the time. Oodles of confirmation bias, and general confusion n between coincidence, correlation and causation.

I came from quite a conservatively dressed family and of course my father and his generation didn't dress like this, but even in the lower middle class suburbs of Kent where I grew up there were loads of ordinary lads in the 70s who wore loons and long hair and colourful tank tops and that psychodelic swirly patterned shirts and stuff. Even my Uncle Lionel, a WW2 paratrooper, wore a pink shirt and a cravat to a family wedding in the 1970s. I have the photo to prove it.

Supercharged muscles is another box for men to conform to

I assume the rake skinny indie boy band look didn't make it past the rose tinted spectacles? Men in adverts are as likely to be that than muscley- probably more so. Fashion models are usually not muscle bound.

wore a pink shirt and a cravat to a family wedding in the 1970s. I have the photo to prove it

Thomas Pink's selection of formal shirts. Plenty of men wear pink, blue, lilac shirts as formal wear.

www.thomaspink.com/category/mens/shirts?page=2

I think we are still a gendered society. But honestly, I think we need to be very careful to think gender was less enforced in the 60s/70s. In those years many women had to have ‘home-maker’ roles. In some professions you had to leave once you married. There was not paid maternity leave. Girls were still being told at school that they had to do needlework and cooking. Women were very much in the minority in universities. Older women in these years would mostly have worn skirts or dresses (with a formal coat and hat when they went out). There was more making do and mend, so kids might be in older siblings hand me downs regardless of sex - but that was definitely the driver rather than comfort. Women were still hugely socially shamed for getting pregnant/having sex before marriage.

We don’t want to go back to that and that’s why some of us are worried about the reification of gender identities predicated on these sorts of gendered roles and assumptions.

There was A LOT of hostility towards men who dressed like this. I was (age fifteen or so) on a bus with a man back in the 60s who was almost attacked and was verbally abused - because he was carrying a bag, which was seen as dangerously effeminate. This was in London.

I don't think the OP meant that flamboyant dressing was widespread - more that nobody questioned their sex (or others') just because because they happened to like wearing flamboyant clothes.

Yes these people were criticised and I daresay there might have been at least a small homophobic element in some people's criticism. But bizarrely society seems to have been more accepting:

I am a man who likes x y and z

Instead of

A man couldn't possibly like z. Therefore I must be a woman despite all evidence indicating otherwise.

I always think back to the pre Victorian times esp restoration, Georgian etc (even medieval) - both sexes with makeup, huge hair (wigs) bright, embellished fabrics, cloaks, similar hats, the men's coats weren't far off skirts - in fact they were just shorter skirts, jewels .. (for wealthier people obviously) ... But even practical day to day seemed less gender divided.

I read a book about sex and clothing and they called the Victorian period " the great masculine betrayal" - when men could now not wear bright colours, gorgeous fabrics, jewellery of a certain type, embellished clothing etc , it was no longer "masculine".

I was talking solely about clothes. I grew up as a girl who protested at having to do needlework and domestic science at school instead of metalwork and technical drawing, ffs!

We have neighbours whose son used to have long hair but has recently had it cut short. The 'gay' and 'you're a girl' taunts got too much for him.

Andhow - exactly they could dress how they liked and still be men, they didn't suddenly have to be women. Trans views seem to be based on 1950s sexist clichés and fetishes.

When I was at uni about 70% of guys had long hair - if was the 90s, grunge was huge .. it wasn't seen as unmasculine in any way.

It seems like people think we're more liberated and open minded but they're not, quite the opposite.

thinks back fondly of David Bowie

Do you ? The man who had sex with a 14 year old girl.

Lassoffyvie did you take a patronising pill this morning? Hope it wears off soon.
Watch the documentary Tough Guise (available on YouTube) if you want to see how what’s acceptable/desirable for men has changed over the decades.
The point of being in an indie band is that you are alternative to mainstream, you can’t use them to argue your point.