"You'll discover that even driving down to buy bread can be kicks. You'll find yourself saying 'I'll pick you up' even when it's Helen's turn to drive. Or Ed's.'"
I love the use of the word "kicks." It's almost as if our little lady is getting in some of those drugs we've been reading about as the Summer of Love rolls in.
The mid-calf skirt is suddenly a mini skirt, but it's only 1967, and if you're as old as I am, you know what that meant — your stocking tops and even your garters might show:
ADDED: The anti-drug song "Kicks" was a hit in 1966. If you ever worry that you don't know how to dance, I guarantee you that 20 seconds into this "Kicks" video you will be able to dance as well as Paul Revere & the Raiders.
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76 comments:
It wasn't cars that set us free it was pantyhose.
I like the look on the cat's face.
Fagiddabout Paul Revere and the Raiders. Check out the Chere dance. Now that's dancing!
Cher...damn IPad.
Those garter belts were torture, sitting on those thingies that held up the stocking added to the misery. YES pantyhose were revolutionary! In senior year we were finally allowed to wear slacks to school.
I remember the misery of having to shower in 5 minutes after gym class, get dressed, wrangling with those garter belts, or worse, girdles, then having to rush to class in shoulder to shoulder crowded hallways.
Baby boomers will get this.
Playtex girdles, American chastity belts of the 50s and 60s.
Clothes were so uncomfortable back then, when the peasant blouses and skirts came into fashion, it was a great relief.
Then some dope invented polyester.
I remember walking to school, over a mile in mini skirts in sub zero weather, knee high boots and a long coat saved the day. On the days that I wore a shorter jacket it was possible to get frost bite on your thighs, in Wisconsin anyway.
The Paul Revere video...the woman on the horse! What's that all about?
Those garter belts were torture, sitting on those thingies that held up the stocking added to the misery.
It's not about comfort. Bring back garter belts!
Inga, My HS didn't allow girls to wear minis and slacks weren't allowed till the temps got below 10 degrees. Even then the girls continued to wear skirts.
1967 marks the year most dress codes on colleges campuses ended, 1970 probably for high schools.
I graduated from high school in 1970, the last half of senior year was when we were first allowed slacks and no way could they be jeans. Remember those huge bell bottomed jeans? What were they called, I forgot.
Kicks goes back a lot further than those Commie hippies.
Elvis got his kicks with the Jailhouse Rock and Danny and the Juniors assured us all the cats and chicks can get their kicks At The Hop.
Most women who weren't married in them thar days brought Daddy, Big Bro, or boyfriend to help pick put the car.
Many still do.
Smilin' Jack said...
Those garter belts were torture, sitting on those thingies that held up the stocking added to the misery.
It's not about comfort. Bring back garter belts!
Second that.
One of the fondest memories of my early adolescence was sitting in a doctor's waiting room looking at a smashing lady of about 40 with her legs crossed, hose and garters on display.
Inga said...
I graduated from high school in 1970, the last half of senior year was when we were first allowed slacks and no way could they be jeans. Remember those huge bell bottomed jeans? What were they called, I forgot.
Bell bottoms.
The ones that weren't so Donald duck were called flares.
The stereotype of the prim, lamblike knitter plagued me in the 1970s.
No Edutcher there was a specific name for them, I think it was elephant bells.
I still see stupid ads like that done by our dipshit local media...for some reason, the advertisers love the image of some middle aged woman riding a bike or scooter with both feet kicked up in the air like WHEEE! AS IF anyone ever did anything that indiotic in real life.
Kinda like how national advertisers love the image of a young babe sticking one finger in her mouth. (I at least get the implication in that one.)
I still pine for the days of girls in crisp Villager button down oxfords, plaid accordion pleated skirts to the knee, opaque hose or knee socks and Weejuns.
As foundation garments go, I like tap pants and garters. Those seams on pantyhose are a mood killer.
With a car, she can get her kicks on Route 66.
"If you ever worry that you don't know how to dance, I guarantee you that 20 seconds into this "Kicks" video you will be able to dance as well as Paul Revere & the Raiders."
Or help a "shy, fledgling, virginal, goofy girl..." get her "Kicks" from alginate.
If you want to learn to dance try Sam Cooke or any 1960s Motown. If you have a hang-up about black people try very early Young Rascals.
James Brown. In Africa, I saw baboons driven to dance by James Brown.
Women back then were very different from women today in another respect.
God damn it.
Peter
The cat!
Did you notice the video in the sidebar at Ace? The cat jumps whenever Mario Bros. goes ping. The cat jumps like that except higher and every time the sound is made, lands on its feet but does not skidattle out of the room, it just keeps skulking and jumping on the pings to compellingly hilarious feline affect.
Yes, Lonetown, rarely did ads in 1967 feature such a pussy.
Inga said...
No Edutcher there was a specific name for them, I think it was elephant bells.
Maybe where you were. not on the East Coast.
I'm thinking the cat can see a lot more than just the garter belts.
It's not about comfort. Bring back garter belts!
They increase your defense stats by 6!
That ad is so clearly geared to men of steel.
Buy that little lady a new car and she will throw off her glasses, let down her hair.
And then YOU, sir, will get some freaked out pussy!
Ha ha They even curled her toes. Well, the big toe anyway.
Inga said...
No Edutcher there was a specific name for them, I think it was elephant bells.
1/12/13 3:13 PM
The flare in elephant pants started higher, at the thigh. Bell bottoms flared at the knees.
Women who had cars anywhere between Chicago and LA got their kicks on route 66.
True Mary Beth and they usually had a cuff or an extra layer of jean material at the bottom.
"The stereotype of the prim, lamblike knitter plagued me in the 1970s."
Yeah, why is she supposed to be pathetic? Why is she unhappy? And why is the other version of herself ecstatic?
Hmmm. Fall of '66 was when my life changed in Ann Arbor Michigan - marijauna, music, and much freer sexual pairings. Was living with my soon-to-be husband then. Got married to him February 1967 - in a mini-skirt. They did get somewhat shorter over the next few years, but they were definitely around. Oh, and pantyhose too. No one in Ann Arbor by then wore hose and garter belts, at least among the university crowd. BTW, my husband and I stayed married until he died in 2007.
"It wasn't cars that set us free it was pantyhose."
Maybe true, wyo sis, but for those of us who went from garter belts and stockings to pantyhose, we still held on to "old ways".
For instance, when a stocking had a run, you just pulled out another one. But when our pantyhose got a run, we felt wasteful if we didn't cut off the side with the run, and then save it for when the other leg of another pair of pantyhose got a run.
Here's the fun part. Then we would wear two pairs of pantyhose, each with only one leg. And voila! That would feel quite like wearing a girdle...again. lol
Elephant Bell Jeans
Funky link.
And I never saw a pair of bells with a cuff.
Ever.
Must have been a regional thing.
Good lord Edutcher, you just HAVE to be right, hmmm?
Lots of bell bottoms with cuffs and they were called elephant bells everywhere, not just the Midwest. All fashion originates in New York, after Paris.
I remember walking to school, over a mile in mini skirts in sub zero weather, knee high boots and a long coat saved the day.
You think that's bad?
"My father didn't come out for 11 years.
He used to hit me with a yardstick if I made a mistake on the piano."
As good as it gets.
Not so sure it was a regional thing, edutcher, because I owned a pair of similar dress slacks with cuffs deep enough to catch all sorts of interesting things by the end of the night.
And "Hi", Inga!
It would appear that Americans of both Left and Right dispositions have had a hand in promoting extreme outcomes.
It started with enticing women to become equal consumers, and progressed to exploiting women for sex, taxation, and democratic leverage.
Oh what a tangled web we weave...
Hi Penny! Maybe Edutcher just didn't hang out with the cool kids;).
My favorite anti-drug song
Inga said...
Good lord Edutcher, you just HAVE to be right, hmmm?
Lots of bell bottoms with cuffs and they were called elephant bells everywhere, not just the Midwest. All fashion originates in New York, after Paris.
Never said you were wrong, just said they weren't on the East Coast.
It's you who can't stand to be contradicted.
And, where we were, bells were a kind of counter-culture thing, so the people who wanted to wear them wouldn't have been caught dead in "fashion".
Maybe it's a time frame thing as well, I'm talking mid to late 60s. My sister, 3 years younger, was part of the "jeans are always correct" crowd, so the "Greening of America" was more her time.
Maybe Edutcher just didn't hang out with the cool kids;).
If you meant the campus whack jobs, no I wasn't.
Happily.
Edutcher, of course they were worn on the east coast, good grief, lol!
I never denigrated my besoke style by wearing bell bottoms, but I remember the lemmings wearing bell bottom slacks with cuffs. I remember bell bottom jeans configured as bells, big bells and monster bells. Nothing was new, search "oxford pants" from the 1930s.
Frye or hiking boots, chambray work shirt or T, bell bottom jeans, they might as well have been wearing black pajamas and sandals.
Ed, bell bottoms weren't in fashion until the very late 60's and into the 70's, IIRC.
"your stocking tops and even your garters might show"
Yes, indeed. And as a 17 year-old male I could easily embarass myself. ;-)
The invention of pantyhose was a great loss to mankind.
Bell Bottom Blues, Derek and the Dominoes
I remember my (older) sister and her friends wearing bell bottoms. She also got hit in the head with a metal cafeteria tray in a high-school lunch-time mini-riot.
High-school lunch-time mini-riot: how very early 70s, that.
By the time I was in junior high the girls were wearing Dittos jeans. One particularly fetching girl would wear a light blue pair on the days we had square-dancing in P.E. She had hair like Dorothy Hamill, as were the times.
yashu linked...
My favorite anti-drug song
My favorite Jonathan Richman song
yashu, that guy made that video because there wasn't one.
I didn't like it at first but then found it very compelling. Rough. Raw. Hippie Johnny looks like me, so I was sort on Hippie Johnny's side. Then the straight guy shows up for a moment near the end and just stands there all judgmental looking and resentful in his visage. Doesn't look like the guy singing. The singer sounds stoned. It's and odd but very well made amateur video.
Ah yes, bell bottom trousers.
My favorite song about bell bottoms by The Blues Explosion
I remember my sister and her friends out at the pool in the summer. They'd use baby oil to get better tans.
Hate to tell you, but I saw my first pair of bells in the summer of '66. And, since '66 - '70 was my undergrad era, I saw all kinds, just not the ones you mention, but as you specify " the very late 60's and into the 70's, IIRC.", I'm going to assume we're on differing sides of a time warp you may well be as right as I am.
No offense.
Big Mike,
I remember baking under the sun at Bradford Beach, downtown Milwaukee covered in baby oil and chatting with the hoards of sailors that were on liberty from Great Lakes. My first boyfriend was a sailor, from CA. He was stationed on the USS Hancock in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1968, after attending A school in Great Lakes, he was an Electricians Mate. My brother was a Corpsman, he joined in 1968 and by 1969 was in Vietnam.
I don't remember when bell bottoms first appeared. I do recall that around 1970-71 the coolest look for older kids was a bell as biggest as possible and fit at the knee so tight that it made little wear crinkles in the back of the knee. If you didn't wash them often you could get them to "stand" on their own. That was cool.
Maybe that was a Madison area look.
Nope Chickie, remember those bell bottoms in Milwaukee, two days out of five we were in clinicals in nursing school, sowe had to wear gawd awful ugly student nurse uniforms, but I do remember wearing them on campus on days we attended classes.
But I used to wash mine.
But I used to wash mine.
Madison was full of dirty hippies at the time.
When you are playing Mosrite double neck guitar and a Vox bass you are allowed to dance like that.
Be still my heart. I had a mad crush on mark Lindsey back in my pre teen days. Before I discovered Roger Daltrey. And yes, garter belts were a curse. Sometimes one of the clasp things would pop, and you would be walking along with your stocking drooping.
I wore elephant bells in the early 70's, and I lived in South Jersey. I was still in elementary school at the time, so it was a pretty broad trend, obviously. I knew exactly what Inga was talking about.
I wore elephant bells in the early 70's, and I lived in South Jersey. I was still in elementary school at the time, so it was a pretty broad trend, obviously. I knew exactly what Inga was talking about.
Yes, we had elephant bells in Brooklyn, too.
Vindication!
The picture cracks me up; that cat's freaking out because it's seeing... umm... err... well, there's an obvious feline pun that can be used here, but I think I've dragged enough forums into the sewer for one lifetime. ;)
Bell-bottoms? What about their early 70s follow-on's zoot-suit inspired "Baggies."
Chip, with you on the video, it's awkwardly appealing (befitting a J Richman song).
Chickelit, JSBX, hell yeah!
I kinda dig bellbottoms/ flares, not the hippie thing but the louche 70s glamour (thinking Serge Gainsbourg, Halston, the kids in "Dazed and Confused" and the great disco dance scene in "Boogie Nights").
Dislike skinny jeans; I'll always stick with my boot cuts.
Too lazy to link before, here are some links now:
Kinda dig bellbottoms/ flares, not the hippie thing but the louche 70s glamour (thinking e.g. Serge Gainsbourg (also this), Halston, the kids in "Dazed and Confused", and the great disco dance scene in "Boogie Nights").
PS Chip, this may be totally obvious, or maybe it's just me, but in the video, Hippie Johnny and straight guy are same guy, right?
Which I love.
yashu said...
Too lazy to link before, here are some links now:
Kinda dig bellbottoms/ flares, not the hippie thing but the louche 70s glamour (thinking e.g. Serge Gainsbourg (also this), Halston, the kids in "Dazed and Confused", and the great disco dance scene in "Boogie Nights").
But, remember the wearing of bell bottom jeans on college campuses came before "flaired" slacks and is want inspired them in to the general fashion scene. Much like Ivy Style was the main stay fashion for decades after WWII and had it's origins on Ivy campuses.
You mention boot cut jeans, I wonder when they came in to existence.
i remember being a child, riding in the car with my parents and siblings, when there was suddenly a great hubbub and cries to "look! look!". to everyone's shock and amazement, there was a WOMAN driving the car next to us! this was not something one saw on the streets of 1950's ohio. the only explanation that my parents could come up with was that the poor woman's husband must have died.
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