The 1970’s was the decade that introduced a softer side of tailoring, built around jersey and body skimming knitwear in liue of more restrictive fabrics, which was the start of what we now know as sportswear. Easy on-easy off pieces shot designers like Diane von Furstenberg to fame, giving the modern woman an effortless luxury which kept with the flow of the times. This progression was evident after observing the mental shift which occurred in the 60’s, and opened up a whole new sector of fashion for designers and photographers to experiment with. The 1970’s was also the first era of the day-to-night pant, emphasising the emancipated ‘charley type woman, such as Many Tyler Moore’, according to Vogue. Partying and having a good time topped cooking on the to-do list of women of the day, especially now more integrated and visible in the workplace. Vogue reported the ‘sexy, stylish revellers’ of the time, wearing slinky silk dresses exposing more skin and high strappy heels, adding an assertive provocation to fashion in the day. These women were often wealthy and appeared independent, unrestricted of the male gaze and taking risks by dressing for themselves. This culture of party people were very prominent in the Manhattan scene, with clubs such as Danceteria, The Loft and Studio 54 taking up pages within the magazine due to the influence they were having on style and popular culture. The freedom of these places helped maintain a social fire, possibly ignited by Woodstock in 69, of anti-establishment/ no-cares partying and joy. Designers like Halston catered for the time, creating second skin, figure hugging fashion using comfortable and relatively inexpensive fabrics.
Vogue described its reader in 1972 as ‘a modern liberated woman’, profiling Gloria Steinem and publishing female writers such as Erica Jong and Simone de Beauvoir, giving female creatives a platform similar to a mans. All of this was a symbol of change, signifying the start of a new unified world where both genders could have equal opportunities (many protests and gender rallies in the 70s).
Fashion photography had moved firmly into colour at this point in time, with new talent such as Helmet Newton creating provocative and riske images for the magazine exposing more skin and sexuality than ever before. Female desire took the spotlight in Newton’s ‘Story of Ohhh…’ was published in 1975, showcasing provocative images of women in both empowering and slightly degrading forms, with the sexualisation of women definitely on Newtons agenda. Despite this, the way images were constructed gave much more freedom to the female to be herself, naturally. Rather than being all poised and synched for the benefit of a man. One famous image shows Lisa Taylor sat legs spread in a relaxed manor, eyeing up the body of her shirtless male companion. This flips traditional gender roles where it would be a man is observing a woman, whereas now the woman becomes the voyeur.
The forward march of the women’s movement was rapidly taking off in the 1970’s, which also influenced the editorials and pages in Vogue as well. Fashion was more expressive and fluid, with models photographed leaping and dancing through the spreads. Photographers such as Richard Avedon and David Bailey shot models with an assertive confidence, empowering them through their photography for the world to see.
The 1970’s was a huge time of social change, with working class mentality often still very racist. Beverly Johnson made history as the first women of colour to ever make the cover of US Vogue in 1974 showing how the times were a changing. In an interview after the cover debuted Johnson said, “it wasn’t so much about the grand fashion fantasy it had been in the 60’s, as it was about the girl next door makes good”. Four years after Johnson first cover, critic Clive Barns wrote an essay on the black model, suggesting that she was the product of many new and enriching currents in our culture. Barnes famously said “we all knew black was beautiful, but it took fashion to show us how beautiful”, which itself shows the power of fashion as a tool of visual communication, and the power a magazine has for distributing these messages to ingrain social psyche.
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