Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz
Last summer was the summer of Woodstock, actually the 40th anniversary of the original, seminal event on Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York. The occasion of this long-expected, anti-climatic reunion has been used as an explanation for the “new” popularity of all things retro from the 1960’s. (Hippie costumes seemed everywhere on Halloween.)
See, I’ve barely analyzed this topic and already the above first paragraph shows the power and influence of public relations, the flaws of memory after four decades and the widespread use of generalizations by civilians.
First, the retro thing is not new and has been going on for some 30 years or more. Second, Woodstock didn’t take place in Woodstock, New York, but in the nearby town of Bethel. Third, what most people remember as the 60’s, really was mostly in the early 70’s. I still remember crewneck Shetland sweaters, Bass Weejun penny loafers and buzz cut crewcuts in no less a power center of the coming flower generation than Boston in 1968. Hash was still corned beef.
We went home in the Spring of ’68 only to return in the fall to the first sprouts of facial hair, the flair of bell bottoms and the sniff of Mary Jane. The eternal peace symbol was created long before, in 1958, by a graphic designer for the British nuclear disarmament movement. Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, not long after playing – sans ‘fro – in Little Richard’s band in 1965. Kent State was 1970.
The retro thing probably began first in the 80’s when, 10 years out of college and a few paychecks later, people longed for the cars they drove in the mid 60’s, the Mustangs, Cameros and Firebirds, that were killed off by the 1970s oil embargoes and VW bugs painted psychedelic orange and green.
Also, along about that time, Ralph Lipshutz saw gold threads in the old waspy tweeds of Yankee New England after years of non-conformist polka-dots, beads and rose-colored glasses. “You can look like old money, too!” shouted the young Bronx-born designer and he defiantly changed his name to Lauren.
All those classic horn-rims and herringbones simply looked better in Austin-Healeys and MGs than behind the wheel of a Chevy Super Sport with four-on-the-floor and dual exhausts. The beginning of the American automobile industry’s destruction probably started then when carriage trade meant more than horsepower.
Prior to all this, nobody wanted retro anything. Why aspire to the chrome and Formica look of the fifties, the olive drab of the forties or the thread-bare look of the thirties? We wanted a new look, not a hand-me-down lifestyle. So, Army-Navy stores started selling turtlenecks. Werner Erhard started selling new age philosophy. And Bob Dylan started outselling Bobby Rydell. Somewhere along Route 66, salsa out sold catsup and pizza was American pie. So much for nostalgia.
New technology helped spread new thinking. Color television was widely available and at lower prices by late 1960s. Stereo had fully replaced high fidelity. Movies were changing, too, and all these media were changing us. No more Dirk Bogarde in wet trenches or Humphrey Bogart in wet trench coats. Gone from the theater were the likes of “Gone with the Wind.” Fellini, Bergmann and Kurosawa replaced Houston, Ford and DeMille. The classic western was replaced by the art film and with it a cultural lifestyle based on history was replaced by anything avant-garde.
Arguably, really arguably, two things at this point other than Ralph Lauren contributed to the popularity of the retro look -- cheap travel to Europe and the movie “Bonnie & Clyde.” Huh?
As now-defunct airlines, such as Pan Am and TWA, fought for market share in 1970, fares to Europe dropped to a not-believable $199 roundtrip and, with Frommer’s $5-dollar-a-day guide, there was every reason to explore the stuff of history books. Retro was reality. French vineyards, Tuscan hills, British Cotswolds. So quaint, so charming. We saw Europe’s battlefields a mere 20 years after World War II – a refreshing change from Vietnam’s mind fields at Columbia, Harvard and Berkley. It was a chance to see Grandpa’s homeland and live the French you learned at school or Italian you heard at home. Capishe?
Whether it was James in an Aston or Marcello in an Alfa, we were evolving from “Easy Rider” to riding an easy lifestyle that would force us one day to look back. We quickly went from a patina to a shine, from charming to old fashioned in a blink, and never trusted anyone over 30. Maybe too quickly we rejected black and white TVs, Hush Puppies, Ramblers, Wiffle Balls and spaldeens, but also quickly missed them. After a mere decade, we made the “Official Preppy Handbook” a bestseller in 1980 – 30 years ago !
Oddly, Japan in that decade exploded on the economic scene and not only acquired our buildings but acquired our taste in foods, art and apparel. As things were made less and less in America, Japan was buying more and more J. Press. They liked the look so much, they bought the venerable New Haven-based haberdashery (now, there’s an old-fashioned, if not archaic, word). Even Brooks Brothers sells more there than here.
Then came the movies reinforcing retro’s renaissance. The preppy look, that died with JFK, was resuscitated in 1970 with Erick Segal’s “Love Story.” We applauded those wonderful stripped suits and fedoras in Bonnie & Clyde as much as the script. Stars like Warren Beatty, Ryan O’Neal and a young graduate named Dustin Hoffman made us long for a simpler time and place when a pack of cigarettes, a gallon of gas and a slice of pizza all cost 25 cents each. Candy apple red was dead.
Suddenly, retro is metro and we lost nothing in the process. In fact, we gained a lot. Brick and mortar instead of glass and steel. Cashmere instead of polyester. Granite instead of Formica. Leather instead of real Naugahyde. Books instead of CliffsNotes. Real, instead of . . . almost real. What were we thinking? It wasn’t disposable, it was despicable.
Slowly, nostalgic became analgesic. Certainly, not anti-septic. Definitely not anti-establishment. Clearly, established. Antique goods and modern prices boomed. Art Nouveau was, well, nouvelle, and restoration outdid renovation. Grand Central Station was saved.
Prell, Doan’s, Gold Bond, Old Spice, Animal Crackers, Peeps, Good Humor, Oreos, Ivy League, muscle cars, comic characters, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, three-piece suits, horn-rimmed glasses, classic, traditional, remakes, revivals, reprises, retreads – R E A L I T Y.
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