Shane WATSON
There are some reassuringly familiar trends doing the rounds, says Shane Watson
How Seventies is your summer? Have you found yourself googling clogs and aviator sunglasses or watching Jaws? Did you buy a swing seat for the garden or a record player, or just a Sodastream?
So far, summer has had a distinctly slow Seventies feel (we’re not talking
Disco Inferno, more Don McLean) and now – helped by the popularity of the BBC’s new Seventies drama
Mrs America – it looks like the decade has got its feet under the table. In fact, there are many parallels to the summer we’re having today, with the ones we had back in the day. Here’s your 2020 Seventies Summer: We’re staycationing. It wasn’t called a staycation in the Seventies, of course, it was simply The Family Holiday and all family holidays involved getting in the car and driving to somewhere in the UK, with opportunities for swimming. Now we’re right back there. Having sworn that we would never again huddle around a fire in a damp cottage playing Pelmanism, after a soggy sandwich picnic on the beach – that’s exactly what we’re doing for our summer holidays. Highlights will be much the same as they were in 1972: ping pong in the neighbour’s garage; eating 99s under a towel in a high wind; dressing up the dog and putting make-up on your brother. We’ve been eating mostly from tins (and making use of a lot of dry goods). As it turned out, we didn’t eat as much macaroni with tinned tuna and sweetcorn as we had predicted, but still, this is the summer that has revived our taste for Seventies classics. Home-made orange lollies, prawn cocktail, mackerel pâté, Rich Tea biscuits, Campari and soda (might just be us). Oh, and naturally we got a Sodastream. Good for the environment. Parp parp.
We’re wearing Birkenstocks. The Seventies hippies’ favourite footwear is now as fashionable as Uggs were in the early 2000s. They were on the way to being a “musthave” before the pandemic and then, when must-haves went out the window, Birkies – being comfortable, practical and unisex – perfectly fitted the mood. And it doesn’t stop there. When we could have worn absolutely anything, the clothes we chose for WFH turned out to be: denim dungarees (very Seventies); jumpsuits (Seventies), go with the flow maxis (skirts and dresses); clogs (obviously Seventies) and so on. This must be because these clothes are relaxed, easy and understatedly groovy. Also, for some of us, they’re reassuringly familiar, like an old teddy.
We’ve been listening to Neil Young. It doesn’t get more Seventies than Neil Young and this summer his “lost” 1975 album,
Homegrown, finally saw the light of day, just as we were wearing out After
the Goldrush. When we needed of a lockdown lift we went for a bit of ABBA, occasionally Godspell and a surprising amount of George Harrison.
We’re back garden-sunbathing (well, we were when the sun was out). This was the nation’s number one hobby during the long hot Seventies summers – that and going to the pub. (You could combine both if someone was brewing their own beer – which, if there was a man in the house, someone was.) This summer will be remembered for several things, but near the top of the list will be sunbathing like we did in the Seventies, on a towel in the park, or outside the back door, with a cup of tea and the radio on. The difference in 2020 is less baby oil (more Boots Factor 30), less smoking Player’s No6, less singing along to and this time we are wearing actual bikinis, whereas back then you didn’t own a bikini, so you wore a matching set of underwear featuring smileys or Snoopy.
We’re hair obsessed. Never have we as a nation been so preoccupied with our hair as during Lockdown – apart from in the Seventies when haircuts had names and you were obliged to get them, whether they suited you or not. A Suzi Quatro feather cut; a Purdey pageboy (or a Brian Connolly); a Farrah Fawcett flick fringe or more of a Chris Evert flick around; a wedge; a shag (a bit like David Cassidy’s). It’s not the same now, but given our new appreciation of the power of a haircut, it’s possible that we’re entering an experimental phase. We’re gluttons for light entertainment. We’re supposed to have been glued to Tiger King and
Normal People and I Will Destroy You and the one about Epstein, but plenty of us have discovered an urge to watch comedies with laughter tracks and all we’re really in the mood for now is Ant and Dec or
Bake Off: The Professionals. If The Generation Game was on now, or The Golden Shot, we’d be happy. (Also worth noting that Jaws – the original summer blockbuster – is a hit again at drive-ins, 45 years on).
We’re feeling like the lights may go out. In the Seventies they did go out and you had the sense that we might be in trouble. Have that feeling now.
There was a lot more body hair about in the Seventies – roughly 99 per cent more – but the natural look, thanks to the pandemic, is again the norm. As ye yet, there are no stats to indicate whe whether the women of Britain stamped stampeded to their waxing salons the day t they reopened (we’re guessing they d did) but maybe now the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, some will stick with the Seventies look and save themselves the hassle. We’ve got new interest in bathroom potions. In the Seventies you never got in a bath that wasn’t thick with bubbles or full of gritty bath salts. Lockdown has brought the bath back into favour (only had time for a shower before) and now it’s a fun ritual once more, with Badedas (can’t get Matey) and – if we could find one – a frilly stick-on bath pillow.