Vintage Images Of 1970s Women's Fashion

1970s Historical Events

Major events occurred in the 1970s which had a profound and lasting impact on world history. In 1972, the Olympic Summer Games took place in Munich, Germany, during which, Palestinian terrorist broke into a section of the Olympic village and captured some members of the Israeli Olympic team, when the terrorist's demands for the hostages were not realized, just a day later, millions of people from across the world witnessed the tragic scenes of the 'Munich massacre' as the shocking events unfolded on their television screens. The 1970s world recession was instigated by the oil crisis in October 1973, which resulted because of oil embargoes that were implemented by the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the Middle East. The embargo was aimed against nations perceived by OPEC as supporting Israel during its conflict against Egypt and Syria, known as the 'Yom Kippur War', which occurred between 6 October 1973 and 25 October 1973. The infamous world stock market crash that began in the United States between 1973 and 1974 was said to be another major contributor to the 1970s world recession. The 1970s was also marked by the shock resignation of the US President Richard Nixon, in August 1974, which related to the Watergate scandal, and after this event, the United States was plunged into a state of political turmoil, which exacerbated global political and economic instability. A few years later, the Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution, occurred between January 1978 and February 1979, resulting in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty (Iranian royal dynasty) in 1979. This led to the establishment of the Iranian Islamic Republic, and subsequently, Iran reduced its oil production, which caused crude oil prices to quadruple across the globe, initiating chaos on the world markets, high inflation across the globe and ultimately a second world recession began from the late 1970s, meaning that this decade became notorious for the occurrence of the very first world energy crisis.

1970s: Winter Of Discontent (1978-1979)

The post-war economic boom that occurred within the Britain from the early 1950s continued until approximately Autumn 1973, at which point there was an abrupt and dramatic downturn in the British economy that was predominantly caused by the world oil crisis in October 1973, due to Arab members of the Organization known as Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), who imposed an embargo against the USA aiming to demonstrate its opposition against America for providing the Israeli Army with weapons during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. However, there were other underlying domestic and international political and economic factors, within and outside the borders of the United Kingdom, which had compounded the adverse effects on the British economy. During the so-called winter of discontent between 1978 and 1979, James Callaghan the then British Prime Minister and labour party leader, had been burdened with resolving the obstinate demands voiced by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), and many other public and private sector workers, in addition to wrestling with the dilemma of controlling inflation and a new phenomenon which was called stagflation, said to be an economic crisis never before encountered by politicians anywhere across the globe up until that moment.

Keynesian economics is a political theory that is used by advanced economies, where high government expenditure is introduced within the economy, while the nation is in an economic recession or depression, on the other hand, less government expenditure is advocated during times of economic stability. Keynesian politics was used very successfully in Britain between the end of World War II and the late 1970s. In that era, most politicians and major economists regarded inflation and recession as mutually exclusive outcomes. British Conservative politician Norman Macleod (born 1913 - died 1970) became a conservative politician in 1950, and British Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1970. However, Macleaod made his name in 1965, after he officially introduced and debated a new economic theory called stagflation within the British parliament. which is the combined outcome of high unemployment, high inflation, and a prolonged period of stagnant economic growth. In the early 1970s, British politicians and major economists were deeply assessing the possibility of this new scenario and the dilemma of how best to deal with it. Unfortunately, as previously feared and predicted stagflation eventually occurred for the first time in the 1970s, this dreaded anticipated crisis, presented enormous difficulties for the British government because the standard political strategies had failed to provide a solution for it.

The United Kingdom underwent great economic turmoil, when it was plagued with discontented employees and disruptive widespread industrial actions across Britain by private and public sector workers, who were seeking a greater wage increase and fought against the wage restrictions implemented by the then British Labour government. The tidal wave of events culminated in the so-called 'winter of discontent' that occurred between the winter of November 1978 and March 1979. The phrase 'winter of discontent' was taken from Shakespeare's famous play, Richard III, and it was the Sun editor, Larry Lamb, who had sensationally coined the British winter crisis as such, when he wrote an editorial on the subject for the Sun newspaper on 3 May 1979. However, the tidings of gloom across the nation were augmented, as that winter turned out to be one of the bleakest and coldest British winters ever recorded. Industrial actions had included unofficial strikes by grave diggers situated in Liverpool and Greater Manchester, which caused public outrage when unburied bodies began to multiply. There was also a series of crippling strikes by thousands of Ford workers from the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), strikes by hospital nursing staff, domestic cleaners, school cafeteria workers, truck drivers, and strikes by dustmen that resulted in mountains of uncollected and decaying rubbish that had inconveniently intruded upon many public places in towns and cities (including Leicester Square) across Britain. Multitudes of peevish picketers congregated around pavements and public premises to express their dissent, hoping for better working conditions as well as greater wages. In total, well over 4 million British workers underwent industrial action in the winter of discontent, and almost 30 million costly days were lost to strikes at that time. In May 1979, the British general election took place, and following a successful campaign by the conservative party, the charismatic British conservative leader, Margaret Thatcher, charmed the nation by achieving a spectacular victory to become the first female Prime Minister in the history of the United Kingdom.

1970s: The Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War (1973)

The Ottoman Empire (Turkish Empire) invaded and seized control of Palestine in 1516, and it governed that region until about 1918. At the start of World War I in 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined forces with Germany and its allied forces to wage war against the United Kingdom and its allied forces. Meanwhile, the British were conducting a war campaign in parts of the Middle East to seize certain regions from the Ottoman Empire, which was partly undertaken because the Suez Canal was considered an important trade route for British trade with the Middle East and the Far East. The British Army captured sections of Palestine in late 1917, and by 1918, Britain had taken full control of that region. Arthur James Balfour, the then British foreign secretary, made a pledge in late 1917, called the 'Balfour Declaration', which was a promise by the British government to establish a national home for Jewish people in a region of Palestine. It is thought that this was partly undertaken to reward the Jewish people for their support of the British army in World War I, including the Middle East wars. The Balfour Declaration was written in a letter sent by British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lionel Walter Rothschild, who was President of The Board of Deputies of British Jews, and he was seen as a figurehead for the Jewish community at that time. Many within the Jewish community had welcomed Britain's foreign policy interventionism, as they had relished the prospect of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. On the other hand, the Palestinian residents were much aggrieved to be driven from their native land and had accused Britain of geopolitical expediency. After World War I Western European Empires divided up and controlled large sections of the Middle East, as a result, in 1922, the League of Nations (the predecessor of the United Nations) awarded Britain an international mandate to administer Palestine, meaning that Palestine was legally and officially under the rule of the British Empire from that moment.

The State of Israel was declared independent on 14 May 1948 by the Jewish community that had assisted with its foundation, and this marked the end of British rule in Palestine. However, the creation of the State of Israel had controversially led to the forced displacement of numerous native Palestinian Arabs, meaning, Israel's Arab Middle Eastern neighbours had bitterly rejected the proclamation, and over the ensuing years several major Arab Israeli wars resulted. The Arab-Israeli War (May 1948 - 10 March 1949) was the first, later followed by the October War (29 October 1956 - 7 November 1956), and then the Six-Day War (5 June 1967 - 10 June 1967), also known as the June War, but the Yom Kippur War (6 October 1973 to 25 October 1973), also known as the Ramadan War was arguably the bloodiest of the Arab-Israeli wars, and the most dangerous of the conflicts. The United Stats and Soviet Union had engaged in significant military support for their allies Israel and the Arab states, respectively, which resulted in tense confrontational exchanges between the two superpowers, over the Yom Kippur War, and this brought them dangerously close to direct nuclear conflict for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The conflict began on Yom Kippur, which is the Jewish holy day of atonement, thought to be the most important day in the Jewish faith, also, 6 October 1973, coincided with the 10th day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in that year. Meanwhile, because Israel was being supported by its strongest ally the United States, as well as several other powerful western nations, it was widely accepted by all nations concerned that Israel possessed a far greater and more advanced army and air force than the opposing Arab-Syrian forces, even with the advanced military weapons that had been supplied to them by the Soviet Union. Therefore, it was said to be a complete surprise to the Israeli high command, when the Arab and Syrian forces dared to launch an incursion into Israeli territory which had initiated the Yom Kippur War.

When the Arab coalition nations led by Egypt and Syria had launched their surprise military attack against Israel on 6 October 1973, their revenge mission was to retrieve land which was taken from them in the previous 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The Arab and Syrian coalition forces had coordinated a two-front attack on Israel from both the north and south regions, which resulted in a three-week-long war of attrition that would become the bloodiest conflict of the Arab and Israeli wars up until that moment. Moreover, the conclusion of that conflict shaped the state of relations in the Middle East region for many generations following that encounter. The Egyptian coalition forces were led by President Anwar Sadat, while the Syrian forces were led by President Hafez al-Assad, and their goal was to recapture the strategically important Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau in south-western Syria about 40 miles south-west of Damascus and covers about 1,000 square km. Importantly, the Golan Heights is a contested region by the opposing nations because it has important political and strategic military significance, one reason it is so highly sought after, is because it is an ideally located defensive and counter defensive fortress, conveniently contrived by nature, from which the commanding occupants can survey the land beneath it for many miles afar, particularly for Israel, it proved an excellent vantage point from which to monitor Syrian activities or any imminent attack campaign launched by any enemy force.

Israel's first female Prime Minister was Golda Meir (born 1898 - died 1978), she served between 1969 – 1974, and during her tenure, Golda Meir oversaw the tumultuous events of the Yom Kippur War, at which time Israel's Army General was Ariel Sharon, and it is noteworthy that during the conflict, many Israelis came to view Sharon as the hero of the Yom Kippur War. When the Yom Kippur War began, Israel was caught off guard and initially they incurred great losses due to the onslaught of the Arab-Syrian attacks, but with great assistance from the USA, Israel weathered the storm and then stabilized the situation after it won the battle of the skies with the help of American air defences and fighter planes. The Israelis then launched a swift ground counter-offensive, simultaneously in two directions, repelling the Syrian and Egyptian forces from the Israeli borders. The Egyptian Army was compelled to retreat through the harsh conditions of the Sinai Desert, where thousands of them were surrounded and then cut off from all supplies by the advancing Israeli forces. However, the Soviet Union was supporting Egypt at that time, and they had been closely monitoring the events. Therefore, when it became apparent to Moscow that the besieged Egyptian troops trapped in the desert was doomed to perish, the Soviets threatened to undertake unilateral action to rescue the soldiers, however, the threat of intervention issued by the USSR became a bone of contention for the USA, since they were strongly opposed to any such interference. The disagreement quickly escalated, which caused heightened tensions between the two superpowers. The situation became so toxic that eventually it led to the United States military forces initiating DEFCON 3, which represents the third-highest threat level defence readiness for a war, while level one is known as the highest alert for a war footing.

As the spectre of a nuclear war loomed ever closer, the then United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, together with his Soviet Union counterpart, Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, began a frenetic work schedule aiming to avert the crisis. The high-profile diplomats journeyed across land and sea, between important meetings for the engagement of intense negotiations, and subsequently to everyone's relief, a tenuous cease-fire was agreed between the respective nations, the agreement was known as the Shuttle diplomacy, which ended the Yum Kippur War. However, the Shuttle Diplomacy had only been a provisional arrangement between the nations concerned, but it was a crucial first step that ultimately led to a historic Arab Israeli peace accord in 1978, known as the Camp David Accords, importantly, within the agreement Israel conceded to return the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, and this ultimately led to the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, which marked the first occasion that an Arab nation, Egypt, formally recognized Israel as a legitimate state. Nonetheless, the Golan Heights remained a contentious region because the Israelis had continued to maintain a significant military presence there. However, most of the international community had agreed that the Golan Heights officially belongs to Syria. But from Israel's perspective, if the Golan Heights were returned to Syria, it would pose a grave security threat to Israel, as a result, the outcome of the events was thought to be a bitter pill for Syria to accept. Moreover, Syria remains vehemently opposed to this arrangement, as do certain other neighbouring Arab states within the Middle East.

1970s: The Watergate Scandal (1972-1974)

The Watergate Scandal was a major American political disrepute that occurred within the United States in June 1972. The events that took place were referred to as the worst political scandal of the twentieth century. It involved a group of burglars associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign, who were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office in Washington on Saturday, 17 June 1972. The burglars were attempting to plant listening devices within the building, when they were apprehended by the security forces, and the subsequent prolonged investigations culminated in the dramatic resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. American reporters Carl Milton Bernstein and Bob Woodward were both working for the Washington Post, at the time of Watergate Scandal, and when the events were broadcasted on national television, the American reporters were ordered by their superior to work together on the investigation. The two reporters later discovered that five burglars had been caught within the Democratic National Committee headquarters, and four of the intruders turned out to be ex-CIA agents who had previously undertaken security work for the Republicans, furthermore, during the course of their investigations Carl Bernstein, and Bob Woodward unveiled a shocking revelation, namely, the burglary was part of an illegal campaign of political espionage on behalf of President Nixon’s re-election committee, which the Nixon administration had unsuccessfully attempted to whitewash.

The American reporters eventually produced conclusive evidence that connected the burglars to a massive slush fund and a corrupt attorney general. A slush fund is known as a general ledger account of commingled funds that does not have a designated objective, as a consequence, in some cases, some of the money from this fund is notoriously used for illegal purposes (black fund) and can be deliberately concealed and kept off the books. It is believed that Carl Bernstein was the first to suspect that President Nixon was involved in the infamous plot, and by employing skilful investigative tactics, Woodward and Bernstein eventually discovered a laundered check that linked Nixon to the burglary. Furthermore, Bernstein and Woodward found additional evidence that incriminated President Nixon. On 15 June 1974, Bernstein and Woodward released a book called All the President's Men, which presented a detailed account of their investigation into the Watergate Scandal, and not long after its publication, All the President's Men became a best-seller. On 9 August 1974, Nixon finally yielded to the enormous pressure put upon him and resigned from office in anticipation of facing an impending impeachment, as a result, Nixon became the only U.S. President in history to resign from office to date.

1970s: Disco Music Era

Music, art, and literature are highly nutritious diets for the human soul, as such, the Disco dance sounds of the 1970s once captured many hearts which briefly soared amongst the clouds. Disco music evolved from African American music culture that began in the late 1960s in the United States. The name disco was derived from discotheque (French origin), which was a type of dance-oriented nightclub that first appeared in the 1960s. The early disco tracks were a blend of soul, funk, jazz, and pop music. The song, Soul Makossa, in 1972, by Cameroonian jazz musician Manu Dibango, was one of the first disco hits. Disco music increased in popularity and became more inclusive due to various contributions from a wide range of music artists. Disco music peaked in popularity between the mid to late 1970s, with hits from artists such as Donner Summer with ‘Love to Love You Baby’ in 1975, followed by Gloria Gaynor, with her chart-topping song, ‘I Will Survive’ in 1978 and Michael Jackson's 'Rock with You' in 1979 was considered one of the defining songs of the disco era. Meanwhile, Boney M was said to be the most successful black music group of the 1970s, when they created memorable songs such as ‘Rasputin’ ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ and ‘Rivers of Babylon’ in 1978. It should be mentioned that numerous people loathed disco music and openly expressed their disdain for this music genre. Nevertheless, during this decade, enough people expressed an appetite for this style of music to ensure its popularity and success. Many legendary pop groups briefly flirted with disco music during the late 1970s by adding a touch of their unique flavours. The Swedish pop group ABBA was triumphant with 'Dancing Queen' in August 1976, and in 1979 Debbie Harry, alias 'Blondie' scored with 'Heart of Glass' in 1979, meanwhile, the Bee Gees reached the pinnacle of their career in the late 1970s with a string of Disco hits. One of their many disco hits was the haunting track 'Night Fever', which was featured in the iconic movie Saturday Night Fever in 1977, starring John Travolta. The African American group, Earth, Wind & Fire, produced 'Boogie Wonderland' in 1979, which is remembered as one of the famous disco swan songs that glorified the end of a magical era. Moreover, it may be argued that the 1970s were the most musically experimental decade in the history of popular music, and disco music's impact and legacy have endured to the present day.

1970s Women's Fashion

1970s women's fashion witnessed bell-bottom Jeans, corduroy trousers, ponchos, gauchos, maxi dresses, punk, hippie, bohemian, berets, wide-brimmed hats, multicoloured scarves and platform shoes. Meanwhile, hairstyles were wide-ranging and daring. Some of the popular styles included afro, skinhead, hippie, punk, boho braids, curtain bangs, disco curls, and feathered hair. The 1970s were considered by many to be the decade of cultural diversity and considered more daring than the 1960s. 1970s garments were designed with bold, striking colours, combined with innovative risqué styles. The impact of the 1970s was such that it is now acknowledged as the decade famously synonymous with the ever-popular retro fashion.