Women's 1970s Fashion Guide

The decade of the 1970s was not exactly sure what direction to move in regarding fashion. The 1960s fashion style was still in effect, with rebellious hippies and unconventional mods: short skirts paired with long coats, and long skirts paired with short vests. The early portion of the 1970s was similar in many respects to the previous decade — a handover, not a break — and our 1960s guide (linked below) is the right place to see where those looks came from.

In the end, comfort and casualness won the ’70s fashion battle. All the looks fought it out over the decade, adapting the mod style into a less plastic, simple ease and the hippie look into a tailored chic. Both turned to the use of color — bright color for the mods, earth tones for the hippies — and bold patterns were a highlight of women’s 1970s fashion. If we were to pick one pattern to represent the 1970s, it might be “paisley.”

Two Tribes: Mods and Hippies, Grown Up

The youthful women of the 1970s had a variety of fashion routes to explore. The mods were reviving the ’20s flapper look with cloche hats and shift dresses. The hippies were wearing a much more relaxed peasant style of clothing — making handmade clothing, and looking more as if they spent a long time out camping. Clothes were made to mix and match with each other, as well as across gender guidelines: unisex dressing, radical in 1967, was simply how the ’70s closet worked.

The peasant wardrobe is the decade’s most recognizable list: Indian block-print dresses, tie-dye t-shirts, peasant blouses, hip-hugger jeans, long calico dresses, maxi coats, micro skirts & mini skirts, jumpsuits, long knit vests and pantsuits. The mini shift dress, jumper dress, wrap dress, drop-waist dress and tunic dress were still trendy dress styles in the early ’70s — the wrap dress in particular would become the decade’s defining working garment.

The Pants Decade

If one change summarizes women’s 1970s fashion, it is that trousers stopped being an exception. Mature women (not the teenagers) clung to fashion from previous decades, such as the ’40s and ’50s — more of a classic style of clothing — although some mature women obviously wore the fashion of the younger generation. But by the time the ’70s rolled around, women were wearing pants in every walk of life: female executives were wearing business suits with pants, and women at home were wearing jeans.

The pantsuit is the hinge garment: the same tailored authority as a skirt suit, none of the restrictions. Hip-hugger jeans did the same work at the casual end — low-rise, flared, and worn by everyone — and the jumpsuit split the difference, one piece that dressed up or down by fabric alone. Our 5-pocket jeans guide (linked below) explains the classic jean construction that the decade’s denim was built on.

Wearing the 1970s Today

The ’70s revive more easily than almost any other decade because the clothes were built for comfort in the first place. A peasant blouse with modern jeans, a maxi dress with flat sandals, or a tailored pantsuit in a bold color each carry the decade without costume. Paisley is the fastest signal: one paisley piece per outfit is the rule, in the decade’s own palette — earth tones (rust, ochre, olive, chocolate) for the hippie line, bright color for the mod line. Vintage hunting is kind here: ’70s knit vests, calico dresses and maxi coats were sturdy garments, but check hip-hugger jeans carefully at the flare hem and the seat, the two places a decade of wear shows first.

Share your love for 1970s fashion: the decade rewards wearers who remember it and wearers who are discovering it alike, because its central idea — that clothes should be comfortable, colorful and mixed freely — never actually went away.