The ridiculous styles immortalised in American Hustle are a cause for laughter now, but we must remember that a major part of fashion is about having fun
Having just seen American Hustle, I feel compelled to ask, did people actually dress like that in 1978?
Jon, by email
Sure they did. Just as people in the 90s dressed like characters in Clueless and people in the 21st century dress like characters in a Wes Anderson film. This is simply a scientific fact.
But these incontrovertible truths aside, it is interesting to note that while people often rib films for being hilariously bad at predicting the future (you've got one year to get a hoverboard out, Back to the Future Part II – one year!), they are often even worse at depicting the past. Sure, movies should be fun and a great deal of the fun – indeed, I would go so far as to say the primary fun – of American Hustle lies in the fact that it resembles, in Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's spot-on description, "an explosion in a wig factory". (We interrupt normal programming here to announce that it is a source of extreme puzzlement to this column that a film as mediocre and meandering as American Hustle should be described by the New Yorker as "one of the most impressive achievements in recent film-making", and that it should outshine proper works of novel genius such as Her and Inside Llewyn Davis in awards and Oscar nominations. Movie awards are obviously stupid – lest anyone forget, Dances with Wolves beat Goodfellas in the Oscars, and that is the end of that argument – but come on. The only people connected with American Hustle who should get Oscars are Louis CK and everyone in the wardrobe and wig departments, and all other awards can be shared between the aforementioned two films, Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave, Blue Jasmine, Blue is the Warmest Colour, The Grand Beauty and the last 20 minutes of Captain Philips. There ends the announcement; we now resume normal service.)
I suspect that anyone born after 1982 who goes to see American Hustle comes out of the cinema, their jaws slack with horror, muttering darkly to themselves: "Never again! Truly, the late 70s/early 80s was fashion's holocaust!" Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens wrote this weekend that "the great lesson" American Hustle prompts us all to learn is that "much of what we do, think and say now (let alone the way we dress) will without a doubt seem absurd to later generations. Rather than sneering at the past, we should try to see ourselves through the eyes of the future, and to recognise that what is most fashionable now, in politics and morals and culture, is what will appear most badly mistaken 40 years hence."
Did you see what Hitchens did here, dear readers? He cleverly took some of Amy Adams's sideboob wardrobe and Bradley Cooper's curlers and turned them into a lesson about how we shouldn't get distracted by "fashionable" issues, by which I strongly suspect he means such silly little trends as believing addiction is an illness or the legalisation of gay marriage, which, as you may recall, he worried could be the right's Stalingrad.
Very clever, no doubt. But that aside, I have to disagree with what, I think, is Mr Hitchens' point about fashion: that in order to prevent disasters such as 70s style returning, we should always dress with one eye on how future generations will mock us. This is not only impossible – few can appreciate how ridiculous they look without the blessing of hindsight – but misguided. To live a life without ridiculous fashion trends would be like living a year without seasons. Silly fashion trends are what differentiate stages in one's life. Just as certain songs become inextricably associated in our minds with certain eras (before the invention of iPods, that is, after which everyone could walk around every day with all the songs in the world on shuffle), so too do silly trends.
So, for example, here is my autobiography in terrible fashion trends: 10 years old, late-80s – pony tail on the side of my head; 15 years old, mid-90s – long miserable gothy clothes; 20 years old, late-90s – ridiculous baggy Carhartt combat trousers. And on and on it goes. Yes, they all looked ridiculous and, yes, any photographic evidence of such eras is a source of utter mortification to me. But so what? I was having fun and I'd rather be able to look back on my life as a series of embarrassments than an indistinguishable sea of bland-but-safe trouser suits. People who worry too much about being embarrassed are the people who are too self-conscious to dance at a party and, let me tell you, no one had a transcendent time moping on their own in a corner.
So with all respect to Peter Hitchens, the lesson I take from American Hustle is this: wear your curlers and medallions while you can, because soon enough the times will have moved on and they will be downgraded from "fashionable" to (ugh) "ironic". And, second: movie awards are stupid and still, after all this time, don't know their art from their elbow.
Post your questions to Hadley Freeman, Ask Hadley, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email ask.hadley@theguardian.com
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2014/jan/27/70s-fashion-silly-trends-american-hustle
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