San Francisco Sentinel
April 12, 1990
Street Talk
Hi, I’m Back! And So Are the ‘70s!
By Doris Fish
Sentinel Arts Writer
In case you hadn’t noticed I’ve been out of town for a few weeks. I missed you all terribly. I trust it was mutual. What you been up to? I had a moderately wonderful time. I was very much a Bohemian beach girl, going topless, and sometimes totally nude in the glorious South Pacific Ocean of my homeland Australia. I didn’t even wear lipstick!
Meanwhile, I hear you dear trendsetters have been frolicking about in fabulous bell bottoms and platform shoes and listening to Disco again. I go away for a month and the ‘70s come back — I know how Moses must have felt when he came back from the mountain. Have to keep my eyes on you every second!
I feel like a fool for not guessing this ‘70s thing would happen. There was a time when I knew all the trends, when I had my fingers wrapped around the pulse of the youth of today. Now I guess all those youths have grown up and I’m quickly becoming an old, tired Queen! I know I’m a bit late but let me give you my first-hand account of how we talked, dressed, and lived in the 1970s.
Doris in the ‘70s
Being as world famous as a ‘60s glamourpuss (Miss X reminds me to emphasize that I’m of the ‘60s not in my ‘60s — something she would be concerned with) many people fail to realize that I actually reached my peak (well, one of my early peaks, that is) in the 1970s — and I was still just a child at the time! Yes, I was a Drag prodigy.
But let’s talk about what we wore. I was, of course, some sort of spokesperson/model of the period and people looked to me to see what the young ones were wearing. Curiously enough, it wasn’t bellbottoms or platform shoes which caused our pulses to race. Though still incredibly popular, these items were really a late ‘60s phenomenon and by 1970 we had our eyes on the fashion horizon trying to see what would be next. It turned out to be polyester leisure suits and even more incredibly ugly shoes. There was nowhere to go but back!
By 1972 the banality of seventies’ culture and fashion was so depressing that those of us with any sense tried to ignore the entire hideous decade. We searched thrift shops for forties and fifties fashions, played Billie Holiday records, decorate our cheap apartments with inexpensive Art Deco items abd dressed to look like Dietrich or Crawford. My idol was Gail Patrick.
My dear friend Jacqueline Hyde was so enamored of the 1940s that she entirely redid her flat in the period to the extent of making blackout curtains for every window.
Not everybody eschewed the ‘70s. Many hairdressers and window-dressers had David Bowie hairdos (he was one of the few people one could like) and said, “Brilliant!” All the time.
But let’s face it, the 1970s were so ugly that nostalgia was invented. And now we’re nostalgic for the very things that nostalgia was created to avoid! Curiously, I had my own mini 1970s revival in 1979 when one could buy platform shoes in the very places one originally went to avoid them — the thrift stores. They were rare, as most of them had fallen apart, but for two bucks one could get a couple of wearings out of them. Not many people appreciated this first return of the seventies and it was short-lived with few participants. This early failure blinded me to the possibility of a real full-fledged 1970s revival.
“Doris, that was three years ago,” Phil Ford replied, when I called to get his opinion on this latest trend. “Where have you been? Don’t you remember we went to see Tom Jones in 1985, and I grew sideburns and wore flares and gold chains. The deejays have been playing ’70s music for a couple of years now. Once they start writing about it, it’s on the way out.”
I do remember wearing gold platforms in 1986, a few times actually, so that was the second coming of the seventies, or rather the second return. And now 1990 brings the final phenomenon. I have found a brand-new pair of plastic platforms from Frederick’s of Hollywood and a mint condition copy of “Git Dancin,” by Disco Tex and the Sexolettes, (which is actually Bob Crewe who did the music for “Barbarella”) so I’m ready in case I have to participate, but like being ready for an earthquake, I’m not sure I want to do this.
“But Phil, if this seventies thing is on the way out, what are all the young ones doing?” I asked, ashamed of my ignorance.
“Why Doris, they’re all getting into Drag!” Well! Looks like I’m a trendsetter all over again without even trying!
