The show was an excuse for Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor to do just about anything they fancied.They were three odd job men who did anything, anytime, anywhere including launching a rocket to the moon, sailing to a lost island, and house-sitting a lighthouse.
The show is best remembered for hit song The Funky Gibbon
70s fashion began where the 60s left off. Mini skirts were still popular and the flower power influence was everywhere. 60s trends first adopted by the beautiful people filtered into mainstream wear. Trousers became flared and shirts had big collars. For men, the kipper tie was soon standard wear with a suit.
These girls (above) are at a party in the summer of 1970. They show that the mini skirt was far from dead.
Although the formal suit was still expected at a dinner party in the 70s, for younger people it was only worn in the office or for formal occasions. Jeans, increasingly flared, were popular with men and women for everyday wear.
The popularity of the mini skirt was challenged in the early 70s and a group of (male) truckers even organised a campaign to bring it back in 1970. However, the mini remained popular in the early years of the 70s, but women now could chose between, mini, midi, (mid-calf length) or maxi (full length) skirts.
However, longer dresses, inspired by the hippy era of the late sixties, were also in fashion.
The 70s were more relaxed than the 60s. However, on formal occasions and in the office men still wore suits. The kipper tie, favoured by the fashionable in the late sixties, became a standard men's accessory.
For women, long dresses were often worn for formal occasions. This wedding, left, is from 1970. The lady's floppy hat and long dress drew inspiration from the hippy era. The brown colour was very popular throughout the 70s.
Long hair was fashionable for both men and women. Beards were also popular. This again was a hangover from the Flower Power years of the late 60s. In many peoples' minds psychedelia was very much in, although the pop music scene had moved on by then.
In the more relaxed mood of the 70s, jeans were increasingly popular. Initially little changed from the sixties, but by the mid seventies most people were wearing flares. Printed t-shirts were also increasingly popular in the 70s, as were trainers and canvas shoes.
By the end of the 70s, flares were still mainstream fashion. This group, left, shows two younger men with long hair. One wears a suede safari jacket with a wide collar and brown, flared trousers. This look was favoured by Brodie and Doyle in the TV series, 'The Professionals'. The other young man with a short leather jacket and flared blue jeans is more casual and younger looking. The older man has a beard (a very fashionable look in the 70s) and wears a wet-look type anorak. The woman is wearing a suit.
Flares, denim, long hair and cheesecloth shirts were the staple of 70s men's fashion throughout most of the decade. Inspired by the hippy movement of the late sixties, this look, echoing the hippy dream of Free Love and optimism, did not fit with the closing years of the 70s, but mainstream fashion was unable to change.
Punk came to most people's attention from 1977 onwards through the publicity surrounding the original Punk band, The Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols' promoter, Malcolm McLaren, together with his partner, designer Vivian Westwood, created the original Punk look. Their shop at 430 Kings Road, originally named 'Let it Rock', a Ted revival store, was called 'Sex' at the time the Sex Pistols band appeared. The look was based on a sexual fetish for black leather, mainly for its shock value, combined with ripped t-shirts carrying slogans designed to provoke. McLaren and Westwood changed their shop's name again to 'Seditionaries: Clothes for Heroes' at the end of 1976. The new name heralded a wholly Punk outlook. The stock featured bondage trousers, bondage dresses and a new t-shirt featuring the Punk message, "Destroy".
Punk was a rejection of anything that was considered good taste. Ripped and bleached clothes were part of the look, as was spiked hair, dyed in bright colours. Black make up and safety pins as earrings were often worn. For most Punks, quite a few of whom were unemployed, the look could easily be created from modifying second-hand clothes rather than from a trip to the Kings Road.
Punk itself lasted into the early 80s. Its importance though, was as a catalyst for change in the fashion world. Punk rejected the flared jeans and cheesecloth shirts which were popular mainstream fashion. It rejected the hippy style and the hippy view of the world.
The end of the seventies saw the appearance of a number of youth cults formed formed in the wake of Punk. Amongst those was a revival of the Mod style of the sixties, as well as the Teddy Boy look of the fifties.
Mainstream youth fashion also changed dramatically; the 1980 film, 'Gregory's Girl' illustrates how quickly. One of Gregory's mates, who is a year older, has left school and got a job as a window cleaner. He has saved his money to buy a white jacket with enormous lapels. Gregory's contemporary, Steve, has a white jacket with lapels an inch wide. There was always a particular way to wear a school tie. In 1979 the knot was tied very near the wide end. The 3 inch long tie was tucked into a pullover, to give the impression it was a kipper tie. From 1980, it was folded in half length ways to reduce the width and pressed with an iron so it stayed put.
Young people dropped flares and wide collars with breath taking speed. Older people were slower to change from the 70s look, but by around 1983, the archetypal 70s style was extinct.
