How to get your 1970s fashion tips: go to Vinyl
Vinyl is a decadent trip through New York city in 1973 and compulsory viewing for style fans. Here are 5 ways the TV show nails the looks
Vinyl, Martin Scorcese and Mick Jagger’s drama about the music business is set in New York in 1973. As such, it’s very fashionable. It’s got cult cool, with the beginnings of disco, punk and hip hop. It’s Andy Warhol, it’s Patti Smith, it’s Max’s Kansas City, it’s boys dressed as girls and girls-in-leather-jacket bands. It’s the year the World Trade Centre and CBGBs opened, it’s pre-gentrification and there was a sort of no-one’s-looking permissiveness. With the city running a US$3 billion budget deficit by 1975, New York’s decaying buildings and abandoned warehouses allowed all sorts of scenes and styles to develop. Vinyl, the story of a record label, its stars and coke-addled execs, touches on a lot of them. Like Mad Men meets American Hustle, here are five things it tells us about fashion’s current favourite era.
READ MORE: In Vinyl, Jagger and Scorsese expose the madness and passion inside the record industry
It’s the sweet spot where punk and disco meet
Juno Temple, who plays sandwich girl (aka drug administrator) Jamie Vine, is a good point of reference here. In her ambitions to move to her desired position in the A&R department, she deftly moves across all the scenes around the city. In the first episode, she goes to a punk gig wearing a leather jacket and loads of silver eyeliner, and enjoys an encounter with Kip Stevens (aka James Jagger). Then she’s off to a loft party in an appropriate – and fabulous – red satin jumpsuit and cropped faux fur. Special mention for Jagger’s resemblance to Richard Hell, with his cockney accent and T-shirt with a rip at the neckline.
There’s a leftover hippy vibe
However you dress it up – call it bohemian if you want – fashion has a soft spot for hippy style. Olivia Wilde’s Devon, the long-suffering wife of record exec Richie Finestra, provides it here with an impressive array of kaftans. They’re worn with oversized sunglasses and long hair, for a jet set version of a Woodstock look. This suits, whether you’re having a Rachel Zoe moment or thinking of how Kate Moss might accessorise for her next winter sun getaway.
