Fashion trends come and go, and then there are some that arrive and take over the entire country. They leave future generations wondering if everyone had collectively lost their minds.
What were we thinking?
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was the great flared trousers explosion. If you lived through that era, you’ll remember trousers that weren’t just flared; they were enormous. Trousers so wide at the ankles that simply riding a bicycle became a public safety hazard.
Flares, or, if you were American, bell-bottoms, started off as quite modest things. A gentle widening at the trouser hem, influenced by naval uniforms of the past.
The fashion actually went back a couple of hundred years in history, but then 1960s pop culture caught on. The hippie movement adopted them. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and Cher often wore them. They were not the only ones, as flares became not just a fashion statement but a symbol of self-expression and rebellion.
Like many innocent ideas, they escalated. By the mid-1970s, it seemed the national objective was to create trousers so wide at the ankles that they could double as a tent. As teenagers, we strutted down every street and road in trousers that resisted the slightest breeze. On really windy days, you could get blown away. If the weather forecast was for gale-force winds, it was better to stay indoors.
The width varied from person to person, but there was a competition for the widest.
“Mine are 22-inch bottoms,” someone would boast.
“Oh yeah?” Another would say, “Mine are 26.”
Before long, hems had reached levels that you could make a pair of curtains out of them. Some flares were so big they would cover your shoes, creating a strange gliding illusion, as if you were floating along.
But we wanted them — everyone wore flares — even our parents wore them in the seventies.