Vintage Boys

I am a vintage boy or let me say I was one as I was a young teenage boy in the 1970's. I graduated high school in 1978. We had trends and fads, but we were not as label conscious and brand obsessed as boys are now. Designer and big-brand labels were not for boys, they were for older career guys who had the money to indulge in luxuries. People did not buy on credit at the levels we do now. If a family couldn't afford something, they did without it. We had brands that were considered trendy, but there wasn't the same level of social isolation due to clothing choices as some kids experience today. No one would ever put down someone simply because they were wearing lee jeans rather than the far more fashionable Levi's.
Vintage boys didn't wear disco styles, we thought that was for older 20 somethings and most retro boys didn't like disco music. Vintage boys at that time liked what has now become classic rock. Boston, ELO, Styx, Black Sabbath, ACDC etc. Another big fad back then was being different. Dressing the same as everyone else was very unfashionable, everyone tried their hardest to be different.
I think that's the biggest difference; that we tried to express our individuality and we tried not to dress like everyone else. There was less pressure to be identified with a group and fewer groups existed. There wasn't the bad behaviour between groups like there is today. Back then identifying with a specific group or style type wasn't important, in many schools style groups didn't exist. There were no, rockers, skater, whatever other little groups kids like to divide themselves into. And there certainly wasn't the dislike between groups.

vintage boy
By the way, one thing that retro times show got 100% correct was the clothes that real vintage boys wore back then especially the ones aged 13 and 14 years old. On every episode Jackie is wearing something that I once owned, and Eric is wearing stuff my brother wore. There were good and bad boys and also boys who were in that gray area between good and bad. I was the third one. We were not angels and Yes we used to say bad words sometimes and we were punished if our parents ever hear us saying bad words. What we did for fun was play sports. I was raised in an athletic neighborhood. Me & my friends were on the younger side of most so we were conscripted by our older brothers on a daily bases to play some spot on some field or court. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey (ice hockey, on the lake) The result was we all got good at sports. We listened to 99X (top 40) Rock radio station out of NYC. They played bands like The Rolling Stones, James Taylor, Carol King, Boz Skaggs, Al Green, Elton John, Wings, Jefferson Starship. On TV we watched Happy Days, MASH, The Odd Couple, The Mary Tyler Moore show, Johnny Carson. ABC's Wide World of Sports. Everything had a slang name. Nothing was called what it actually was. Everything was in a kind of code so our parents could never figure out what we were talking about.
Now boys don't go outside like they used to. Parents began being over protective of their children. So they don't let them outside. Plus modern technology took a toll on this to. Vintage boys used to wear very short shorts and it was so stylish back then and it was okay for a boy to wear short shorts and lederhosen shorts even at school especially in Europe. People used to think that short shorts look good on every body because they make boys look longer, a funny thing to believe indeed but that was the common way in those days. Boys used to have long hairstyle. Almost all vintage boys had long hair and that was fashion back then.


Today's boys are, sorry to say, less knowledgeable and less mature. Somehow more violent. But the main thing is today's boys are followers, not leaders. I suppose because people are individuals and hence come to their own conclusions and beliefs, despite the press of societal or cultural influences. And remember that there was plenty of dissent to the various societal and cultural movements of that era, including feminism. It would not have been unusual for someone to have grown up in that time and had plenty of confirmation for a differing viewpoint. In the end, what seems most important is that we all have some choice over what we feel is important in life. And that we all should be able to pursue what we feel is going to make us happy. The values of one segment of a society need not be imposed on other segments. That is probably the best lesson to come out of that "vintage"era.
image credit: image by the American National Archivesand Records Administration (NARA). This work is in the public domain because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. Via Wikimedia Commons.