My favourite decade for style: The Seventies

Stylist Lou Taylor on the swinging Seventies.

The Seventies are my favourite decade for style for the main reason that they were an incredibly empowering and fashionable time for women. We were ditching our bras, listening to Ziggy Stardust, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd and aspiring to be just like Charlie’s Angels. We were fighting for our rights, but in glittery hot pants, rollerboots and satin tights, just like our heroine and Seventies style icon, Wonder Woman.

Much like now, the Seventies saw a deep recession but fashion and music rebelled against depressing times with glitz, originality and glamour, with films like Saturday Night Fever and Annie Hall creating looks that are still copied and popular today. I hope that the next decade we can react in the same way. The Noughties have been dull, it’s time we claimed our creative individuality, using the Seventies as inspiration.

The Seventies are epitomised by the creations of my favourite fashion designer, the iconic Yves Saint Laurent, founder of modern fashion for women. He created the beatnik look, shift dresses, safari jackets and the most beautiful tuxedo jacket for women, ‘le smoking’. I would give anything to go back in time to visit him in his Marrakech villa to hang out with the Rolling Stones and his muse Loulou de la Falaise or party with him and Bianca Jagger (maybe without the infamous white horse) at Studio 54 in New York.

My Seventies style icon is Barbara Hulaniki, founder of Biba. Not as much for what she wore but for her store. Fashion was, at long last, instantly accessible to all. Biba was a real experience, where fabulous clothes hung on coat stands, bands played and, for the first time ever, girls could try on make-up in the store. Saturday afternoons for Hulaniki’s ‘fresh little foals with long legs, bright faces and round dolly eyes’ meant hanging out at Biba’s dancing, drinking and buying outfits for Saturday night.

I have an original Seventies Biba jacket bought for £5 in a charity shop in my wardrobe, it doesn’t fit but it looks beautiful hanging there. However, the item of clothing I’ve chosen to be pictured in is this amazing jacket by Belleville Sassoon (also bought in a charity shop). As soon as I put it on, I’m transported straight back to the Seventies, it feels decadent, stylish and daring – just like the decade itself.


Lou is one half of the Frock n Roll stylists.