Shirt: I was born early in 1976, thus my actual memories of the 1970s are Proustian sense collage territory. I can recall, for example, exactly what my 3 year old birthday cake tasted like and the particular quality of doubleknit polyester when it hung new on the rack. I remember that the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive”[1] played pretty regularly on the radio. I remember going to see “Being There” in the movie theater (that is the first movie I remember seeing in a theater) with my parents. I loved Diana Ross. I loved Donna Summer. I believed that my future would involve glittery high heeled sandals and light up dance floors.
I’m just barely old enough to be an Alison before Alison. Any real deal cultural understanding I have of the 1970s, as a decade, as a concept, as a vibe is all afterthought. For the longest time, I just knew the long shadow it cast into the 80s, which to my young mind mostly consisted of rust-colored cars, brown cable knit tights, and sad, droopy mustaches. All of which goes some way in explaining why I was never the ideal audience for that particular “Dazed and Confused”/”Almost Famous” version of the 70s, which always struck me as a mildly depressing scene for anyone other than a heterosexual dude who liked decorative belt buckles and needlessly long guitar solos. It took me a long time to come around on a lot of canonical classic rock (I finally “got” Led Zeppelin in my twenties, but I could live my whole life and die happily if I never hear “Stairway to Heaven” again) and I’m still so-so on about half of it.
There’s a lot–culturally, aesthetically–about the 1970s that I love. Ju not the fringed suede jacket 1970s. And I get that this is a perspective shared by almost no one, given how often crocheted bikini tops and patchwork half shirts cycle back through the fashion landscape (hot take: they have and always will look look like potholders). But now we’re doing the 90s again and the 90s could not get enough of the 70s, which means a whole new generation of children are going to purchase a miniskirt that looks like it was made of pre-muddied macrame and wear it to dance barefoot in a field to whatever people are still dancing barefoot in a field to.[2]
Anyway, this shirt—this whole outfit—is about as close as I get to suede fringe 70s. The shirt reminds me of that whole wine-dark department store/post “Funny Girl”/pre-“Yentl” Barbra Streisand art deco revival. And it also tips a hat to the round collared, puffy sleeved, metallic threaded purple-ish dress everyone’s mother seemed to have eventually donated to their kids to play dress up in by 1983
Pants: A few miles down the road from me, there’s a housing development with a farm and a fancy inn known locally for it’s fluffy, belted cows (and matching goats and chickens).. I took mom down there to one of the former the day before I had surgery last winter (2023) and we tried on some overpriced resortwear at a boutique by the inn. She pulled these jeans for herself, which is wild, because if you know my mother you know she is even less than a jean wearer than I am, but after trying them on passed them over to me. “They’re comfortable,” she said, and bought them for me as an expression of faith. As in Eventually your abdomen will heal and you’ll be able to wear non-soft pants again.
Turns out, she was right on all counts. Are they bellbottoms? Not quite, but they require heels to not drag the ground and I’m pretty sure they know all the words to “Tiny Dancer.”
Boots: I bought this sublime pair of green metallic high-heeled boots in the middle of Covid and then mostly wore them to people’s firepits. Speaking of the 1970s these are not actually the most glam rock boots that I own, nor are the boots that I would have worn to see David Bowie, had I ever gotten around to seeing David Bowie.
Honestly, I will never see David Bowie live and it still stresses me out a little bit thinking about what I would have worn. I’m more of a Thin White Duke era girl so it probably would have involved some beautifully finished high waisted, pleated Katherine Hepburn-meets-Cate Blanchett pants. I have been trying to find a pair of those for my whole life. I’m not sure that’s going to happen unless I hire a tailor because every pair I try on makes me look I’m about to write you a parking ticket.
Anyway, these boots are at least 75% cooler than I am even if they won’t go far before they’re uncomfortable.
Earrings: I paid two dollars for these in advance of a friend’s 40th birthday with a mid 1970s theme a few years aback. I don’t know what I expected everyone else would wear, but I decided that I should go full glam rock and overcommitted as usual.
Outfit: I didn’t do anything while wearing this outfit. I walked down to the pond and watched a spectacular sunset. I made a pot of curried chickpea soup. I watched an episode of that Truman Capote show and it weirdly put me in the mood to finish my project of reading all the Henry James novels. Is it finally time for The Golden Bowl? Maybe.
Shirt: Anthropologie, 2022
Pants: NYDJ, Dovecote, 2023
Boots: Kelsi Dagger, 2020
Earrings: PTA Thrift Shop, Chapel Hill, 2016
[1] At the time I was afraid of that song, which I found almost as terrifying as Simon and Garfunkel, that blue muppet who played the saxophone, and all men who wore suspenders and striped t-shirts. The latter certainly derives from mimes, but as a category it really ruined Robin Williams, for like, the whole first half of my childhood.
[2] “One of these days, I’m going to Thomas Wolfe myself right out of ever being able to go to home to Asheville again,” says Alison, every time she makes a jam band joke for the last thirty-odd years.
Tiny Commotions 
