Monday, April 24, 2017

Random Weirdness: It's Time for MANTIQUE!!

WARNING!! The following material depicts scenes of extreme 70s fashion weirdness.  It may not be suitable for younger or more sensitive readers....

Ladies and Gentlemen, loyal readers, and guests, I bring to you what may very well be the most randomly weird, most groove-ily awesome examples of extreme 70s fashions.

IT'S TIME FOR MANTIQUE.......(1)

Be forewarned that what you are about to see will elicit gasps of disbelief.  Once these images are seared into your mind, they will not be easily erased.  So, if you dare, get comfortable, fix a stiff drink (you're going to need it), and proceed forward.....

IT'S TIME FOR MANTIQUE.......

And nothing says MANTIQUE quite like long tunic vest.  I'm sure these guys were the coolest cats in the club!  What?!?  You were expecting the normal collection of hot 70s babes??  Sorry.  The ladies have been given the week off.  These awesomely cool man fashions deserve a post of their own.  In other words......

IT'S TIME FOR MANTIQUE.......

And nothing says MANTIQUE quite like crushed velvet leisure suits.  Oh wait, I though it was the tunics that said MANTIQUE.  So many choices!!!

Kay appears to be none too pleased about this shocking change for the Kathy Loghry Blogspot. (2) Well, that's too bad, because......

IT'S TIME FOR MORE MANTIQUE!!

"But I don't want to wear a puffy shirt!!"  Sorry, puffy shirts are mandatory in MANTIQUE world!!

That's the look that says "Yep, I'm gay."

Yes indeed!  The MANTIQUE man certainly knows his fashion! After all one can never have too many leisure suits!

Words .Escape. Me.

Saturday Night Fever had nothing on MANTIQUE fever.  And I don't know what to make of that look by the guy on the right.  Perhaps he's scoping out that guy in the puffy shirt.........

This seems pretty tame by Mantique standards.  Oh wait, it's not part of the Mantique collection. That explains that!

What sort of man is a MANTIQUE man? Whether he's killing it in long tunics or crushed velvet leisure suits, he's always in style.  No matter what the season, he always has his babe at his side (except for that guy in the fifth pic, that's another story.)  He's a man confident in who he is and what he wears.  He is a MANTIQUE man!

I'm sure that by now many of my loyal readers are asking "Okay, these Mantique fashions are pretty awesome.  But HOW awesome??  Is there a way to measure that?"

Well yes, yes there is.  Remember our AI post from a couple of weeks ago?  Let's take that first pic and run it though the awesomeness meter.....

EveryPixel.com says that MANTIQUE is 88.9% Awesome.  So its not as awesome as those pictures of Kathy and the gang, but pretty gosh darn AWESOME!!

footnotes:

(1) After putting this post together it dawned on me that perhaps I had the pronunciation of  the word Mantique wrong.  I originally assumed a Spanish pronunciation: man-TE-kay.  But perhaps it is French and is man-TEEK (rhythms with boutique.)  Either way, it's cool.

(2) Was Kay in every freaking catalog during the 70s?!?

Monday, April 17, 2017

When Life was Groovy, Part 5 - Spring Dresses!

And nothing, NOTHING made live groovier than those wonderful Spring dresses from from those wonderfully groovy Big Book catalogs.

Sigh, those were the days my friend!!

This post is going to be heavy on the Spring dress in Spring settings with Springily gorgeous models like here with Kay, Kathy, and Karen.

Or here with the other Kathy (Jackson) and Colleen......

...or here with Shelley.  Heck we're just getting started and I'm ready for Spring for sure now!!


 I've seen these patterns before, Where oh where,...OH!! I know.  I've seen them in hhall carpets in motels.

For the animal spirit in you.....


 Karen has got that "Yeah, I'm killing it" look.  And why not?  She is!!

Hmmm, in the big pic, Wendy is in white and Kay is in black.....BUT in the inset pic, it's reversed. That must have been one interesting wardrobe change........................Oh wait.  Sorry about that.  My mind wandered a bit there.

 "Hey Karen, over here, it's me, remember?"  How embarrassing. I got rejected for a bird.

 There is nothing to say here except "Dang that;'s groovy!!"

 No, no I don't.  NOBODY could ever have enough dresses like these.

 "Hey girls, Hey, it's me.  Hey over here!"  Drat, now they don't even need a bird to not notice me!!

Spring dresses didn't just come in the short variety.  No, no, no!  They were long and elegant also.

Hey!  How'd a pantsuit sneak in a post about dresses?  Despite that, Pam and Kathy look quite fetching in their "man-tailoring" outfits.  Sorry, didn't work.  Both are still looking very feminine.

Speaking of feminine, Jane and Kathy are certainly that and more!!

A perfect way to end this post.  Kathy in an elegantly long Springtime dress standing next to a......giant potted plant.  Oh well.  They should have stuck to the outdoor park scenes instead!

Monday, April 10, 2017

That's So 70s: Jaunty Jumpsuits - Part 6!

Have you ever noticed that when anyway has a "Disco" themed retro party, there are going to be jumpsuits.  No, no, not the kind that pilots use, the kind you can get down and "boogie, woogie, oogie to the best of those 70s disco tunes.  So get out yer disco balls and get ready to party - in jumpsuits, no less.

Well these gals don't look that they're ready to disco to me.  Kathy is all smiles that all green jumpsuit.

Apparently the gentleman prefers the lady in the jumpsuit.  And why not?  It looks like everyone is ready to hit the discotheque tonight!

 Jumpsuits and cleavage, a winning combination!

Like I said!!

Hmmm, not sure this is very disco like here.  It looks more like an elegant garden party.  I guess that would be the best place for a "poncho jumpsuit" like the one worn by Kathy.  (pic courtesy of Blue Senshi, Thanks!)

Another garden scene?  What happened to the discos?!?

Oh boy, this post is going downhill fast.  Where's boogie woogie disco spirit?!?

Another outdoor jumsuit scene?  And this time it's Karen holding some flowers??  What the heck.  I was ready to party, but these gals seem to think that jumpsuits were for contemplative walks in nature!  Huh?!?  Perhaps Kathy and Colleen can get get us back in the spirit....

Nope, unfortunately not.  Still Kathy, Colleen, and Karen look great in these jaunty jumpsuits, and they COULD be used in a disco also.  So I have to say "That's Soooo 70s!"

Monday, April 3, 2017

The 70s Were Awesome. Now There's Proof!

Of course, we've always known that the 70s defined awesomeness, but now there is absolute, scientific, irrefutable proof.  You see, there is a website called EveryPixel.com that tells you the probability of a particular picture being awesome.  So, naturally, I had to try this out on some of our favorite Big Book catalog pics from the 70s. And the results? Well, they were pretty gosh darn awesome!

Take this pic of High Rise Pants from last week.  This site's highly sophisticated AI neural net software rates this pic at 73.8% chance of being awesome.  Not bad, not bad at all! (1)

Wow!! What the heck happened here?  You can't tell me that this awesome pic only mustered a 14.0% rating.  Somehow I think this software needs a little more tweaking...

A 99.9% score!  Wow!!

Oh come on!! That score simply must be an error.  How can this pic be called anything but "awesome?"

Well that's better.  At least we're trending in the right direction!

Yep, can't argue about that score!!  Any pic that combines a guy in a three piece suit, Kathy, and a hatchet has to get a high awesomeness score!

Apparently 70s maternity wear was pretty freaking awesome according to the software!!

Well I can't say that I know why the AI spit out this ridiculously low number.  I mean you have Kathy, Karen, and Colleen (in mini skirts no less).  Perhaps the program has something against smoking hot women?!?

Nah, that theory just got shot down.  A 95.5% probability of awesomeness despite the poor picture quality!!

CAUTION:  I must warn you, gentle readers,  Please, PLEASE, do NOT use a picture of yourself in the software.  Unless you are a model like these fine ladies here, the results are somewhat depressing (trust me, I know!!)

We've looked at group pictures.  What about individual shots??
Did you really expect anything else for Kathy??  We've seen a couple of 99.9% scores.  Is it even possible to get a perfect 100%?

Yes, yes it is.  At least if your name is Kathy Loghry.  For the rest of us, well, the numbers are probably a tad bit lower!!

There you have it friends!  Solid, concrete, scientific proof of the awesomeness of the 70s.  Well at least the Big Book catalog models of the 70s!!


footnotes:

(1) Full disclosure here.  I have worked with neural net software in the past and wasn't terribly impressed.  They are highly dependent on the data set that is used to "train" them.  I have no idea how this software was developed.  However, I have noticed that this AI tends to be a bit, well, ahem, sexist??