When Life Was Groovy: Lounge Time!!

And lounging with the models of the Big Book catalogs of the 70s!

Dottie and Kay start us out with some groovy lounge wear from Sears!

 Kay looks resplendent in lounge wear from JCPenneys...

Whether hosting a party or out on the patio, lounge wear was the thing!!

Even in Canada they wore lounge wear, these are from Simpsons Sears.

Kay looks comfie in a robe from JCPenneys!!

And finally from Aldens - elegance!!

Lounge wear means leisure time from Aldens!!  I can feel the disco spirit here for sure!!

Baby It's Cold Outside!!

But it's always warm inside those groovy 70s winter fashions!!

That coat looks HUGE on Kathy!! And it looks like she's having to brace herself against the other model to keep from falling.....

Still got that million dollar smile working though!!

That looks much better!!

That looks VERY warm!!

That looks absolutely suffocating!!

 When in doubt about protection from the cold, go for wool!! No artificial fabrics here!!

"Warm as Love" and you gotta LOVE that hat on Karen!! Talk about warm and just in time for Old Man Winter!!

Sizzlin' Summertime Sleepwear - Part 9!!

Of course the Summer sun keep the action sizzlin' on the beach, but the Summer nighttime sizzled too with all the hot and groovy sleepwear form the 70s Big Book Catalogs!!

"Shirting the Issue?"  Certainly not!  Karen, Barbara, Kathy, Kay and friend are scorching hot in these summertime sleepwear fashions from JCP!

I'm sure most of you gravitated to the cute gals on the right thus missing the gigantic V thing on the left which probably stands for Victory.  Or maybe it's a pointer for clueless hubby?!?

There's nothing Outrageous about these gals. And let's face it, Pia, with that giraffe on her sleeper shirt and the lollipop, is looking Uber hot!!

 In addition to Dottie and Kathy we have Cay and Kay side by side. It's a veritable K Club overload!! (Pic is courtesy of Blue Senshi, Thanks!)

So let's check out that inset pic of Kathy.....

 Flowers at bedtime?!?  Kathy does not seem impressed.  But we also have .......another inset!!

And inset within an inset!!  Is that like a dream within a dream??  That would describe Kathy perfectly!!


When you speak of 70s catalog sleepwear you're talking Nylon Tricot fabrics baby.  Let's check 'em out!!

 Anyone else notice how many of these pics have Mick Lindberg in them?

Kay, Karen, and Peggy, very nice!! Sweet dreams are made of these.

So, of course, the most natural prop for a sleepwear pic is a....is a......ladder??????

Of course, we can;t leave out the classic lingerie.  One could sleep in those too.....

Or maybe not!  Let's face it, Kathy absolutely kills it here!!  So on that note, sweet summertime dreams everyone!!

Random Weirdness: Greenland Style!

I've had a number of readers over the years ask me "How do you find such obscure catalogs?"  Well, at the risk of bragging a little bit, I enjoy the challenge!  I get a hint which leads to a clue which leads to a focused search, which leads to, well, more groovy pics for the blog!  So I thought that it's be fun to go through how this played out recently.

As with many of these searches, it started with a reader.(1) I exchanged several emails with him, and he offered to send me a head sheet of Kathy (sorry, saving that for another post!)  Well that head sheet had some info about Kathy's then recent modeling appearances.  So I tracked down several of these until one magazine produced.....

Bingo!  A completely new pic of Kathy that I had never seen before!

But that's not all!

Nothing says 70s grooviness like Acetate Seersucker!

But that raises the question "What the heck is this Greenland Studios thing and are there any more of them out there?"  The answer to that is "You Betcha!"

Hold onto your retro hats dear readers!  Apparently Greenland Studios was one of those outfits that pushed all kinds of kitschy, fun crap like here. The mind reels at the shear 70s overload present in one page!

From ship decanters to wooden utensil sets to tiny bonsai trees to dried flowers in a lucite egg, Greenland Studios had everything a modern American family in the 70s needed!   And I just know that if I had seen the "20 prehistoric cavemen and monsters" set, I would've bugged my mom until she bought it!

You ain't livin' until you have the compete collection shown here!

I'm about to have a 70s heart attack here: a gondola lamplight, snow tomatoes, your own cheese making kit, slippers for "milady", and hand blown glass swan vases, just to name a few.  However, the standout here is the "ancient Chinese fortune telling painting on an ashtray."  Huh???

Okay, okay, we better same some of this nonsense for the future.  What about fashions??

Greenland had those too and for the cost conscious buyers!

For that At Home Glamour, every women in the 70s needed a Paisley Torso Wrap from Greenland!

 And we'll end this wild ride though the Greenland Studios insanity where we began - with some pics of Kathy. Lovely!!

 

So the girl is free?!?  Wow, what a catalog,!!  That certainly beats the prehistoric cavemen and monsters set!  

footnotes:

(1)  I get a lot of my leads from my readers.  I's like to thank all of you for these contacts and info!

That's So 70s: Crazy Family Coordinates!

One of the more consistent themes about 70s fashion is coordinates - His 'n Her coordinates, skirts and pants coordinates, etc.  It seems that the 70s were obsessed by the idea of people dressing the same, like some kind of tribal affiliation.

Well, hold onto yer hats parders, 'cause you ain't seen nuthin' yet.....

Why stop at just couples dressing alike when you can dress up the whole dad bern tootin' clan the same! "It's Fun to Dress Alike"  No it's not.  It's...kinda...creepy actually, sorta like belonging to a cult or something. You'll notice that Dottie Harris appears perfectly comfortable but, as you go down in age, the girls seem increasingly less sure about all this.  The youngest looks like she is plotting an escape before the kool-aid is served.  Perhaps the brainwashing takes a few years to become fully effective "Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated!"

Oh dear, don't tell me that Kathy has also fallen under this mysterious spell!  This clan is going green in matching corduroy, no less!  The youngest one here, unlike the previous pic, seems to have no second thoughts with the assimilation process.  Hmmmm, perhaps SHE is actually the cult leader?

So surely these two examples are aberrations, Right?!?!?!

Nope.  "Hey, let's all dress up in matching overalls and play farmer.  Or we can all dress up in matching flower-power outfits and be suburban hippies."  The possibilities are endless.

Fashions of the 70s weren't nothing if not coordinated!  From Aldens all the way to Spiegel, no socio-economic strata was left untouched by the scourge as witnessed.  Here we have not one, but three mother / daughter examples.  All I can say is "That's Sooooo 70s!"

Naturally, why stop with the mom and the girls when you can include EVERYONE?  And kimonos are made for just that!  Now I have one question "Is it just me or does it seem that the 'blue' clan has thoroughly defeated and embarrassed the 'gold' clan by relegating them to the small inset pics?"

Of course, the 70s were a time when the concept of "family" was beginning to become more, ahem, elastic.....

This one is a bit random and hard to explain.  I think I'd better exit this post before things get any weirder....

(This last pic is re-blogged from somewhere.  I think it was My-Retrospace.  My apologies if I'm wrong.  I downloaded this pic several years ago and before I was too careful about that sort of thing.)

Programming Note:  I had to post early this week due to some family commitments.  For tehe next post I'll be back on the regular schedule.

K Club Special Part 5 - Dottie Harris

Okay, okay, Dottie doesn't have a name that begins with a hard K sound (like the original foursome: Kathy, Kay, Kare, and Colleen) but we are going to be branching out and doing specials on some of the other popular catalog models fo the 70s this year.

So first up is Dottie!

Elegance is the word that best sums up Dottie's modeling style.  She was a very popular catalog model in the 70s, and often appeared in the women's section modeling some of the higher end fashions (at least higher end for mail order catalogs) for ladies like here.  She had that certain look that just seemed to go with that genre of fashion.

Dottie was a finalist in 1968 Model of the Year competition held by The Stewart Agency.  As you may recall, Kathy was also one of the 16 finalists in that same competition.  Her bio, shown here from Seventeen Magazine, gives us a little bit of info.  It states that she did some television commercials, so she must have done some modeling before 1968.

Like so many of the other models, Dottie appeared in numerous print ads.  This one isn't so great.  However, I do have a positive ID that is her in the pic.

A much, much better ad featuring Dottie from Revlon.

Another Revlon ad.  Very Nice!

And, of course, she made numerous appearances in magazines too.  With a smile like that, you can see why!

Like I previously mentioned, Dottie's catalog modeling career had a different emphasis that the other K Clubbers.  She was often featured in the Women's section as opposed to the Juniors section.  Elegant was indeed the word to describe her look.

Dottie in some super sexy 70s sleepwear with Karen (Colleen and Joanne make an appearance also).

Oh, this cannot be good!  I've warned those guys in the Production Department about politically sensitive material!  I apologize to anyone offended.  I promise that heads will roll over this! (1)

Nevertheless, as a historical blogger, I must cover all the fashion happenings of that era.  Regardless of how you feel on the subject, you have to admit that social norms have changed quite a bit.  Some things that were frowned upon back then are not now.  And others - such as wearing fur - will get you assulted today! (2)

That's a little better! No one should be offended here.  Sorry for the poor scan quality - had a hard time getting the page to lay flat without damaging the catalog spine.

Wow, that's quite a gold medallion there!  I thought the guys were the only ones with the gold chains?

Now that's a 70s style caftan for sure!  With that crazy pattern, I'm not sure how one is supposed to sleep in that thing.  Oh wait I forgot, this was the 70s, nobody did much sleeping anyway.

Well, I wish that I could give you an update on Dottie, but I really don't have any info or pics of her after about 1978.  If anyone out there has any info they would like to share, I'm sure that many of our readers would be interested.  After all, she was one of the more popular and successful catalog models of the 70s!

footnotes:

(1) This makes TWO weeks in a row that we've had an issue with the Production Department!  As some of you may have noticed, last week we got the title misspelled (Westerward?).  It should have been Westward. And now this!  I'm telling you, those guys in Production are skating on thin ice now for sure!

(2) You may want to check out the price tag on that fox coat that Dottie is sporting - $499!!  Nobody said that being politically incorrect was cheap!