Hot Pants, Still Kicky, Still Insanely Hot!!

 What was more the symbol of Summer back in the 70s???  Well, hot pants certainly fit the bill..................

Yeah, the boots with the hot pants were a pretty deadly combination!!

You can't get much hotter than these shorts!!  Kathy along with Randi Oaks seem to be having a great time!!  

Both pics are courtesy of Blue Senshi, thanks!!

Random VERY Goodness: Hot Pants plus Bodysuits!!

What's better than 70s style hot pants???  What's better than 70s style bodysuits???

Well how about putting the two together!!!  What a great idea!!!

Great Go-Togethers indeed!!  Kathy, Kay, and an unknown model show us how it's done!!

A closeup of the bodysuits!!  With ideas like this, how in the heck did Wards ever go out of business???

These pics are courtesy of Blue Senshi.  Thanks!!

The Hot Pants Zone, Part 5 - TEOTWAWKI!!

Attention Dear Readers!  As some of you may know, some people have predicted that The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI) on Sept. 23, 2017.  It has something to do with a constellation arrangement or something.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard predictions like this before also.  But you never know.  Maybe this time is teh Big One?!??   But I say forget about the stars.  Let's consult the groovy fashions of the 70s to see if there is a sign!  In other words, we are entering, once again, The Hot Pants Zone..............

OMG!  It's a Plaid, Plaid World meets Hots Pants Kicky!!  Does that make this pic "It's a Plaid, Kicky World?!?"  Categories are colliding!  Worlds are colliding. Surely this is a sign!!  The Apocalypse is upon us!!  And Jill seems super excited regardless!!

Oh no!  Now instead of plaid, we have gingham!!  Worlds are colliding again!!  However, Kathy and Colleen seemed unconcerned. (1)  Perhaps that is the best attitude to take!!

70s footwear and Hot Pants!  Throw in the glasses (to protect one's eyes from the nuclear fallout, no doubt!) and we still have worlds colliding!!

Surely this isn't happening!  Who knew that Hot Pants would be a portent of TEOTWAWKI!!  Can this madness continue????

 It can and it does!!  Now we have have Hot Pants and a Tunic.  All sorts of categories are colliding!

As we can see here!!  Forget about the "minor revolution." (2)  We have a full bore existential crisis on our hands here folks!!  Minis, Maxis, Giant Ties, and Hot Pants, oh my!!  And Karen is playing ping pong (excuse me, ahem, I should say Table Tennis, please no nasty comments form all you Table Tennis fans.)

And we have shoelaces on shirts no less!!  Surely this is the sign of TEOTWAWKI.!!  Run to the hills, Take cover!! Worlds are Colliding!!

footnotes:

(1)  Yes, there is a giant hand on the right side.  Whose is it??  Well that will have to wait for another post (assuming the world still exists of course!)

(2) What the heck is a "minor" revolution??

Hot Pants (Part 4) - Get Ready For Summer!!

Somethings from the 70s need to remain lost in time: Shag carpet, disco, lava lamps, bell bottoms, platform shoes, etc.  However, some 70s styles desperately need to time warped out of the past into the present......

Let's face it, we all loved 'em and oh how we miss them dearly - hot pants.  You needed two ingredients for hot pants: pants that were hot and girls that were hot.  Friends, we have both here.  I do believe that I'm "Ready for Summer" now!! (1)

Need more proof of the superiority of hot pants?  Well here we have a side-by-side comparison. Long pants equals long face.   Hot pants equals smiles all around.  Of course it helps that Kathy has matching green and white lace-up go-go boots, err, sandals, err, whatever she's wearing.  (2)

Kathy certainly had some fancy footwear to go with those hot pants.  However, we'll see in the next few pics that combining the best in 70s footwear fashions with hot pants was an inevitable pairing....

Wards basically cuts to the chase here - wear hot pants for the boys.  After all "The boys deserve a break."  Yeah, I'll second that!!  Check out the leggings and strap up sandals - neat o!

Shelly and Mick go all out accessorizing their hot pants.  All I can say is - that's soooo 70s. (3)

Even Spiegel tried to cash in on the hot pants craze.  Kathy and Shelley are certainly "cooling it in hot pants."  Of course hot pants were cool, but they were also hot, which made them cool, which made them....oh, never mind.

Once more with the long pants versus short pants comparison.  Well it's no comparison.  Yes, disco maybe a faded memory of the 70s, but hot pants lives on, if only in our memories.  Bottom line is that you can keep the disco, but give me those hot pants.


footnotes:

(1) This pic courtesy of JJ's Playhouse.  Thanks!

(2) This pic courtesy of Blue Senshi.  Thanks!

(3) Talk out coincidences.  One day after I wrote this post, ShelleyHack.Bogspot published another pic like this that has the same models in the same outfits, but in a difference pose.  I thought about replacing it, but what the heck.  I guess I wasn't the only one with hot pants on their mind!  (This pic is from JJ's Playhouse by the way.)

Hot Pants (Part 3) - Now they're Terry-iffic!

Oh no, not again! Once more we enter a time vortex of 70s-ness as the past becomes the present, becomes the future. Confused (I know I am), then maybe this guy can help us out.....

There is a 5th dimension, beyond that is known to man...It is vast as space and as timeless as infinity....it is the middle ground between light and shadow...between science and superstition...and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge...This is the dimension of imagination...It is an area, that we call...................The Hot Pants Zone (cue crazy sounding music) (1).

Once more, the past has written the present which previews the future...time has lost all relevance, and why not!  With gals like this in Hot Pants like these, well, time has no meaning!  In other words, Hot Pants are timeless, beyond time, outside of space-time reality... We have entered the Hot Pants Zone!!!   And in that extra-dimensional zonality, how are the Hot Pants?  Well, they're Terry-ific?!?!? DUH?!?!? (2)

Holy Hot Pants Batman! Talk about "Terry-ific" hot pants! (3) (4)  Note to my dear gentle readers: Yes, I noticed the title of this pic "so soft TERRY", and yes, that prompts a number of stray thoughts and directions of a more - ah, hem - prurient discourse.  However, decorum prevents me from exploring these options - even in the 5th dimension of the Hot Pants Zone, we have standards!

And now, to truly enter that time vortex of the Hot Pants zone, we need to return to a different dimension of reality, one seemingly lost in the misty recesses of time....

Yes, that is our Jayne Modean (her commercial starts at 1:29) touting the advantages of Nair baby oil to keep those stems hot pants ready!   How in the heck did I ever pass my physics and chemistry classes with distractions like this swirling about?!?!?  With Hot Pants everywhere in the 70s and early 80s,  it is a miracle that I learned anything at all!!!

This brings us to a troubling and potentially disturbing question.  Were these hot pants real or just a figment of our imagination, a primal memory from an alternate reality that can only be experienced in what we call.......The Hot Pants Zone (cue more crazy sounding music).

footnotes:

(1)  I don't smoke, but you have to love the cig that Rod is holding in the intro.  No way you could do that today!

(2)  This pic is courtesy of JJ'S Playhouse. Thanks!

(3) This pic is courtesy of BlueSenshi.  Thanks!

(4) What? Save 98 cents (5)?  Seems like an odd amount, must be some sort of marking ploy.  You know 98 cents sounds bigger than 1 dollar.

         (5) Oh great, footnotes to footnotes!  We really must be an alternate reality!  It appears that computer                keyboards no longer have cents signs on them.  Of course I remember when a # was shorthand for                pounds instead of whatever the heck it means now.

Hot Pants - Kicky!

Of all the zany, wild fashions of the 70s, some actually bring back fond memories - memories that is of my wasted youth.  The Hot Pants were one such fashion trend that is remembered fondly.  Oh how I would have done better in school if it wasn't for those hot girls in their hot pants!  Here are several pics of that most appreciated 70s fashion style.

Hot Pants - Kicky!  The adjective Kicky is code for "Buy these and you'll induce tongue wagging lust in men and green-eyed envy in women while staying just inside the boundaries of current socially accepted fashion norms". The title of this page from Aldens Catalog in the early 70s is perfect for a blog page today.  It is like the author was a blogger in the pre-internet era writing the title of a blog in the future which then finishes the blog of the past!  Sort of like the time travel paradox, but with mail order catalogs!  Yes you read it here first: fashion is like time travel with the past and the future co-existing simultaneously. 

Ohh my head hurts from these metaphysical ponderings.  But wait, look, Hot Pants, Yipppe! I feel better now!

You'll notice that Kathy is wearing a wig, at least I hope it is a wig because, to be honest, I don't find it a good look for her. You see her in this wig in a few shots from this era.  Perhaps she is trying for a more sophisticated look, or perhaps she is trying to go incognito to hide the fact from the other members of the K Club (Kathy, Kay, Karen, and Colleen) that she is getting extra work at Aldens. In fact I almost missed her in this shot when I was scanning old photos.

You'll also note the strange dress coats that are shown over the Hot Pants with bottom buttons left strategically undone.  So the message here is "Wear Hot Pants to be Kicky, but if you need to be a little more modest, wear this dress coats over them, but then if you still want to tease a little, leave the buttons undone".  So it's another paradox: show leg, don't show leg, show leg. Time travel is almost easy to understand by comparison.

Ohh, another paradox, I'm feeling ill, like I'm back in some college Physics class about Quantum Mechanics.  But wait, look, more Hot Pants, Yippeee!

Kickeroo!  Who says you can't turn heads while being a child of the Age of Aquarius?  This page from Simpsons Sears says, yes, you can have it all baby. Once again we have the Hot Pants with the strange dress coats - kinda like The Matrix meets Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.  Simpsons Sears was the Canadian version of Sears.  However, they must have used the same modeling agency because we have Kathy and Karen here too.  

The expression on the girl on the right is great for this shot.  It is like she dropped acid during a John Lennon concert and never came back.  She's been humming "My Sweet Lord" ever since.  Maybe that is why they had her wear the groovy indian headband with a heart!  She's so stoned, she didn't even notice.  I love the descriptions under the clothes.  Kickeroo?!? What, are we in Australia or something?!?  What does that mean exactly, and why the fixation of the word "kick" with Hot Pants.  Maybe the same guy wrote both the Aldens and Simpsons Sears pages.

Yea, I know, another knit hat on Kathy that looks totally out of place with the outfit - except maybe for the 70s. And the footwear.  Eke gads, those are hideous.  Why wear Hot Pants to show leg and then cover them up with bizarro stockings and cloddy shoes and boots that must have taken 30 minutes to lace up? Oh I know, another paradox.

Ohhh, I'm fading again.  But wait, look, Short Shorts! Double Yippeee!!  I'm saved now!

Who wears Short Shorts?  Kathy wears short shorts and looks amazing doing so in this shot from the 1976 JCPenney's Spring/Summer catalog.  Short Shorts were the ultimate evolutionary expression of the Hot Pants lineage. And when they arrived, blamo! They were everywhere for a fleeting, glorious golden highlight of mid-70s fashion.  Being banned from High Schools accross the land only made them more popular.  Also 1970s anthropologists have noticed that the test scores of teenage boys plunged dramatically during this time.  Coincidence or paradox? 

Then it was all over.  Hot Pants, Short Shorts, the Mini, they all seemed to vanish overnight into a 70s drug induced mist.  Were they real or only imaginary?  Perhaps fashion really is like the Time Travel paradox, where what we call the "past" and the "future" are only constructs of our own minds so that those terms have no meaning apart from our own existence.  Or perhaps we do live in The Matrix (fashion version) where everything is an illusion and the images in the catalogs programmed our minds to accept that illusion .  Say it ain't so!  The Hot Pants HAD to be real! THEY HAD TO BE!!