Sweater by Biba and belt by Fenwicks

One of my favourite fashion shoots of, ooh, forever, I have no idea why I have only just got round to scanning it in. This look appeals to me more and more every time I look at it. Part of what I love about the Seventies is the way they were influenced by the styles of earlier eras, and yet the result is always so perfectly Seventies and, inexplicably, preferable to the original. Speaking for myself, anyway…

Photographed by Eva Sereny. Scanned from The Sunday Times Magazine, October 1972

“At the Paris winter collections no-one seemed to have any scruples about cribbing from the Fifties. However, Dorothée Bis, one of the most influential ready-to-wear designers, did it better than anybody else because the clothes managed to look far sexier than they ever did at the time. Big baggy men’s department sweaters; jackets and coats, swagger-backed or lumberjack style, in cloth or fake fur; tight skirts hobbled over seamed lurex tights – in fact, everything that could be worn with a waspie belt like the one shown here, giving more shape tot he shapely and hope to the straight. On the cover and on these pages actress Fiona Lewis shows how she wears waist-clinchers.”

Sweater and belt from Biba

Sweater is model’s own, belt from Biba

Waspie from Escalade

Waspie and felt skirt by Biba