Middleagedmum.com: My 70’s style crush

1970's Teenage crushes
There is a girl in my daughters year at school, who is the year 10 style crush. She has all the latest clothes and accessories and knows how to work a look. She is very pretty and has a glamorous mum, so I can see her appeal, but as I have pointed out to my teen, sometimes the girls you want to look like when you are 15, don’t always go onto to become style icons when they are older. There is such a thing as a fashion peak or Nirvana (I have talked about this before) and there is nothing more dissapointing than seeing your teenage fashion crush, 20 years later, looking almost exactly the same.

My teenage style crush, Angela Davidson, knew how to wear a 70’s mac, high waisted skirt and Farah Fawcett flicks like no-one else in the whole of North Humberside and she dated the school heart throb, Kevin Cousins (now theres a 70’s name). They were the it couple, the Brad and Angelina/ TomKat of Wolfreton Upper School and we all wanted to be her. My best friend and I would walk behind them on our way home from school, trying to breathe their air, in an effort to inhale a little piece of their innate sartorial elegance.

Fast forward a few years to the 80’s, on a trip back to my old home town (looking like an extra from a Bananrama video) and who should I spot in the local shopping parade (oh the glamour) but my 70’s style icon. My heart skipped a beat, but I couldn’t possibly talk to her, she had no idea who I was, as I had admired her from afar – if only there had been Facebook in those days, I could have FB stalked her. But OH NO, she looked the same, the same flicked hair, the same slightly 70’s style and horror of all horrors, she looked normal.

She had peaked at 16. I was devastated, I had imagined she would go onto great things, moving from trend to trend, becoming more fashionable and even more fabulous as the years progressed. How could she have turned into an ordinary person!!

I know, I know – she is probably very happy and living a rich and fulfilled life, blissfully unaware she has destroyed my fantasy, but you get my drift?

The opposite theory applies to male teenage crushes. No-one wants them to move on and change, ever. We need them to stay exactly as they are, frozen in time, preserved and perfect, to be brought out from time to time – when going through the attic – in the form of old Jackie or Pink magazines.

My heart can still skip a beat when confronted with an image of David Cassidy in a V neck, brown and beige tank top, or David Essex resplendent in a blanket check bomber jacket, with perfect permed hair, that risky little earring and those gorgeous twinkly eyes.

Seeing them as they are now, is merely a reminder that not only have they got older and greyer, so have we. In our hearts we are still those 15 year old girls in Van Allen A line midi skirts, high waisted flares (precisely why I won’t be wearing that particular trend this season) and fitted jersey shirts with ridiculous pointed collars and turn back cuffs. And maybe we also secretly hope there may still be a chance to ‘get off’ with Jim MacLaine (David Essex) from the coming of age 70’s film, That’ll Be The Day.

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David Essex appearing in Eastenders as Alfie Moon’s uncle will mean nothing to many people, certainly not anyone under the age of 40, but for me it is too much to bear. Ok, he is still quite a handsome man, but he’s no Jim MacLaine, and now I know for sure, there is definitely no chance of me joining the fair and running off with him.

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