1970’s Saturday Night Fever

The 1970’s saw rise to a different kind of tailoring in menswear. The likes of Tommy Nutter and Edward Sexton had already began to break the mold on Savile Row with their menswear outlet House of Nutters. The first shop on Savile Row to defrost the glass on the shop front and allow passers by the chance to view in and see the cutters in action.

What house of Nutters started doing was make the lapels incredibly wide. To the point of audacious. The likes of Mick and his then wife Bianca Jagger were patrons and during that time they would spearhead an androgynous assemblage.

Edward Sexton ‘We developed a different look, much longer, more wasted with more flair and a narrow shoulder. This was a great time for tailoring. We were seeing influencer from the 20’s and 30’s and cutting our dash with bold cloths and a dramatic cut.’ (Authors interview).

The era was immortalised by John Travolta playing the part of Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. The suit is made of polyester and was bought off the peg in a cheap men's clothes store in Brooklyn.

Director John Badham originally thought the suit in the final dance scene would be black, but was convinced by the designer Patrizia Von Brandenstein to use white.

Flared trousers had already been featured in films. Roger Moore escaped the traditional classic conduit cut trouser when he took over the role in Live and Let Die. More remarkably the flared trousers were hitting a zenith in the movie Moonraker.

The nightclub scene and disco in particular was perpetuating. Studio 54 lifted its velvet rope in 1977, perhaps the most legendary night club ever. One of the co-creators Ian Schrager would remark on the music as ‘serious sweaty dancing’ to music you could feel in your bones. ‘The idea was to constantly assault the senses’.

It was a decedent time for disco and club music. One of the most indelible images of the decade would be Bianca Jagger straddling a white horse at her own birthday party.