You’ll look in character,” giggled my son, “even if you just wear pants” – a dig my children keep making at me for wearing my trousers a tad higher than theirs – though it isn’t the kind of thing a polite, well-brought up child would have said without the encouragement of his mother who kept insisting, “You can come as you are.” “But it’s a retro party…” I started to say, when my wife cut in to exclaim, “Exactly my point!” I could have reminded them that a few years ago I had walked off with the top party prize for my hippy ensemble that consisted of pink nylon trousers (sourced from a pavement bazaar) paired with a blonde wig (on loan from a female mannequin that graced the window of a neighbourhood salon) and even a chunky belt (a hand-me-down from a younger sibling) and beads and baubles draped over a floral shirt (mine), but I’m not one to stretch a point — especially when afterwards the host chose to be critical anyway and say, “Buddy, you didn’t take the effort to dress up even a bit.”
If you grew up in the seventies, you’d be as horrified as me at the return of the drainpipes and bellbottoms, the short jackets and psychedelic “dog-collar” shirts and too-tight skivvies — even if the look is being saved for parties rather than for office wear. It was the worst, horridest period ever for fashion, and anyone looking to get married in the eighties destroyed all evidence of the face-covering go-go shades and big hair by burning all photographs and quietly but irrefutably burying the past. But now in the noughties it has come back to haunt us by way of retro throwback films and party themes that you just can’t escape if you want any manner of social life whatsoever.
If getting ready for going out used to take an inordinately long time earlier, it’s a nightmare now. “Should I wear a tight saree like Mumtaz used to,” my wife would want to know – meaning you could mince, not walk, across a room – “or a kaftan like Parveen Babi?” “How about a mini dress like Zeenat Aman?” I challenged her. “Why don’t you wear a kurta over tight trousers like Rajesh Khanna?” my wife jeered at me. “Pointy bras,” I reminded her of filmmakers’ peculiar penchant for padding up their heroines’ chests in somewhat comical fashion. “Shiny suits with polka ties,” she threw back at me. “Hair switches,” I couldn’t resist pointing to the idiosyncratic fad that involved attaching other women’s tresses to their own. “White shoes,” she accused grandly, “bow-ties, psychedelic jackets, buckled shoes…” till I had to plead with her to stop.
“Why,” I couldn’t resist asking, “do we have to dress up in this hideous fashion now if we hated it so much then?” “That is true,” my wife, surprisingly, agreed, “and spoofing it only makes it worse.” Yet, party invitations cajoled you into dressing for the part if you wanted to get past the bouncers at the gate. Casual wear had been replaced ominously by seventies’ wear. “Whatever will they think of next,” I said sadly, “safari suits?” “Or snakeskin tights,” muttered my wife. “It’ll only get worse,” I prophesied, since a recent Bollywood blockbuster had romanticised the fad further, “we’ll have to endure it all winter.” “Maybe we shouldn’t,” my wife took a stand, “we must count for something as individuals.”
And so off we went in our noughties casual wear to a retro party last evening, reveling in our new-found spirit of independence. “You’re wonderful,” our hostess gushed at us from the entrance. “Truly,” agreed her husband, wearing a silly wool wig, “you’ve taken so much trouble to dress the part.”