Butterick Home Catalog, 1971

Next to brown, purple appears to have been the most popular colour of the early 1970s.  It predominates on the covers of at least one third of the pattern catalogues I own from that era.  This example (another one of my acquisitions at "Love Vintage" fashion fair) dates from 1971.

However, purple didn't have quite the staying power of brown.  By the end of 1972 purple appears to have been overthrown and large checks taken its place on the cover of the world's pattern magazines.

Simplicity Pattern Book, Autumn/Winter 1969

I went to the "Love Vintage" fashion fair yesterday, where I picked up a big bundle of late '60s-early '70s sewing pattern magazines.  The example I've posted above is from 1969, but it looks boldly ahead to the 1970s with the model wearing a pants suit in brown - that most typically 70s colour!

If I hadn't broken the bank buying magazines at the fashion fair I could have had myself decked out from head to foot in vintage styles from any dates between the 1920s to the 1980s.  There was a stall specialising in hats - and a stall which offered to do people's hair 1940s style.  There were people selling  vintage stockings and corsets and jewelry.  Instead, after gawking at all the fair had to offer, I found myself watching a jitterbugging exhibition.  It's strange to think how an era which produced so much misery could also have generated so much nostalgia!