Sew Your Own Bell Bottoms! DIY Fashions ’71

 

The McCall’s Needlework & Crafts Fall-Winter 1971-1972 issue is quite the fashion time capsule.  Page after page featuring DIY fashions of the day.  The skill of knitting and needlework is fast becoming lost, but we still have magazines such as this to remind us when sewing your own pantsuit wasn’t that uncommon.  Many of the styles presented here are, let’s just say, not to most people’s tastes; but they’re still a wonderful blast from fashion’s past.  Enjoy.

 

 

DIY fashions were often a form of child abuse. Fortunately, these kids are young enough to escape the shame of a homemade sweater or tartan… but kids a few years weren’t so lucky.

 

These crochet outfits could be rather revealing.  There were even crochet bathing suits, were a real treat when wet.  For more on this, see: Sexy Yarn: Bewitching Stitching of the 1970s

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