Daughter's `new' clothes show '70s fashions are right on

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

The 21-year-old keeps appearing at my office door in clothes I know I threw away two decades ago.

"What do you think, Mom? Don't you just love this outfit?"

This "outfit," the one she's modeling now, is the worst of the lot. It's a black-and-white polka-dot-one-piece, who-knows-what-to-call it.

"It's three different fashions in one," she explains. "It's a bell-bottom jumpsuit with an empire waist and a halter-top front. Remember those halter tops you used to wear?"

I remember, though I have tried to forget. But thousands of pictures in dozens of photo albums won't let me. There I am, there we all were, Caryn and John, Mark and Jill, Bobby and Lee, smiling for the camera, in bell bottoms and polyester tops, (remember Huck-a-poo shirts?) men and women alike.

"So do you like my shoes? You have to like them. They're great, don't you think?"

The shoes I don't mind. They're more '20s than '70s. I can almost see Zelda Fitzgerald dancing in them. They're black sandals with 4 1/2-inch platform soles. I used to have a pair.

"You should never have thrown them away, Mom. You could wear them now.'

But I wouldn't, I tell her. I like my comfortable shoes, the flat kind I can walk in.

A few minutes ago this daughter appeared in a red creation. Short red dress with, once again, an empire waist (How can you hate them, Mom? All your bridesmaids wore them); a flare skirt (See how it twirls?); and red-suede platform shoes.

"My Barbie doll had shoes just like these when I was 6 years old, and I looked at them with lust thinking that when I grew up I would wear them. Now I'm grown up and they're back."

She tells me that reliving her youth makes her happy. I tell her that looking at her makes me laugh.

Last month, when she came home from South Shore Plaza with matching bell-bottoms and vest, I thought for sure she had lost her mind.

"I hate it," I said. "You're kidding me, right? You're not going to wear that?"

The pants were huge - huge at the thighs, huger at the ankles. Our entire family could have slipped into them with her and there still would have been room for company. The vest was so Cher (when she was with Sonny) that I was sure she found this thing in the cellar.

"I'm going to get clogs to go with it," she announced, ignoring me.

I thought then that maybe we lived too close to power lines and she was the first in the family to short-circuit. But then I went shopping and ran into the truth.

The truth is the '70s are back. My daughter is not fried. She's on the cutting edge of what's about to be the norm. From Ann Taylor to Filene's Basement, the inventory is the same: wide-legged rayon pants; long, button-down rayon vests; rayon jumpsuits with empire waists; rayon dresses that cinch in the back, rayon hot pants, rayon bodysuits, smocked rayon, ribbed rayon. Rayon is the polyester of the '90's.

Accessories, too, are straight out of the '70s: clogs, platform shoes, clunky jewelry, fringed shawls, strings for necklaces. Even musk is back, the preferred fragrance of both sexes.

Only the strains of the Bee Gees are missing.

Next it will be straight hair, I know, long, thin, windswept straight hair, and blue eye shadow with liner to match; and sideburns and Nehru jackets for men. It's when people start saying things like, "What sign are you?" "Wow!" and "Right on!" that I'm going to run for cover.

"You do that, Mom," my daughter tells me.

"Hey, Lauren. I like your outfit," the 16-year-old says, walking in the front door.

"Right on," the '70s wannabe says to her sister, then turns to me and smiles.