Certain TV shows have had a huge impact on fashion. Recent shows like “Sex & The City”, “Mad Men”, and “Gossip Girls” are notable for their influence. This year’s surprise entrant is “Life on Mars”. What makes it a surprise is that the show takes place in 1973, which is not a period often associated with great fashion. Despite that, the show is a rating success, with over 11.3 million viewers last week.
In 1973, I was a scant 16 year old, a freshman in high school. It was a simpler time, nothing like today, an unpopular, and unjust war overseas (Viet Nam) was coming to an end, a recession began, and gas at .40 cents a gallon ushered in an age of contempt for big business, and Wall Street in general, our political candidates debated Roe V. Wade, and “the right to life” became a polarizing campaign element, which fed into the general distrust of Republicans, the status-quo, and a right-wing government, which was grappling with multiple scandals, think Watergate, the conflict in the Middle East was escalating, we dismissed a group called ABBA in favor of Elton John, neither of whom would ever be seen on something as commercial as Broadway, or so we thought. All that being said, we were as supremely confidant in our power as a nation, as we were in the new World Trade Center Towers, which rose above the NY skyline We were the biggest, ergo, the best.
If I could take a magical time capsule ride back to sometime to in the past, I am not so certain I would head back to 1973, it is strangely dissimilar to today, isn‘t it? FYI: 1973 was 35 years ago. Unfortunately in 1973 I wasn't paying too much attention to 1973. I was trying to figure out how to get a "shag" like David Cassidy in "The Partridge Family". You know what they say about if you hold onto something long enough it will come back. Well, that is a half-truth; it does come back, but usually better (except for "shags".) That may be true of clothes, but it is definitely true of TV, and “Life On Mars” makes 1973 groovy all over again.
“Life On Mars” does capture all the fashion forensics of the early 70’s, girls with straight parted hair, slightly disheveled; (sans product) they wear baby dolls, bohemian peasant blouses, and granny dresses with puffy bishop sleeves. Have you seen Dolce & Gabbana and Louis Vuitton's ads lately? There are alpha-men in low-rise jeans, (usually studded) and corduroy slacks, with wide belt loops. Hello, The Gap, and Roberto Cavalli, are you conspiring? Men wear wide watch cuff bands, which are as commonplace as Ed Hardy, or Aldo’s accessories. Businessmen are at ease in plaid suits with wide lapels. Tom Ford have you been watching ABC? Wide ties and collars worn outside the jackets is de rigueur, and appears almost pulled off of a Sean John ad. The street is littered with “low-life’s” in Spandex, Lurex, pimped-out, and as trashy as an American Apparel catalog. Best of all are leads Jason O’Mara, a comely Steve McQueen type, with his worn-out, and butter soft, black leather blazer, which he alternates each episode with his tight cow hide tan leather, which is right out of Wilson’s House of Leather, but so thrift store chic that I predict Mark Jacobs will pay homage to it in his next collection for Louis Vuitton, if not in polyester or double knit. Gretchen Mol with her coiffed Farrahesque flip, powder blue eye shadow, and pink blush is almost Olivia Newton-John perfect, and provides a counter pointed restraint to Michael Imperoli’s blown dried tresses, long shaggy side burns, overgrown grotesque mustache, and hairy chest. In 1973, it’s all about the hair.
The show based on the equally influential BBC series is preposterous in its premise. Its 2008, a commitment phobic police office, Sam Tyler, is hit by a car, and knocked unconscious while perusing a serial killer out to get his African American girlfriend (Lisa Bonet) and get this, police partner. He wakes up on the same street, only now its 1973, and he hears David Bowie’s “Life On Mars” as he awakes. “Take a look at the lawman beating up the wrong guy. Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know, he's in the best selling show. Is there life on Mars?” David Bowie. Sam has the same name, same job, and everyone is expecting him, as he’s a “transfer” from another district. Periodically he makes contact with the future/present, as he tries to figure out if he really traveled through time, is just dreaming, in a coma, or hallucinating.
If not for the paean to fashion, the show is not without charm as the protagonist, Sam, tries to manage the complexities of living in 1973. Three decades ago there are no cell phones, the police use walkie-talkies, there are no iPods, people listen to music transistor radios, as in FM radio, and on their 8 tracks, there is no Starbucks, people percolate Maxwell House in aluminum coffee pots, there are no iTunes, or Napster, people sell vinyl albums at 33 1/3rd revolutions per minute, people do not e-mail each other, they call each other on pay phones, they call 911 on rotary dial phones, children make their Grandma’s ashtrays at school, kids eat Popsicles, not Hagen-Daz, people drive without seat-belts, people read books, and newspapers, there is no CNN, or Larry King, people watch the news in something called black & white. Most startlingly is the way people speak to each other, as in “those Mexican’s” and “Miss No Nuts,” when referring to a female police officer, or a “Skirt”, or a “Twirl” when referring to a female civilian. Protagonist, Sam, is referred to as “Mary”, by the Police Chief (played to Serpico perfection by Harvey Keitel) when he suggests that women are as smart as men. Gasp! It is 1973! I love it! I am hooked. I’m going through my closet and digging out the Angel Flight elephant bells and acrylic scoop neck sweater vests. I cannot wait until they release the first full season on DVD, but wait, I would have to go a year in the future for that to happen.
