Warning – retro may be hazardous to your health

Posted on Mon, 8 Feb 2010 by midcenturyjo

Knotty pine bookcases and water plants in bottles? Check! Sheep skins on  carpet? Check! Cactus western print fabric and obligatory director’s chair? Check! Bad hair cut? Check! Corduroy shirt over check shirt, desert boots and hot whisky with lemon and cinnamon sticks? Check-a-rooney! Pipe and book. Must be the 70s! Could this guy be any more cool? (You don’t have to answer. And is it my imagination or does he look like Seinfeld?) If he has kept up the pipe smoking since the photo was taken he’s probably dead by now. Just goes to show that everything retro isn’t good! Scans from The Apartment Book, by the editors of Apartment Life magazine, Meredith Corporation, 1980.

 

 

Priscilla says:

Ok, count with me the many times a magazine stylist has lead me astray. One: fooling me that I could have sewing machine, typewriter (!) and drawing board in a 3’x3′ space, and work there too; two: making me think I could afford rent AND that red lamp; three: inspiring me to happily turn a closet into a tiny, tiny kitchen; four: making me think two (and more!) people could actually EAT at a table that small; five: not warning me that to place two pieces of a sectional together without attaching them on the bottom is a sure lead in to cracking your head on the floor (because you can’t sit on that duo without falling thru).
But, I was young and inexperienced in the ways of photo styling, and I wanted to believe the pictures. What’s my excuse now?
Note to self: take antlers off wall before someone loses an eye…

KiM says:

These are a HOOT!! Except what the hell is that loaf thing on the coffee table in the last photo? GROSS!!

Priscilla – LOL!!!

whyioughtta says:

Wow! Great post. I never realized how much "hoarding" was a decor theme in the 70s. The basics (furniture, etc.) haven’t changed much since then, but interiors today contain about .00003% of the "stuff" shown here. And what was with the tablescapes? Maybe you have to be experimenting with acid or cocaine to get it.

Well, I’m off to hollow out a loaf of bread and fill it with spinach dip and hard-boiled eggs…Maybe I should garnish that with an entire bottle of sliced pickles, a carton of whole radishes, and two heads of lettuce? What do you think?

Cathy says:

Wow. Gotta love the 70’s/80’s. This post made me laugh out loud. The houseplants look like they’re about to come alive and eat someone. Hopefully the dude with the pipe.

Union Tom says:

I was 16 the first time I ever went into the Fiorucci store in NY and, after looking around, was wondering if I was going to be asked for my ID or give them a dollar for "browsing". I miss the NY of the late 70’s

summer says:

Ohhhh, the highwaisted jeans, the rattan, the ferns…mom, is that you?

Raina says:

The plants. THE PLANTS!

Cussot says:

Oh how I loved that book back in the day! I still have that fold-up table in my clippings file!

Priscilla says:

Union Tom: that’s funny, charge you a dollar! I thought the people in Fiorucci were going to ask me to LEAVE (not cool enough, didn’t they know I had a tiny kitchen in a closet?!).

Lizzifer says:

I need those red cube shelves !

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