Another Reason to Step back from Nostalgia

As a rule, those of us trained as historians draw a sharp line between history and nostalgia. This can be odd, because people who take up history-related interests as adults are as often driven by nostalgia and escapism as by an interest in getting to the facts of the matter.

What has me thinking about this was a certain amount of teasing about whether I should post a picture of my 1968 self in bell bottoms.

In this case, I was there as an adult, and nostalgia has it wrong. In most of the country, in 1968, the consumers were way ahead of the manufacturers. When the year started, bell bottom jeans were the exclusive property of sailors. As the year went on, demand far exceeded supply. It wasn’t until late in the year that I managed to score a pair, in a store that catered mainly to sailors.

When you have something this desirable and hard to obtain, you tend to be careful with it. For quite a while, anyone lucky enough to own bell bottoms wore them as party wear, not everyday.

Nostalgia has also conflated hippie with mod, the earlier British fashion movement. They came together eventually, but that was in late 1969-1970. For the most part, you wore jeans with fairly austere tops…austere at least compared to the nostalgia.

A couple of years later, I had no problem at all obtaining bell bottoms, but that was somewhat more compulsory.