Another item of clothing probably made by Barbara from the “Good Life.” (1973). This beautiful skirt was mostly worn long and made of very large patchwork shapes. No need to stick to squares or circles; it could be any shape going in any direction at all. The main beauty about the patchwork dress was the ability to change how it looked.
No problem if you ripped the skirt, all you had to do was replace the damaged area with another patch, this gave the dress a long life, and also it was able to change itself over a course of a few years. Again, the dress was slightly weighty, but was very practical for the hard economic time of the 1970s.
Groups like The New Seekers would often appear on Top Of the Pops wearing suede patchwork and it was never thought of as a poor persons clothing. It was a clever way to look trendy in the 1970s, without paying out shed loads of money in town. Needless to say, there was not much money around anyway.
I remember that one of the issues with patchwork skirts was that they would lose colour and fade unevenly, and it was always a little difficult to keep ripping up the parents old suede jackets to make the skirt look good. Suede was a little heavy, and it was not a great product to get wet.
Suede patchwork bags were very popular at the time as well. If you couldn’t afford to buy or make your own suede patchwork skirt you could still get something of the look by carrying a multicoloured patchwork handbag.
Suede was in a multitude of colours in those days. I myself wore a bright green pair of suede trousers. Oh the shame of it all!
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