If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain, you might have enjoyed the recent Nostalgia Night at the Avenir Museum. Nearly fifty residents of Fort Collins gathered to share their favorite objects and memories from the 1970s. They wove a tapestry of stories across the continent, from Canada to Mexico and Massachusetts to Hawaii. The Avenir’s current exhibition, “Nostalgia Mode: Fashion and Sentimentality in the 1970s,” celebrates all things 70s.
Highlights include dresses by Gunne Sax, a denim skirt suit, a shirt with printed bicentennial fabric, and denim jeans with patchwork applique. They also share their accession records from 1976. The bicentennial celebration brought the past to the forefront of America’s consciousness and encouraged a slew of museum donations. I had a chance to look through the accession records myself, as I happened to be part of the team that installed the exhibit.
Nostalgia Night featured wedding and prom dresses, handmade coats, thrifted silk scarves, and a pair of locally purchased platform shoes. One woman shared a jacket that her mother had passed down to her. Another showed the group her first home economics project, a hand-made coat. Many of the attendees were those who had lived through the 70s… but there were more than a few young people as well. Many of the objects and stories had been handed down from parents or grandparents. Photos of the event can be found at the Avenir Museum’s Instagram page.
I shared my own items and stories — a jacket that my mother purchased in the 1970s and passed down to me, and a pair of denim jeans that I had patched after being inspired by the exhibit’s own patchwork jeans.
Local resident Gerry Edwards, who runs a private antique shop in her spare time, shared her collection of silk scarves. “I’ve always had an affinity for old objects,” Edwards said. “They hold so much history in them.” She held court after the event, showing her finds to a crowd of interested viewers. Her table held a pile of giveaways. She gave me a Codello silk scarf and her business card.
People mingled and continued to swap stories for nearly an hour after the event. I asked local seamstress Jo Barclay about her takeaways from five decades of tailoring. “I can’t buy anything off the rack anymore,” Barclay said. She recommends that everyone learn how to make some basic alterations to their clothes. “Once you’ve worn something that fits you properly, you can’t go back.”
One of the museum volunteers, Jan Alexander, stopped me on my way out. “I know how to make your jeans into bell-bottoms,” she said. It looks like my next nostalgia project is lined up for me.
