[HN Gopher] Counterculture legend who invented bell-bottom jeans...
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Counterculture legend who invented bell-bottom jeans dies at 84
Author : anigbrowl
Score : 85 points
Date : 2025-01-01 22:35 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sfgate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sfgate.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Caserta
| Hilift wrote:
| Peggy sold LSD for Owsley Stanley. Owsley was an legendary
| audio engineer and the first large scale LSD producer
| (1965-1967). He made five grams that made 5 million doses. Tom
| Wolfe wrote about him in the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test
| (1968), although I don't recall him mentioning Peggy. Truly an
| oversight.
|
| The "Acid Tests" were large parties where people drank fruit
| punch mixed with LSD.
|
| https://stanfordmag.org/contents/what-a-trip
| soulofmischief wrote:
| You're looking at 25k to 50k doses, not 5 million. A typical
| dose is 100-200mg, and back then they were often even
| stronger than that.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| the Acid Test parties were real and had a lot of impact at
| the time! many say foolish, in hindsight.. there was a sense
| of urgency among certain people about it that was a
| combination of factors.
| morkalork wrote:
| There's a telling anecdote in the book about one of the
| first parties where there were two coolers of Kool-Aid, one
| plain and one with LSD in it. The organizers weren't
| malicious, they put them out and made an announcement like
| "this one is for lions and tigers, this other one is for
| kittens" hint hint right? No one could hear it over the
| music and the whole thing became a shit show. Definitely
| their hearts were in the right place but they were also a
| bunch of amateurs
| master_crab wrote:
| Imagining a time when San Francisco used to be the center of
| fashion and music is wild.
| Avicebron wrote:
| It wasn't until I think around ww2 when sf got fucked really
| hard population wise, that had like some maybe good 10 years
| until the burden on the infrastructure and culture just blew it
| to bits, I know people with family histories in the bay going
| back until the gold rush and they really know what's been going
| on and why it's so bad
| _trampeltier wrote:
| I just listened to the charts in the radio. Since streaming is
| included, it's just sad. Most top songs are more than 40, 50,
| 100 one even song over 250 weeks in the charts (Switzerland).
| The "hits" are all just boring radio / background music. Of
| course there is cool new music, but today nothing such is
| played in the normal radio.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| Great piece. This subculture has been overanalyzed to death, but
| the early roots were very humble indeed, and the spirit of
| entrepreneurship this woman possessed was quite real and strong.
| Circumstances and tragedy unfortunately short-circuited her
| trajectory, yet she made a lasting impact, and it seems she found
| grace in her stride again through her final chapters.
|
| My parents had at least one Janis Joplin record and each dipped
| their toes into the hippie scene, so I was aware of it early on.
| Bell-bottom jeans were reviled by many in my early youth -
| including me - but by the time I was in high school, I started to
| see the appeal in more than one way. I helped create a fake video
| news report on Woodstock as part of some kind of A/V class. I
| took acid. I listened to the Grateful Dead tapes a friend had
| acquired through the still robust tape-trading scene going at the
| time (incidentally, some of my favorite background music lately
| has been some instrumental-only jam collections posted by
| gratefuldeadosaurusrex on YT, check it out if you're so
| inclined).
|
| Only a tiny percentage of baby boomers were actually
| significantly involved in hippie culture, even during its height.
| Like nearly everything truly special, it got overblown. Despite
| its exaggerated presence and oft-deserved mixed reception,
| though, there was something important about it. There's a reason
| so many keep going back to take another look. I think it's wise
| for some of us to continue sifting through the remnants to find
| what's worth holding on to.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| interesting to read this and thank you for writing it.. I
| suspect that many are missing the deeper roots of "folk" that
| contributed to the whole thing.. Media was evolving at that
| time, so certain media figures tend to represent the whole
| thing in the perception of many, but media products were not
| the only effects. Some aspects of the cultural emergence have
| roots more than two thousand years IMHO
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >They got on well, and when they were talking one day, she
| learned Dugan had been sewing a triangle of paisley cloth into
| her boyfriend's Levi's, allowing him to more comfortably pull
| them over his boots.
|
| Why was this person putting on their jeans after putting on their
| shoes?
| joshstrange wrote:
| Maybe they mean pull the jeans down over the boots. Like put
| the jeans on first, then your boots but in the process you push
| up your jeans, then you want to pull your jeans back over the
| tops of your boots.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Oh, that makes more sense. I've never worn shoes like that so
| I couldn't make any sense of that situation.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| As a home-grown Texan--Exactly this.
|
| Boot-cut and baby boot-cut jeans are required for proper boot
| wearing.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It's the other way round.
|
| Boot-cut jeans (still being sold, these days) have a slight
| flare, because the top of the boot is kind of wide, and hard to
| get under the jeans.
|
| I don't know if the US Navy still has bell-bottomed jeans, but
| a part of their work uniform used to be these highwater
| bellbottoms.
| technothrasher wrote:
| My immediate thought when I read the title of this thread
| was, "What? The US Navy invented bell-bottomed jeans." But I
| see it is just the headline here on HN that gets it wrong.
| The actual article pointed to credits her with the origin of
| the 1960-70's popular craze, not the invention.
| superfunny wrote:
| Did the US Navy invent bell-bottom JEANS or bell-bottom
| pants? Were the version from the US Navy made of denim?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I believe so.
|
| Probably pics out there. They had them as jeans in the
| late 1960s, when I was visiting a warship.
|
| _[UPDATED TO ADD]
|
| Looks like they used to be jeans:
| https://nara.getarchive.net/media/right-enlisted-
| dungaree-un...
|
| Now they wear Navy camo as work uniforms:
| https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/References/US-Navy-
| Uniforms/Un..._
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Great story. I had never heard about her, but she seems like
| someone I would have enjoyed hanging with (later in her life).
| fsckboy wrote:
| in terms of invention, sailors had been wearing bell bottoms
| since the US Navy introduced them 1817 and sailors tromping
| around seaport cities would have been more of an every day event
| through WWII. That US Navy uniform is informally called "Cracker
| Jacks"
|
| https://www.shopthesalvationarmy.com/Listing/Details/2645572...
|
| They were intended to allow sailors to roll their pants up above
| the knee while swabbing the decks
|
| https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-trending/this-is-why-t...
|
| But we can see "bell bottomed trousers" referenced in popular
| culture in the 1940's, here's Louis Prima's band doing the song
| Bell Bottomed Trousers
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QXmdbc5sx0
|
| and here's a painting used for the sheet music
|
| https://fineartamerica.com/featured/bell-bottom-trousers-alb...
|
| https://www.ecrater.com/p/42407644/vintage-1944-bell-bottom-...
| conductr wrote:
| Interesting historical context but I also think fashion is
| something where subtle changes can completely differentiate the
| thing, and for that, these are not the bell bottom jeans I
| think most people think of when that term gets mentioned. They
| are loose around the upper parts all the way down. Much more
| similar to the jeans the JNCO brand popularized in the 90s. The
| 60s/70s bell bottom jeans were hip hugging but also flared at
| the bottom. They were different enough to not be the same from
| a fashion perspective.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| It's not a novel invention in the legal sense, I doubt the
| parent was trying to make a claim in the fashion sense which
| might have millions of different subtle variations.
| adfm wrote:
| The bell bottoms referenced are alterations called "flares"
| where colorful fabric panels were sewn into the garment rather
| than manufactured whole cloth. To be clear, people knew bell
| bottom pants existed, but "flares" were what people wore. I
| believe everyone just started calling them bell bottoms because
| it was a generic term.
|
| There's a lot more to the recent past than you realize and not
| all of it is online.
| dieselgate wrote:
| "Bell bottom blues you make me cry"
| eadmund wrote:
| > the long-haired woman with a Southern lilt behind the counter
| who was the brainchild of it all, opening up the shop when she
| was just 24 years old
|
| Surely if she opened it up, the _shop_ was _her_ brainchild.
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(page generated 2025-01-05 23:00 UTC)