Street Style Look of the Week: 1970s Flair on the Cheap

“I’m quite fortunate to enjoy the ’70s men’s wear because very few other people do,” James Rutherford said when I met him near the Blackfriars station of the London Underground, a stone’s throw from the Thames. He was wearing a vintage brown suit that he said he had found on eBay. “It’s really a reviled decade, you know, as far as men’s fashion is concerned,” he said, “so you can you can pick up some really eye-catching items very cheaply.”

Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, Rutherford, 34, works in the legal department of a financial technology company. He had paired his suit with a flamboyant 1970s-style blue shirt with a dagger collar and was carrying a leather satchel. Two shiny hair pins kept his curly red hair from overtaking either side of his face.

Rutherford said that he had previously worked for white-shoe legal firms, where more traditional “suit trousers with a quarter zip” uniforms were required, but that he’d chafed against the restrictions — as well as the silhouette. “I hate skinniness,” he said of overly fitted looks. “I like a wide leg and a high-waisted trouser.”

Though he has plenty of “normal guy clothes” in his closet, Rutherford said that he gets “a lot of unprovoked comments” about his hair, which was one of the things that inspired him to embrace the style of this particular era. “People have said I look like Starsky and Hutch, Simon and Garfunkel, Donald Sutherland in ‘Don’t Look Now.’” He paused. “Now that was very flattering, actually.”