Have fun, enjoy the moment: the disco style was pure glamor – and still is today

The disco style of the 1970s provided the stage for glamorous performances and dancing all night long – today it is relevant again.

It is no longer possible to reconstruct exactly how they got the horse onto the dance floor. The fact is that Bianca Jagger sat on it, in a simple off-the-shoulder dress, on the evening of May 2, 1977, her 32nd birthday. The performance caused quite a stir, but actually she and her friends from New York’s Studio 54 were just getting to the heart of what disco was all about in the 1970s: standing out and having fun, enjoying the moment, looking good and partying excessively (that above all).

In the 1970s, glamor was mandatory for anyone who wanted to live life to the fullest

It didn’t take long until this hedonism, enjoying and showing off, showing off and showing off, became its own style, the disco style. Fifteen or twenty years later, the best clubs were noticed in demolished houses, empty factories or dark cellars, sometimes just for one night. In the seventies, as clubs were still called discotheques, glamor was mandatory.

Shiny metal, reflective surfaces: A sideboard like Willy Rizzo’s shows its charm even when it’s dark – that was one of the tricks of the disco style: it also works in dim lighting.

Sophie Delauw

In the film “Saturday Night Fever” John Travolta plays Tony Manero, the main character. During the week, Tony is a bit of a loser who hates his crappy job at a paint store in Brooklyn. But every Saturday, this ugly little duckling transforms into a beautiful swan who wears three-piece white suits and is king of the dance floor.

“Saturday Night Fever” came out in 1977, the same year that Steve Rubell and Ian Schrader founded their Studio 54 – and the disco where Tony Manero aka John Travolta celebrated his weekly triumphs is of course not in Brooklyn, but also in Manhattan. And it’s certainly not called “2001 Odyssey” by chance: Tony’s nightlife is a journey into the unknown that has as much to do with his everyday life as a simple paint store in Bay Ridge has to do with the Metropolitan Opera House – namely, nothing at all. This is how the seventies should be: Life is larger than life.