The 1970s was a pivotal decade for men’s fashion magazines. As styles and attitudes shifted, publications raced to capture the latest trends and give advice to style-conscious men. By the end of the decade, a few key magazines had emerged as the definitive voices on what stylish gentlemen should be wearing.
The Rise of More Relaxed Fashions
The 1970s saw a move away from the more formal men’s wear of previous decades towards more casual looks. Wide collars, bold prints and colors, longer hair, and generally more relaxed styling came into vogue. Magazines like GQ, Esquire, and Playboy led the charge in showcasing these updated fashions and grooming styles for modern men.
Key style influences came from the disco scene, musicians like the Rolling Stones, and films like Saturday Night Fever. Looks tended to be flashier and bolder than the straightforward suits and cropped hair of the 1960s. Men’s fashion was breaking out of its conservative mold.
The Rise of GQ as a Fashion Authority
Of all the men’s magazines, GQ emerged as perhaps the most influential fashion voice in the 1970s. Founded in 1957 as Apparel Arts, the publication had mainly focused on men’s suits and formalwear. But as the 60s counterculture trends gave way to more eclectic and creative looks, GQ expanded its coverage.
The magazine brought in young photographers, writers, and editors to chronicle the explosion in men’s styles. And they developed signature ways of capturing the new adventurous spirits, like using exotic locales and atypical models. By the mid-70s, GQ had established itself as the magazine for men’s fashion and grooming.
GQ Covers Showcased Major Style Icons
Flipping through GQ covers from the 1970s reveals how the magazine tapped into both the establishment and counterculture alike. The September 1974 issues featured Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in his trademark smoking jacket. The very next month, Mick Jagger appeared wearing a loose-fitting striped shirt and neck scarf.
These images signified the broad range of looks and icons that GQ now included within its pages. From formally attired celebrities to rock stars in their latest stage styles, GQ provided inspiration across the board.
Beyond Fashion Advice to Lifestyle Content
But 1970s GQ offered more than just fashion spreads of wide collars and bell bottoms. It expanded into providing advice on grooming, travel, drink recipes, fitness, and auto reviews. This lifestyle approach built a well-rounded magazine for modern men to not just dress better but live better.
By decade’s end, GQ’s circulation had quadrupled and it had won industry accolades like “Magazine of the Year.” No other men’s magazine could match its influence as taste-maker and style manual for the 1970s man about town.
The Ongoing Relevance of Esquire and Playboy
While GQ was the defining new voice, classic men’s lifestyle magazines like Esquire and Playboy remained relevant in the 1970s. Both publications had rich histories in showcasing men’s fashions since the 1930s and 50s respectively.
They provided a balance of showcasing formal suiting and professional wardrobe advice along with the casual leisurewear looks that were infiltrating men’s closets. And they matched GQ in offering complementary content like fiction essays, interviews with leading celebrities and thinkers, and cultural commentary.
Esquire’s “Man at His Best” Section
Esquire continued its long-running monthly feature “Man at His Best” in the 1970s edited by the fashionable Robert Benton. It covered style and grooming advice for the urban gentleman along with fitness tips, drink recipes, sex columns, and more.
This lifestyle content let Esquire balance its traditional tailoring features with guidance on donning the bold new fashions of disco culture. By walking that line, Esquire maintained its four-decade reputation as an arbiter of taste across ages and styles.
Playboy and the Rise of Loungewear
Meanwhile, Playboy highlighted an emerging category of men’s leisurewear. Its fashion spreads, especially the annual “What Sort of Man Reads Playboy?” issue, showed models sporting the latest in relaxed open shirts, robes, pajamas, and smoking jackets.
These looks were meant for entertaining mixed company or private relaxation rather than the office or a formal event. But Playboy gave loungewear and undergarments a stylish sheen for when hanging out at home, without having to dress up.
So while not as avant-garde as GQ, Esquire and Playboy still held an esteemed place in the men’s fashion world of the 1970s through their balanced coverage of evolving trends.
The Growing Influence of Celebrity Style
One final aspect that defined 1970s men’s magazines was the growing focus on celebrity style. As movie stars and musicians became full-blown pop culture icons, their fashion and grooming choices started heavily influencing mainstream male tastes.
Magazines like GQ, Esquire, and Playboy recognized this early on. Their style features and cover stories highlighted stars like Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Elton John, and more sporting the latest trends.
Seeing these leading men don bell bottoms, tunics, tinted glasses, long hair, and the era’s popular peacock colors gave readers visual cues to evolve past the gray flannel suit. In a decade where people increasingly looked to fame for what to wear, these magazines delivered.
The Lasting Impact of 1970s Male Icons
Indeed, Esquire’s annual Best Dressed Men list shifted to more counterculture tastes thanks to celebs like Redford bringing elegance to casualwear. GQ’s covers regularly spotlighted groundbreaking styles from the likes of David Bowie and Richard Roundtree.
And Playboy fashion spreads highlighted loungewear and undergarments on famous musicians, proving their stylistic influence extended right down to what clothes men wore at home.
So the 1970s men’s magazine obsession with bold celebrity fashion helped acclimate multiple generations to the new freedoms of dress. It forged style icons whose lasting impacts still shape how men dress today.
