The Leisure Suit Phenomenon

By the mid-1970s, the polyester double-knit leisure suit—pastel or earth-toned, wide-lapelled, worn open-collared—had become a fixture of middle-American menswear. By the end of the decade it had become a national punchline, and in the 1980s it largely vanished from department stores. Its rise and fall traces an arc in American consumer culture: at the moment synthetic fibers achieved total democratization, taste-makers turned against them as cheap, shiny, and uncomfortable, and many consumers returned to cotton and wool. The backlash helped clear the way for the natural-fiber revival and the designer-denim boom of the late 1970s and 1980s, even as synthetics quietly remained in blends, linings, and activewear.