Fashion expert Tim Gunn (right) discusses disco styles with Deputy Librarian of Congress Robert Newlen. Photo by Shawn Miller.
Platform shoes, bell bottoms and halter dresses were the topic at hand at a May 2 event featuring Tim Gunn, one of America’s leading fashion experts. He spoke about disco styles and what they say about the disco era.
“It was a time of flamboyance. . . . Everyone wanted to stand out,” Gunn said in an interview with Deputy Librarian of Congress Robert Newlen in the Coolidge Auditorium. “It was really a giant runway of sorts,” Gunn explained of the disco dance floor.
The event took place as part of a series of disco-themed events titled “Bibliodiscotheque” that the Library is presenting to celebrate and memorialize the period between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s that changed American art, fashion, language and sound.
View a video recording of the Tim Gunn interview here.
