It’s 1977. You and your friends spent the afternoon going to the local cinema and watching the new film “Saturday Night Fever.” Now you’re inspired — you want to go to a club and hit the dance floor. But the right outfit is just as important as your dance moves. What should you wear?

For the ladies…

The biggest designers of the decade would go on to become household names, including Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, and Vivienne Westwood, just to name a few. Form-fitting blouses bedazzled with sequins, satin, and metallic fabrics made you look like disco ball.

Also in your closet – billowing skirts, puffy-sleeved blouses, and loose shirts with high necks. If you didn’t exactly want to go for glam, you might don a more conservative pant suit. And, of course, you couldn’t boogie without the right footwear. Enter platform shoes and clogs. Synonymous with the height of disco, I’m shocked at how many pairs you can still find in vintage stores.

… And the gentlemen

If you were a guy in the late ‘70s, you wanted to be John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. And, though you might not have had the moves, at least you could dress just like him.

Like women, a groovy pantsuit was always in style. A button-up shirt – silk, of course – would show off your gaudy gold chains and medallions, as well as your manly chest hair. Bell-bottom pants left little to the imagination. And you, too, could bring much-desired attention to yourself with a fashionable pair of platforms. Like the counterculture of the previous decade, long hair represented a rejection of polite society, and facial hair fit your fashion choices as well. And for both sexes, bold colors like green, yellow, and orange were the order of the evening (and hey, it was the 1970s, so you likely had kitchen appliances to match those colors. I’m looking at you, harvest gold refrigerator).

Beloved pet or fashion statement?

An aside here – let’s dispel a little myth about platform shoes with goldfish in the heel. It’s extremely likely that these shoes were simply that – a myth. If they did exist, they weren’t mass produced and stood among the tackiest trends in the late ‘70s (of which there were many). Did anyone know someone who actually owned these? The shoes allowed you to put a live goldfish into the clear, acrylic heel, of course, and I can’t imagine the poor little guy survived even one evening of dance.