Beth said::

I'm going to NYC in Dec and I'd like to find some fvintage clothing stores. We will be staying in Soho.. I'd love to find some 60's or 70's stuff, punk rock t-shirts and bell bottom pants. Any suggestions on some vintage clothing stores to go to?

With the United States and allied forces embroiled in World War II, fashion took a back seat to patriotism and the nation dressed down as labor and materials previously used in the fashion industry were redirected to support the war effort.
Before the German occupation of France, the primary role of the American fashion designer was to copy looks from Parisian runways for mass consumption at home. The crippling of French fashion houses, however, freed other designers to develop their own creativity, albeit within the confines of fabric rations and a climate in which fashion was considered a disposable luxury.
In the early 1940s, the federal government restricted the use of natural fibers and limited the amount of fabric that could be used in a single garment.
Designers responded with spare tailoring and V-shaped silhouettes reminiscent of the military uniforms many American men were wearing at the time. Hemlines rose to the knee, skirts were cut close to the hip, jackets were shortened and shoulders were broadened and padded. Sailor motifs and military embellishments appeared for the first time in women’s wear.
Because leather was restricted for overseas use, shoes were made of alternative materials like alligator and mesh and were available in only a handful of colors. Heels were restricted to no more than an inch in height. Hats remained in vogue as a way to offset austere silhouettes, although many were adorned with makeshift decorations including bits of tinfoil, muslim, paper and string.
The McCall’s dress pattern emerged and women dressed themselves and their families in homemade clothes as a Vogue advertising campaign urged Americans to “Mend and Make Do.”
Simply pleated, A-line skirts were topped with demure blouses that often featured full collars and puffed sleeves. At night, swing skirts twirled to Big Band jazz on the dance floors of USO clubs.
Many women continued to wear simple shift or swing dresses while doing housework. Others took up the slack in the workplace and took to wearing slacks themselves. raiding their husband’s closets and modifying menswear patterns to suit their own figures. The look that had raised eyebrows when it was pioneered by Katherine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich was now considered chic.
Meanwhile, designers like Bonnie Cashin, Vera Maxwell, Claire McCardell, Anne Klein and Tina Leser transformed ready-to-wear clothing’s hand-me-down reputation by showing women how the versatility of coordinated separates could make them appear to have more clothes than they actually did.
The times called for creativity and women responded with elaborately rolled hairstyles and dramatic makeup to counteract their drab wardrobes. Side parts with finger waves were also popular thanks to film starts like Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake.
Opulent fashion made a comeback in 1947 with the introduction of Christian Dior’s controversial New Look, which preserved broad shoulders and cinched waists, but added long, swirling skirts that demanded yards of fabric.

In the 1950s, as Elvis Presley and James Dean defined American cool with leather jackets and straight-legged jeans, couture designers newly freed of World War II fabric rations sent hourglass silhouettes and swirling, calf-length skirts down the catwalk.
The newfound energy of rock-and-roll set against a backdrop of conservative politics and traditional sexual mores exposed a widening generation gap that was nowhere more evident than in the decade’s evolving fashion trends.
As teenaged girls sock-hopped in poodle skirts, beaded sweater sets and scarf-tied ponytails, their mothers accentuated their own curves with wide shoulders, full skirts, cinched waists and structured undergarments. But 1950s youths were also showing a rebellious side as they turned up in rolled-cuff jeans, skin-tight T-shirts and greasy ducktails.

In 1952 Bonnie Cashin and Philip Sills created a line of  ready-to-wear featuring the use of leather and suede inspired by the traditional attire of the far east.  She created the sensible notion of a layered outfit so the modern traveler of the time would always be prepared regardless of the climate she found herself in.

  Women of the 1950s also favored fitted shorts, boxy jackets and blouses paired with pencil skirts. Curve-hugging styles were sometimes offset by tent-like coats that fit at the shoulders and flared over the waist and hips.
Eveningwear often featured strapless, heart-shaped bodices with full skirts made of pastel tulle and trimmed with ruffles and bows.

The 1960s, that turbulent era in which the Baby Boomers came of age and found a collective voice, influenced some of the most iconic and enduring looks in fashion history.

In the early 1960s, French designer Oleg Cassini created a wardrobe for Jacqueline Kennedy that lent a twist to classic Chanel suiting and popularized pillbox hats, luxurious fabrics and streamlined silhouettes. Meanwhile, Audrey Hepburn donned a Hubert de Givenchy creation in the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and made the little black dress an instant wardrobe staple.

As hemlines rose above the tops of traditional stockings, opaque tights became the norm. Dramatic eye makeup and hair bobs completed the modern look.

The 1960s also blurred the line between art and fashion design, yielding what in many cases looked less like clothing than wearable art. Pacco Rabanne, costume designer for the 1960s classic "Barbarella," brought his jewelry designer's eye to the creation of avant garde garments embellished with geometric shapes of plastic and metal. Pierre Cardin, American designer Rudi Gernreich and Yves Saint Laurent, who became head designer at Christian Dior after Dior's untimely death, are among those who heavily influenced 1960s fashion with androgynous shapes and futuristic details. Pucci contributed pantsuits and headscarves in his trademark psychedelic prints.

Menswear, meanwhile, shifted toward lightweight fabrics and lines cut more closely to the body, while both men and women embraced the emergence of blue jeans and paired them with colorful printed shirts.

The Nehru jacket, a hip-length, unisex coat with a stand-up collar, enjoyed brief popularity as a testament to minimalism and growing awareness of eastern culture. The jacket was modeled on a garment worn by India's prime minister from the mid-1940s through 1964, although the western was shorter and more closely resembled a traditional suit jacket. The look was widely copied after turning up in the wardrobes of musicians including the Monkees and the Beatles.

John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever

Music was a major force in shaping seventies style, from the dreamy sensibility of the singer-songwriter era to the androgynous glam of pop to the fetishism of punk.
Few images are more closely associated with the 1970s than that of John Travolta posed in “Saturday Night Fever,” one hand on a white polyester hip and the other pointing skyward. The 1977 movie ushered in the disco craze along with one of history’s most radical, albeit short-lived, transformations in menswear. Men’s fashion choices broadened from boxy, boring neutrals to colorful leisure suits with broad lapels, flared trousers and white stitching. Women gravitated toward wrap dresses and twirling chiffon skirts tailor-made for the dance floor. Other trends included platform shoes and zippered jumpsuits.
No designer is more closely linked to the decadence of the disco era than Roy Halston Frowick, an American designer known simply as Halston. Halston’s fluid, shoulder-baring designs became synonymous with the international jet set and Studio 54 excess.
Elio Fiorucci, an Italian designer who in the late 1960s had exposed Italian teenagers to American T-shirts and jeans, now brought international trends like Brazilian thongs and Afghan coats to the states. The label was later credited with creating stretch jeans and opening the door for the designer-jean market.
The advent of British punk placed London designer Vivienne Westwood and her partner, Malcolm McLaren, among the most influential fashion designers of the day. The pair’s London boutique, SEX, initially sold rubber and leather fetish wear and later expanded to include ripped jeans, torn leather jackets, spiked-collar jewelry and T-shirts featuring images of serial killers. The designs rose to prominence thanks in part to the Sex Pistols, who McLaren managed and who wore the clothes at gigs.