THEY may sneeringly call it the decade that fashion forgot but there's no getting away from the fact that some very memorable looks were created in the 70s.

The difference between the romantic, floaty looks at the beginning of the decade and the harsh, deliberately shocking punk looks which rounded it off could hardly be more marked.

And that's not even mentioning the glam rock satins and boas, platform shoes, huge collars, boob tubes and Oxford Bags which came inbetween.

We went from velvet loons (hippy-type flares for those too young to remember) to skinny-leg jeans, with no end of variations on the way.

And who can forget the Tartan Army? No, not the Scotland football team followers but fans of the Bay City Rollers, who donned tartan scarves and trimmed their clothes with the fabric as they swooned over Les McKeown or Eric Faulkner.

The casual hippie era spilled into the early 70s, when the ethnic fabrics and patterns that had been so revolutionary at the end of the 60s began to appear in everyone's everyday wardrobe.

Shops like Laura Ashley and Ossie Clark's Quorum opened to cater for our most feminine side.

We bought or made A-line, princess and granny dresses with long sleeves, high necks and floor-length hems, with pretty cotton and calicos trimmed with lace. Floaty white cotton frocks, chiffon, ruffles, crocheted shawls and white Peter Pan collars and cuffs on sweet Mary Quant dresses were all popular.

Above all in the 70s, we had colour. Bright, fluorescent, rainbow and day-glo colours, oranges, browns, purples and yellows, electric blues and shocking pinks - and we didn't care if they clashed.

That was, of course, before punk hit and everything went black . . . apart from the safety pins!