Disco-Era Pipes Were Actually a Thing

[Pypkė]

Disco was big back then, but it wasn't all just disco, disco, disco... it certainly influenced clothing styles but pipes? That doesn't track for me.

The big cultural watershed was the advent of the personal computer (PC) by the latter half of the 1980s. That changed everything. The 1970's and early 1980s were that last bit of "pre-PC" life that we had before it all went down. It all went away by the time Windows 95 was released.

 

[Alejo R.]

Very apt. We can come up with more imaginative names like Ayatollah Pipes or Oil Crisis Pipes.

 

[Alejo R.]

Starting to sound like the term was a regional thing. My "home B&M" back then was legit, a group of five stores---Carl Ehwa managed one, and Mike McNiel was on the warehouse payroll---so it wasn't like some tiny shop was using the term as a joke. The owner knew his stuff.

Oh well. Without a time machine we'll never know.

As for the pipe itself, since someone asked, no, it isn't mine. I just recently worked on it and thought it was interesting. Hadn't seen one in decades.

Okay. So you remember that you were displayed in shop windows as Pipas Disco? I hadn't understood that. It's interesting marketing.

 

[ssjones]

Reading the title the first thing that came to my mind was "The Pipe". Made from a polymer material. Advertising said it could put in the dishwasher.

I was in JB Hayes an bunch of years ago. A guy came in for a pound of his regular blend. JB said to the customer, show him your pipe. It was a black "The Pipe" that had lava extended about 1/2" over the bowl. It looked hideous. It was the only pipe the guy owned, smoked multiple times per day, every day (he bought a pound of tobacco every week or so). JB said he has tried to sell him a new pipe for years but he wasn't interested.



Boswell still makes freehands, here's one I purchased back in 2010. They were the closest shop and at the time, to my eye, these looked cool. I quickly learned that wasn't my style. Clunky acrylic stem, heavy, quickly resold. I know some folks love them here.

 

[Alejo R.]

Maybe, you guys are just hung up on what you are seeing now in movies, which is NOT actually what the Disco era was like, but more of retro-Disco. If you weren't "there" in the 70's, then all you have is what the media today tells you it was like.

But, these look very much "Disco Era" pipes to me. No, not the Gibb boys prancing about, and actual discoteque flashy lights and feather boas. Discos rarely ever looked as if they'd have you believe in movies anyways. Saturday night Fever was NOT the way every disco looked.

But... the era of discos, was...
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So, as an aesthetician, I'd say Georged is correct. The Scandinavia Craft style was emerging from the 60's "looks like it grew that way" style, into spheres connected to cylinders and squares style. Funky mix up geometry, guys playing with lathes, making those weird chair leg looking stems.

I don't think he meant pipes for Funky Town or Donna Summers.

That's just my take on it.

Funny though, a bunch of guys born after Nixon, telling us what they think the 70's was like, ha ha.

Saturday Night Fever is based on an award-winning newspaper article, and 30 years later the authors have confessed that it was completely fabricated.

 

[Sig]

Saturday Night Fever is based on an award-winning newspaper article, and 30 years later the authors have confessed that it was completely fabricated.

John Travolta would be rolling over in his grave!!........if he were dead.

 

[Alejo R.]

John Travolta would be rolling over in his grave!!........if he were dead.

Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

He'd pull his hair out if he had any.

 

[HeavyLeadBelly]

This may have fit the times: https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/estate/england/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=283512