TIME MACHINE: 1974

The first stop in our Time Machine takes us to Budapest, Hungary, the birthplace of the architect and designer Ernő Rubik (1944). Rubik was a lecturer at the Academy of Applied Art and one day he devised a strategy to help his students understand how 3D structures work. In 1974, he created the ‘buvös kocka’ or the ‘magic cube’. It was a wooden, polychrome polyhedron that quickly became popular in university circles. He patented it and sold it to a toy company that launched it onto the market, challenging users to align its sides in one colour only. ‘Buvös kocka’ was given a new name: Rubik’s Cube. It is still one of the most popular puzzles ever made.

1974 was indeed an optimistic year. The United States was keen to close the door on the Watergate scandal and, above all, the traumas of Vietnam. ‘Happy Days’, a hugely successful sitcom, debuted on 15 January on the ABC network, launching the careers of Henry Winkler who played the iconic ‘grease monkey’ Fonzie and Ron Howard, a director destined for the Oscars. The music charts were dominated by David Bowie, who abandoned Ziggy Stardust to sing the hit ‘Rebel Rebel’, and Dolly Parton, who wrote the legendary ‘Jolene’, a song inspired by a fear of infidelity.

Against this backdrop of socio-cultural change, FILA launched WHITE LINE, the company’s first tennis collection of practical, minimalist clothing that turned the established ‘look’ for tennis players on its head. Each piece was meticulously made. They aimed to support the player’s moves and also look elegant. WHITE LINE’S colours, which popped out after a century of tennis ‘whites’ added character and wowed spectators, who watched the finals religiously on TV. Among the champions of the era who boosted the FILA name (and profits) was Adriano Panatta. Sporting a forest green polo shirt, he brought home to Italy his third ATP title. In a very short time, ‘Ascenzietto’ (Panatta’s nickname – coined from his father Ascenzio – who was an ambassador of the Roman Tennis Club Parioli) conquered the public too with his more casual and accessible approach to tennis culture.

And it doesn’t stop at tennis. In 1974 the Biella brand conceived the four-pocket Tela Vela jacket, which would later form part of the legendary WHITE ROCK mountaineering line. Designer Pierluigi Rolando : was inspired by a military jacket he bought in a second-hand shop. He was impressed by its protective canvas fabric, which he found robust but also pleasant to touch. For Tela Vela, he used the same fabric used to make yacht sails. The result was unexpected, innovative, and resistant to lashings of wind and rain. The Tela Vela – worn on the highest mountain peaks by the late Giorgio Bertone : – is a garment so modern that it has lived several lives. The most recent – and the most glamorous – was in 2021. For FILA’s 110th anniversary, a limited edition of the jacket was produced in partnership with luxury tailors Piacenza 1733.

In 1974, Pietro Piller Cottrer, former Italian cross-country skier and relay gold medallist at Turin 2006, and Armin Zöggeler, former Italian luge skier and singles gold medallist at the same Games, WERE BORN.