Hoops, bells and beads for a bit of flare: With silk flower, skull cap and crochet top, Tamsin Blanchard offers short cuts to Seventies glamour

SO YOU have bought the flares and the crochet top. All you need now really to look the part of the Seventies-meets-Nineties waif are some convincing Seventies-style accessories. You will not need to spend Saturday afternoons hunting through second-hand clothes shops. The high street stores are brimming over with them.

Two short cuts to instant Seventies glam are false eyelashes and sequin stars from theatrical make-up shops, stuck on to the face with eyelash glue. Another is a pair of large, silver hoop ear-rings. Dinny Hall, jewellery designer, says: 'These really big hoops are very Seventies Biba gypsy.' Ms Hall recently returned from Thailand laden with beads that she has strung into love necklaces, including semi-precious carnelian ones from pounds 120.

Lucille Lewin, design director of Whistles, was not thinking Seventies when she chose her summer collection. 'It just happened,' she says. 'It's the fashion magazine stylists who have put it together in a Seventies way.' For her, the key to this spring's accessories, along with clogs, platforms and long beaded necklaces, is the long scarf and the headscarf.

At the most accessible end of the market, Miss Selfridge is turning out accessories in tune with the Seventies. The company has updated its collection from the first time round for a Nineties customer; look out for pouches (pounds 3.99), bags and skull caps in both crochet and tie-dye, chokers, thongs (from a mere 99p), love beads and John Lennon shades.

'The Seventies look came from the clubs and streets where people have been wearing the originals for a few years,' says Mary Burgess, accessories buyer for Miss Selfridge. 'It was then picked up by designers and we are now taking it back to the street again.'

The silver and viscose evening cap with tiny bells in our picture is by Ghost, part of what designer Tanya Sarne calls her 'hippie chic' collection. It is as much about Thirties bohemia as Seventies hippie.

A silk flower is another nouveau Seventies favourite. We took a silk rose and tacked it on to a ribbon to make a choker. Very Jerry Hall. Or wear one in the buttonhole of a jacket lapel, or pin it to a dress and be instantly (up)dated.

The Designer Rina Da' Prato has been inspired by the Seventies over the past four years. This season she includes crochet accessories in her collection. Her favourite spring accessory is her 'Abba' hat. 'I wanted the accessories to be available to a younger, less affluent market,' says Ms Da' Prato. 'You can achieve a strong look with the right bag or hat on a small budget.'

And there is no shortage of the real thing. Camden Market in north London is exploding with bells and beads and in specialist shops, such as Merchant of Europe in London's Portobello Road, you can find an original enamelled pendant necklace from pounds 12. Oxfam shops nation-wide still sell a lot of original handbags, shoes and love beads. In the Eighties, we could not get rid of the stuff fast enough. Now is the time to buy it back.

(Photograph omitted)