1960S FASHION AND TEXTILES
Your 1960s Fashion Memories
In the 1960s fashion changed direction. Flouting convention, young people everywhere used fashion to express their personalities and their politics. Were you part of the 1960s fashion revolution?
- Did you have a favourite 1960s outfit?
- Where did you buy it from and who designed it?
- Why did you buy it?
- Do you have any special memories of wearing it?
- How do you feel now when you look back?
Share your memories and any scanned photographs you might have by e-mailing us on sixtiesfashion@vam.ac.uk
Catherine
Whilst clearing out my mothers loft we came across a trunk with my name on it, inside we found a whole pile of clothes and memorabilia that I hadn’t laid eyes on for almost 40 years!! I got married in 1970 just after I graduated, so I must have packed up all of my stuff I didn’t need and left it at my parents house before starting my married life with my new husband in France. We moved about a lot with our jobs in those days, finally returning to live in the UK in the early 80’s. It was a real treasure trove and a fabulous trip down memory lane. Before I went to university, I had taken a year off, during that time I spent 6 months living in London staying with my cousin in a flat in Chelsea just off Cheyne Walk. My cousin, who was 10 years older than me, had recently split with her husband, and we were living in the flat that they had bought a few years previously at a knock down price – must be worth a fortune now. Anyway, this meant that I didn’t have to worry about rent money, and just had to contribute to food bills. Jobs were really easy to get in those days, so I had lots of spare cash to spend, another friend from school came to stay with us and we bought masses of stuff. I found a white PVC coat with a navy and white flowery lining from Peter Jones. Lots of Biba dresses, my favourite was a really pretty empire high waisted dress in small flower printed lawn. It has a scooped neck, long tight sleeves and tiny pearl shaped buttons on the wrist. I found an orange and red patterned mini dress with a matching hat. A black long waisted tight black jersey dress with long tight sleeves and a high waisted short dark turquoise dress with a black art nouvou pattern. There was a navy and white Mary Quant dress with rubber buttons up the back and a high neck. I also found a purple jumper which I bought from Bazzar, the Mary Quant shop on the Kings Road, I remember buying it, Mary Quant was in the shop at the time and we discussed the colour !!! Wow! I found high white boots and some black stretchy boots, lots of beads and ear rings. I couldn’t get over how tiny the clothes were! I can’t imagine how I ever got into them! I am now in my early 60’s and a size 12/14, but heaven only knows what I was then !!! My granddaughter had a field day !!!Ann Wells
Living in Eastbourne in the early 60's we envied the clothes worn by visiting students from Paris and adapted them. Ballet pumps, gaberdine macs belted at the back, needlecord straight jeans, shetland crew necked sweaters, short kilts, knee length socks worn with loafers. In 1963/4 My friend made clothes and accessories to sell in the local coffee bar The Continental - butcher boy caps, polka dot scarfs. She made copies of Courreges styles with holes cut into the body of shift dresses. We wore huge sunglasses with hand painted white frames. In 1967 I moved to London with 3 friends on the National Express Coach from Eastbourne laden with all our possessions to live in a GLC womens' hostel in Chelsea (World's End - near Granny Takes a Trip). We all found work as secretaries straight away. We later shared flats in West London, spending all our wages on rent, basic food, music and clothes. Mary Quant, Foale & Tuffin were out of our price range. Wonderful Biba in Kensington Church Street was the main source of fashion clothes for us. Feather boas, flattering a-line jersey striped dresses in cool colours, t shirt dresses, floppy hats, coloured tights and the gorgeous Biba cosmetics. Biba's move to the larger High Street Ken base mirrored the longer hem lines as mini moved to maxi. I cherished a long khaki rubberised waterproof trench mac (unbeaten for material) and those coloured suede up to the knee boots were so classic Biba. All at prices we office girls could afford. Same with Bus Stop also in Kensington Church Street, a worthy rival of Biba. I believe if these clothes were reproduced for today's market they would not look out of place in Top Shop, Zara etc. Shoe shops I remember were Raoul (later to be renamed Ravel) and Anello and Davide.In 1969 I got married in a lace 'victorian' style dress bought by mail order from Petticoat magazine and a bonnet of artificial petals. Honeymoon outfit was a red shirt dress from Bus Stop with a huge white hat. At the wedding a friend wore a yellow flared trouser suit, another a turquoise flowered mini dress with matching tights.
Tessa
In the Sixties I made a lot of my own clothes as I had learnt to do this at Cuckfield Park in Sussex after I left school. I remember a turquoise hipster mini skirt I made, and also a French blue crepe dress, straight down with a scoop neck and trumpet sleeves. I also made some Laura Ashley lookalike blouses and skirts.
After Cuckfield I was a student at a teacher training college just outside Oxford and I carried on making clothes in my spare time. But I also remember buying clothes from Bonnie and Campus in Oxford. My favourite outfit was probably the cream lace dress I wore when I was proposed to (in a punt), I thought it was the most romantic thing I'd worn. It was straight down, the body of the dress was lined but the sleeves were sheer lace, and it had an 'Edwardian' stand-up collar with a frill.
Another thing I used to make were chokers. I'd buy half a yard of wide velvet to match a dress, neaten the ends and sew on poppers, and then pin a large brooch on the front.
Rita
I was 13 in 1960 and when I reached 17 in 1964 the Biba shop opened in Kensington High Street. I loved it, it to me was so new, vibrant and somehow innovative and exciting in those halcyon days when fashion sprang to life. I purchased some clothing from the shop and wish to this day I had kept them all. Obviously, at my age, I can't wear a mini dress but I am attaching a photograph of the dress (what there is of it!) I got married in in 1969. I thought I was the 'bees knees'!
I worked at an advertising agency in Baker Street 1964-1970 and on the corner of Paddington Street right near where I worked, the Beatles opened their Apple fashion store. I never bought anything here as I couldn't afford it, plus also the strong aroma of joss sticks was rather off-putting! There was a giant mural painted on the wall outside, rather psychedelic, I wish to this day I had taken a photograph of it as now, it has been painted over (sacrilege!) which is rather sad as to me that represented the image of the sixties - a brave new world which I was proud to be a part of.
Jerry
My earliest memories were of a blue houndstooth check cape with a 'lion' head clasp, buying the first pair of tights (that awful American tan), and later Pop socks from our local ladies outfitters, knitting berets and incredibly long Dr Who style scarves on chunky needles, and psychedelic print dresses with mandarin collars.
Whilst I was doing a foundation art course, my college organised trips to London - which meant a quick tour round the Hayward Gallery or wherever and then bunking off to Snob (crochet mini dresses), Biba (white lipstick and black nail varnish worn at home to shock) and Peter Robinson (Baker boy caps, black bell bottoms and cricket sweaters) etc. My favourite item was an Edwardian style burgundy velvet and satin maxi coat from Crowthers.
My best friend was an Ossie Clark fan. She always stayed with that more sophisticated look; I went on to wear hippie styles - making my own hankie skirts and tops out of indian bedspreads decorated with mirrors and bells. On a visit to a boutique in Highgate, I remember trying on a panelled dirndl style skirt and was unable to get it off again. I had to buy it. The skirt later became a giant cushion cover - the fashions had changed but it was too pretty to dump. As impoverished students we used to raid jumble sales for velvet curtains to make into skirts. They were nearly all plum or nut brown and slightly tainted with the smell of moth balls which never quite disappeared!
Sally
I was a young teenager in the 60s. My memories are therefore of a 13 - 16 year old. I remember black and white clothes, Mary Quant, op-art, mini skirts; also large hooped ear-rings, lots of purple, union jack carrier bags, mandarin collars, flared sleeves, orange jumpers with flared sleeves, laced fastenings instead of zips on (flared) jeans.
I have recently bought a t-shirt with purple and orange circles which I am assured is 'very 60s mum'.
Sally Elves
I had a friend, now a successful artist, who used to paint her bottom eyelashes onto her cheeks, a la Twiggy!
Not being so steady handed my makeup consisted of a thick black socket line, thick black line along the upper lid and the bit in the middle filled in with silver metallic shadow which I damped to make it stay on longer. Then upper and lower false lashes heavily embellished with black mascara. I thought I looked the 'bee's knees' - God know what I really looked like!
Fiona Winrow
My first ball gown was this beautiful white empire style Jean Varon dress, which I wore to the Summer Ball at my university in 1967. I felt so elegant in it and I had a perfect night, well almost, as my partner in the photograph was a borrowed from my best friend for the night. I have just found the gown in a box in our attic 40 years later. It is still beautiful!
Louise Hedley
I remember well my visits To Biba in Kensington. It was great. I used to come up from Kensingon where I was actually based as a Wren (Womens Royal NavaL Service) and just loved that shop. My most memorable buy was a cape in burgundy which was pretty warm and heavy and came almost to the ground on me (I am 5' -11") and was absoolutely fantastic - I wore it wherever I went - even home to Yorkshire and felt so good in it. That shop - BIBA was the first of one of many iconic shops that lead the way to individualistic style - always inovative and always fantastic. I have never felt so good. Louise Hedley - now living in Canada.
Michael Melet
In 1966 my wife and I were both in our mid 20’s, born and raised in the US Mid-west. Because I was in our family retail fashion business, one of my priorities while taking our first European trip was to visit England (London) to see Carnaby Street. I had read all about it in WWD (Womens Wear Daily).
We had flown all night and we couldn’t wait until we could get to our hotel and sleep a couple hours having not slept because of our excitement. Our plane landed at Heathrow Airport at 7:00 AM. After going through customs we found the taxi, which was like we had seen in the movies. We asked our driver to take us to the Savoy Hotel.
The mini skirt was just a fashion look I had read about. I learned that morning, 'one look is worth a thousand words'. As our taxi came into the center of London, we saw thousands of English girls scurrying to work. Thousands of mini skirts. The impact of this was profoundly dramatic. I knew then and there that the world of fashion was changing (had changed). I knew then and there that England (London) was a major player in the fashion world. I knew I was witnessing a fashion revolution.
After a short rest, that afternoon we headed for Carnaby Street. The boutiques were incredible. The colors and styles were unlike anything I had seen previously. I was somewhat disappointed because it was only a block long and very touristy.
We then headed to Harrods. We were told that we must see 'The Way InShop' on the 6th floor. The elevator’s (lift) doors opened. For me the impact was life changing. Everything I saw was the antithesis of everything I was taught about the fashion retail business.
The darkness was dramatic, like waking into a theater during the performance. Everything dark except the stage brightly lit up with spot lighting. In this case track lighting, spotlighting only the racks of clothing. I was taught to only use florescent lights (50 candle light) which flood lit everything wall to wall.
The rock music (Beatles) pounding loudly. I could feel the music. I was taught to only use 'elevator' low volume generic background music on the sales floor.
The sales girls all wearing mini skirts or jeans. The busel of customers that dressed and looked like the salespeople. All of our sales people had to wear hose, BP (before pantyhose), a proper dress or skirt, never pants (slacks). Jeans were unheard of unless you worked on a farm or ranch. Our customers dressed up to shop also.
The smell of incense permeated the air. If a scent was in the air in our stores it was from a fragrance of perfume we carried in our cosmetic department.
T stands and merchandise facing out on the walls. We instead lined up our merchandise on the wall so the customer would be looking at the left sleeves and with circular racks in the middle of the sales floor.
I knew immediately when that elevator door opened, when all of those sights and sounds hit me all at once, that from that moment on when fashion was mentioned, it was going to be Paris, Milan, New York and for the first time also London.
Aileen Edwards
I was a fashion designer in London in the 60's,designing for Angela at London Town and Mark Russell. I sold freelance to a number of people,the most famous being John Stephens at his office above one of his Carnaby Street shops.I will never forget seeing him sitting behind his desk,large alsatian at his side. At 20 years old I was positively terrified as he sifted through my sketches! I was the designer who lined a coat with the Union Jack, I think it was 1965, which was shown at numerous fashion shows but in particular in New York at a show by the Associated Fashion Designers of London and which caused major controversy.I still have the press cutting of this event and others although they are now a little tattered!
I am now an interior designer in the US. I read about the V & A exhibit last year but don't know if it is still on.my trips back recently have been mainly to Scotland.
Keith Fox
I had been working as a 'Saturday boy' at Timothy Whites in the Kings Road from the age of 13 (1967) for 3 years when I decided that a groovier venue would be more suitable for my trendy image. I walked into the Mr Freedom boutique (recently moved from Kensington Church Street opposite Bus Stop and the original Biba) and asked for a job. The shop was long and low with mirror tiles covering the walls and ceiling - a mirror ball of a shop with loud San Francisco/British psych blaring out of the speakers fighting with what seemed to me to be ancient (3 or 4 years old ) Motown.
Starting work the next week we shop assistants had to wear the gear to promote it to the customers. J.P., the owner, thought that we had more of a chance selling it to ordinary punters if everyone could see how good it looked on us young whippersnappers. At the end of the day our outfits would go into sacks for dry cleaning before being put back on the racks for sale.
Take Six was next door, with the Chelsea Drugstore and Great Gear Trading Company nearby, but our clothes were the ones that got noticed.
The clothes were wondrous. We no longer sold shoes as the did original shop ( famous for the multicoloured winged boots worn by Elton John before he went mega) and there was no restaurant with strange coloured food (tasteless vegetable dye) which put off the punters. However, the unisex permutations on the use of velvet and satin, along with cotton shirts and blouses in bold, bold patterns, kipper ties, lurex socks in all colours, and hand painted Plaster of Paris badges drew in customers who often viewed the racks as more of an exhibition rather than a shop ('I like it but I could never wear it'). The fake tiger fur man's jacket and trousers caused a sensation when the manager, John, wore it out to lunch. The Saf Suits (safari suits) sold well, and the Oxford Bags in all colours (including pink) were revolutionary for the time in that they were not flared. The women's high waisted trousers with 3 buttons on the waistband echoed the 40's chic of Katherine Hepburn. Polka dot strapless 50's dresses, with little matching boleros, swished as the girls twirled in front of the mirrors. We strutted up and down the Kings Road on our lunchbreaks knowing that we were the bees knees.
We sold to many stars - David Bowie came in with an entourage - one of them carried his purse. Billy Preston came in for a black velvet jacket which he wanted covered with diamante as he was going to be on stage with the Stones, Rod Stewart looked around, and seemed peeved that the crowds outside were taking more notice of his yellow Lamborghini than him. David Carradine came in and crashed out on the floor, with surprised customers stepping around the star of Kung Fu. Charlie Watts was shy and apologetic for causing us any trouble.
There was much, much more, but the shop could not move with the times. The rise of the Californian, retrospective, singer/songwriter scene, that turned the hippy vision for the world into retrospective navel gazing, meant that denim was in - and flash was out. In a way Mr Freedom pre-dated glam, with a look back at Las Vegas. and an added dash of Marvel Comics. It was of its time, but to adapt would have been to lose the essence of the flippancy that was sewn into every garment. We closed about 1974.
I ended up as manager for the last few months of its life. The clothes I had bought over the years I sold on to Cathy McGowan's second hand clothes shop behind the Kings Road. Velvet was out - denim was in, and SEX, the shop that opened on the site of Granny Takes a Trip, was about to open with the Westwood and McLaren. The flippancy was to return, but with safety pins and bondage gear.
Tessa Hosking
I am just sixty, but two pairs of Sixties earrings are still among my most frequently worn. One I bought in the Kings Road (I lived in Fulham) in about 1965: each a black plastic cube dangling from a smaller black cube. The other pair were from Biba's Kensington Church Street shop: classic mauve droplets.
Alas I couldn't quite get into any of the Sixties clothes which I still have stored in the loft; the best of these is a black woollen Biba mini dress: long narrow sleeves, belted but also with a dropped waist giving the impression of a two piece. Unfortunately this shrunk slightly when, as a late student in the seventies, I washed it instead of having it dry-cleaned. I also have a purple boucle coat from Biba, flared from a mandarin collar.
Not from Biba, but equally memorable, is an A-line sleeveless mini dress in dark mushroom with big black polka dots, and a black velvet stand-up collar, which I, amazingly, bought as suitable to wear to the funeral of my student boyfriend who had drowned.
I do, however, still frequently find useful a less fashionable item, bought pre-'boutique' at Fulham Broadway: a 'sleeveless cardigan', or sort of waistcoat, in ribbed magenta.
These are only some of the clothes, jewellery - and shoes - which I still have from the 'swinging sixties'.
Tony Greenfield
My father- in - law, Jack Collins was one of the founders and owners of the very successful mens fashion boutique chain 'Take 6'.
We opened our first 'Take 6' store in Wardour Street in 1966, which was the company's sixth shop, and, very shortly afterwards, opened further stores in Carnaby Street and Great Marlborough Street. Eventually there were 18 Take 6 shops or should i say boutiques in central London and the suburbs.
I was very fortunate to be involved at almost the start of Take 6 and was responsible for the buying of shirts, knitwear & accessories for the shops. We had people from all walks of life as customers, pop & movie stars, you name them, they shopped with us, young aristos, regular people, tourists, everyone!!!
If we came up with a style idea on a Monday, we would have product in store by Saturday - try that today!!!
This was a fantastic experience, the energy flow was incredible, and although I am still successfully involved in the fashion industry (now shoes), I deeply miss those amazingly exciting days.
Karin Jensen
I was very lucky - the right face, the right figure (or lack of one) at the right time.
I was one of the new breed of models and was lucky enough to work a great deal with Mary Quant. What fun it was!
Mary and her husband Alexander were the perfect bosses, we went to the States, Paris, Germany and Scandinavia together and, although we were working hard, every day seemed to be a party.
Mary was watching us putting on our make-up before a show and was interested to see we used "caran d'ache" crayons as eye shadows. This started her off with another first - eye shadow make-up pencils.
Needless to say, I had my pick of each collection from Mary (why oh why didn't I hang on to them all?!) and also loved Foale and Tuffin, Bill Gibb, Courreges, Bus Stop, Mr. Freedom, Fiorucci and Biba.
Oh yes, I was also on the first poster advertising the opening of "Miss Selfridge" along with Carrie-Ann Muller !
P.S. The other two photos are of me wearing Quant.
John Santilli
In 1964 I was sixteen and I started working as a junior in Vidal Sassoon's hair salon in New Bond Street. The first wage packet that week was about the same as the price of an pair of ordinary shoes: 4 pounds and some change.
In 1967 I used to buy my cloths in Carnaby Street and my trousers from a boutique just of off Carnaby Street. The trousers where high waisted and very large bottoms - about 24 inches. It looked a bit like I had a dress on, they were so large. The trousers were so tight that I used to go to work with two pairs as, if one tore, I would have a spare pair. Shirts had to be so tight too. After the purchase I had them "taken in" at the back and at the front. My favourite Jacket was made of Velvet and it was torques. I loved that jacket. Even though I was not good looking. With that jacket on I felt "on top of the world", going down the King's Road on a Saturday afternoon I would feel as though it was Italy as it's an Italian phenomena the evening walk along the centre of town. Kings road and its surroundings did have a bohemian feel to it.
I worked at the Sassoon's hairdressing school and we did a lot of models in the late 60s. In 1969 we had so many models that we got to move the school from Knightsbridge to Mayfair, and the school was three times bigger. We had hundreds of people come to our school for a cheep haircut and hundreds of students coming to learn the new styles. The style in 1967 was the GREEK GODDESS and in 1968 was the MOUCHE and in 1969 was the ISADORA (This was a haircut that was shorter in the front and Longer in the back) and the LAYERED CUT. The layered cut never really went out of fashion after that. It was what all the singers had. I remember seeing a friend with the AFRO for the first time in about 1967. He taught us to dance to the music of Barry White pumping our hips from front to rear and back again.
I went down the King's Road, Chelsea and saw a shop with dirty jeans inside. The owners told us they had come from Cowboys and they were all ripped with holes all over. COOL? Those jeans went like hot cakes.
I remember the shop BIBA. My wife bought cloths in this shop and the next week we went to Germany and as we entered a restaurant some of the men in the restaurant got up and pointed their fingers at us and laughed out loud. Her out fit was like a medium brown coloured pyjamas with a hat with a large brim. Maybe they thought that Carnival had come at the wrong time of the year.
I remember Foale and Tufifn. Mary Quant. I think that the 60s where great years and terrible years. There was a bit of schizophrenia in it all!
Cheryl Barnicoat
I loved the Sixties; I was born in 1950 so I was a teenager in the Sixties. I spent most of my spare money on clothes I had lots of favourites. I had a black sleeveless straight dress which had white daisies with black buttons as centres these stood out from the dress and went straight down the front. Mary Quant style.
I also had the pop art nail transfers and you could have white nails with black transfers or visa versa. They were hearts, circles, diamonds and bulls eyes. I had a lime green smock type dress with peter pan collar and I wore Lilac earrings, lilac sling back shoes and a lilac handbag. I also had a see through white crocheted dress very very short. My mother always used to say is that a dress or a pelmet as most of my clothes just about covered my bottom.
Later on in the sixties I also had some maxi clothes. My favourite was a long black coat which touched the ground and I had a white fur had it was great.
Ruth B. King
I worked in the display department at Galeries Lafayette in Regent Street from 1956 to 1963, so was in at the birth of Carnaby Street, so to speak. Carnaby street had lots of little shops before that, I remember a little 'invisible mender' and a specialist tobacconist. What a difference fashion made!
My fiancée, (now my husband) did some modeling for 'Vince' the forerunner shop to all the new shops that opened in Carnaby street. I think it was in Fouberts Place just around the corner.
It was an absolutely fantastic time to work in fashion, all the new styles coming out. Short skirts, white boots, and 'pop' art. I remember John Stephens as very dapper, and he 'went out' with a member of staff at Galeries for a while. All the stars from the London Palladium and the surrounding theatres came into the store, I particularly remember Shirley Bassey when she first became a star, and also Alma Cogan.
What wonderful memories the 'Swinging Sixties' book bought back.
Robin Greene-Parkinson
Keep adding....
Mary Quant, Yardley, Courreges, Way In, Miss Selfridge, Lyons Corner House, Dunhill, Dolcis, Wolford, Biba, Biba, Biba, Beatles, Stones, Shrimpton, Twiggy, Verushka, Mick (lots of Micks), Anabelle's, King's Road, Chelsea, spliffs, etc., Vidal Sassoon, Radio Caroline, Top of the Pops, Avengers, Doctor Who, Skin, Boots, Smiths, Bensons,
Laura Ehlers
I have always loved the fashions of the 60s. I dressed my Barbies in them and was lucky enough to have a mother that - even though she was of conservative taste - indulged my penchant for mod clothes. She made me a crepe dress with flared sleeves in a wild paisley pattern of hot reds, pinks and yellows. She also fashioned me a red "leather" vest a la Cher - fringe and all!!
Long live the 60"s!!
Patricia Billington
I, like so many others, made my own clothes in the early 60s, mainly because of availability. My first "expensive" purchase was a Mary Quant Dress. This was made out of a heavy blue fabric with white "string vest" midriff. Having unfashionable large boobs, the top was too tight for me and felt uncomfortable, nevertheless, I felt like the queen of the mods with my Vidal Sassoon hairstyle and flat suede shoes (from the Hollies shop, Pygmalia, in Manchester) which I still have.
June Blaxall
My grandmother crocheted a suit for me in either 1969 or 1970, it was called the 'Twiggy Suit', as Twiggy, the model, was pictured wearing the suit on the pattern. My grandmother made quite a few of these suits, for a local wool shop, and was paid by the ounce! The suit top had a peter pan collar, and the skirt was lined, and very, very short of course! The crochet pattern used was the shell type. My nickname at the time was 'Twiggy' as I was very slim and looked very much like her, I m afraid the years have not been as kind to me, and I am certainly not as slim! I still have the suit, and also a velvet hot pants suit in a lovely blue.
My friends and I were very lucky, being teenagers, growing up in Ilford, Essex. [it was] a short journey for shopping in Kensington and Oxford Street, favourites being Bus Stop and Biba, well, not exactly shopping, more trying on and enjoying the atmosphere, then back to reality and buying copies of what we had seen in the local C&A or Martin Ford. Tap shoes were fashionable to wear, and these were purchased at Annello and David Tottenham Court Road, buying tap shoes from a local shop was frowned upon!
Very happy memories of the sixties as the fashion world was buzzing, and Britain was booming.
David Hartwell
I was manager for Irvine Sellars boutiques on Carnaby Street during the early days. We had one store called TOMCAT and publicity was in its infancy so the grand opening now looks very naive. Tom Jones had just made Sunday Night at the London Palladium and he was recruited to be "TOM...", we got a company called Zoo Hire to provide the "...CAT" - a toothless cheetah with a bad case of moth but, nevertheless, it could get out of the van. The handler was in safari gear and resembled one of the hunters from a third-rate movie. Tom had to look scared which was difficult as the cheetah was a little light in the tooth department. However, the opening went well and I took over the store on Queens Road.
Sooze Plunkett-Green
Nothing much compares to the joy of getting my coveted pair of Andre Courrege white ankle boots!
Patricia Connolly
I still have this beautiful, brilliantly colored, thin silk dress, it was always a bit tight in the armpits and eventually one ripped. But the fabric is so beautiful, I always kept it. Golds and yellows and brilliant pinks and greens and blues, all the shapes outlined in a reddish-brown.
When I emigrated from London to New York in 1967 in search of new matters, somebody pointed me to this shop on St. Mark's Place that sold vividly, brilliantly colored dresses in abstract kinds of designs, and short short short and that’s where I got this very simply designed dress. Getting onto buses was curious.
I bought enough brilliantly colored dresses to get through the work week, and wore them to work at a very stuffy publisher where I was supposed to acquire young adult non-fiction, and where everybody, men and women alike, seemed to be dressed in the 1950s mainstream style. People kept on asking me if I was my secretary, which was a way of putting me down for not dressing dull and thus showing I was willing to "behave".
It kept me alive in a perfectly awful job, and that's one of the purposes of clothes, perhaps the most essential one, to protect the wearer against the evil eye of a hostile world. Clothes are a protective armor of the spirit. I went on to protect myself further there by wearing Marimekko. And then there were the looks when I took to wearing trousers to work.
Eventually I found the sane solution, and got myself fired by asking for three months leave of absence to write a novel. And I was off on my real life. The novel didn't work, but eventually I got to poems, and they did to a degree. And writing this I see now how the dresses and the poems belong together as expressions of my life and times.
Fiona Green
I was 20 in 1963 when this photo was taken in front of Corsham Court where I was at art school. Among some of the tutors were Gillian Ayers, Howard Hodgkin and the poet Ted Hughes.
I was in love with Bill Crozier. I dressed in Mary Quant and Juliette Greco. I read Huysmans and Andre Breton and dreamt of being a singer in a nightclub. I had the blues and love was the cure...
Mike O'Callaghan
It was 1966 in Bristol (a bit behind London) when I dared to buy a pair of flares. All my trousers had 15 inch bottoms, these were at least 18", and boy did I get comments - from family, friends and school. I wasn't allowed to wear them at school, where you could only wear 'uniform' trousers in grey or black, no drainpipes, 15 inch bottoms were acceptable - just - but definitely no flares. They were green and tight and I thought they looked fantastic. I bought them from a new boutique for men that had opened in the Triangle. Boutiques for men? WOW.
Ten years later, with 26 inch (minimum) flares and platforms, I finally threw them out. Flares? What flares? By then they looked so narrow and old fashioned. But in 1966 they were THE thing to wear - which I did - startling, shocking and amusing everybody.
Maxine Bonner
I left school at 16 in 1962 and I wanted to be a window dresser. There was an up and coming company in London called Neatawear and their windows were outstanding. You could recognise their shops wherever you encountered them beacause the floors, ceilings and backgrounds were always turquoise and the models sprayed gold. I recall two branches in Oxford Street and others in Knightsbridge, Kensington, Broad Street, Holborn, Cheapside, Shaftesbury Avenue and Regent Street.
I applied for a job and was taken on as a trainee window dresser. I saw many celebrities in the course of my work because our fashions were young and very trendy. Our regulars included Sheila Hancock, Shirley Bassey and Sandie Shaw (who wore tights the colour of her shoes when out and about because her on-stage trademark was bare feet - I believe this was because her feet were large). I was so proud to work there that the very low wage was immaterial. To me, Neatawear was one of the first companies to offer young innovative styles to young women, instead of them having to wear what 'mum' wore.
When qualified I recall all the excitement of Biba's opening just round the corner from our Kensington shop. It was fascinating to see things draped round the walls and feather boas and hats just 'around'. There were fire buckets for cigarettes, which put me off - I was a non-smoker and found the smell offensive. Boutiques took off after that and eventually Neatawear was forced to close.
Nici Hildebrandt
I lived in Leeds in the late Sixties and had made the most of the miniskirt era, but the winter I was 17, maxi-skirts came into fashion, though they were somewhat controversial. I remember seeing a maroon-and-navy maxicoat in a large houndstooth check in what I think was Topshop, and I just had to have it.
I had just got my first Saturday job, as a waitress in the famous Betty's café, (black nylon overall, white lacy pinny, white lace cap, the lot) and I made a deal with the shop to buy the coat in instalments. It took me weeks and weeks, but because the maxi thing hadn't exactly been embraced with open arms, when I finally took possession of it I was still one of the first people in Leeds to have one. I remember the visceral thrill of walking down the street in the knowledge that you were absolutely at the top of the fashion game. I eventually shortened it and it's still in my wardrobe now. Later the same winter, I got a maximac in white PVC and a clear plastic umbrella that came right down over your shoulders, with platform boots that murdered your feet. It's possible I didn't look as cool in this as I thought I did.
Soon after that I went the other way entirely and started buying vintage clothes in a hippy emporium called Scythrop and insisted on pounding the streets of Leeds in bare feet. I now have a teenage daughter who has a great sense of style and mercifully wouldn't do anything quite that idiotic.
Maggie Tucker
This is a photo taken in Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1964. I was miming to Dusty Springfield's record "I just Don't know what to do with myself". I came second to a group miming Manfred Mann's hit of that year.
I was wearing a white lace dress that I bought in Fenwicks for £3 and false eyelashes. My hair (although black and not back-combed enough) was meant to look like Dusty's. In fact I still wear that same type of bob now, although my hair is much lighter these days.
Iris Bateson
I bought a stripey short dress from Biba's home shopping catalogue - not sure if this was 1966 or 1965. Then when the first small shop was opened - was it in Arlington Road - I went there to see! I remember a picture in the papers of Cilla Black going there too. It was an amazing concept with coat stands around with the clothes on and I remember going behind one to try things on. I had my aunt with me and she totally disapproved. I bought a shift dress with diagonal patterns on it. Of course the clothes were very short so tights had to be worn rather than stockings!!
The shop in Kensington Church Street I went to regularly buying as much as I could afford. However when the shop moved to the huge store in Kensington High Street, although I went there, I never liked it as much!
I can't find any photos but it was definitely a special look. I went to Vidal Sassoon to have a special haircut - a bit like Twiggy's - and we all wore thick black eyeliner and had huge-looking eyes!! It was all great fun! We felt realy part of a revolution!
Gwenda Pandolfi
The real moment for me was that issue of 'Queen' with all the Courreges short white coats and boots with the slit near the top. I had the boots and knee length white vinyl boots and, from Fenwicks, a silver mac which they ordered from Paris. I still have it, but unfortunately the collar deteriorated. I had two Quant dresses and a swim-suit from 'Bazaar' in Knightsbridge - a showroom most books seem to forget about - and an Ossie Clark and Alice Pollock dress from 'Quorum' which I still have. As an extension of the 'space' influence, I covered my hallway with silver foil.
I suppose my most beloved dress was a silk shirtwaist from Wallis, half shocking pink and half bright green which taunts me as the days when I could squeeze into it are long gone.
I also have the distinction of being refused entry to St. Peter's in Rome because I was wearing what we would hardly have considered a mini - a knee-length dress. I was also refused entry to the Savoy grill in '66 because I was wearing a trouser suit. Only parts of London were swinging.
Pat Harrison
Pat Harrison, about 1966
I believe I was Biba's first retail customer. When Biba opened its first shop in an old pharmacy in residential Abingdon Road, Kensington, I got the opening date wrong and arrived the day before. They were friendly and let me in though, and I remember seeing people sitting at sewing machines in the back room. There were about six rails of completed clothes in the front room, ready for opening the next day.
The dresses and suits from Biba were very cheap, even then, and I paid about £3 for the dress in the picture (taken about 1966) I loved this dress - its swirly design was in shades of purple.
Eve
I just wanted to tell you about my favourite outfit. I made a little mid-drift top with short, puffed sleeves out of red, dotted Swiss with white polka dots. I then took the material and cut out little strawberries and sewed them on the left leg at the bottom of a pair of white pants. I padded the strawberries and added green, satin, stitch leaves and a trailing vine. I loved it and it probably ended up on eBay or something.
Carol Collins
I left Bolton in Lancashire to see the bright lights of London in 1966. I was just 17 years old. I had acquired a job as a deputy manageress of Lyons Corner House at both Kensington High St and Sloane Square. I lived with many other girls at a hostel run by J Lyons at Clapham Common.
I lived for pay day. The pay was a phenomenal amount. I couldn't wait to get out onto the streets for the shops and stalls. I had never seen such a variety of styles and colours. I could afford many items each week and concentrated on building up a wardrobe of black and white items. My favourites being anything with a keyhole either in the back or front. I loved the white sleeveless polo jumpers, wide leather belts and the white crochet dresses. I would go back to Bolton at the end of each month with my latest fashions - no one there would have the same as me.
Just like everyone else I wish I had kept everything as my granddaughter is now wearing almost identical clothing.
Jeffrey Farrell
I hope that I've moved on since then, but I remember chatting up a girl in Newcastle in 1967 or 8 because she was wearing a pair of Courreges boots. She looked really nice as well but the boots were what caught my eye. It sounds a bit sad but it still makes me smile.
Anne Tambakis
I worked for a theatrical agency in Soho in 1963. I often wore a mini kilt, I adored this fashion. I owned three kilts, one a pale lilac tweed, a black cashmere and wool mix and a black watch tartan.
The black kilt was my favorite for evenings out at the disco's, I teamed it with various glamorous tops mostly bought at Biba, together with pull-on stretchy white or black boots. Mary Quant cosmetics created the pale lipped, panda eyes look, plus a geometric hairstyle.
The Scotch of Saint James, Tiddydolls and The Chalet Suisse were the disco's I frequented on a Saturday night. Kings Road was the place to be seen together with Carnaby Street on a Saturday during the daytime. I shared a flat with three other girls in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. We had lots of fun borrowing each others outfits or making up mini-skirts from off-cuts of material bought inexpensively in department stores.
The most ridiculous aspect of wearing mini skirts was in the winter. I will never forget my Mother's words when I visited her wearing one when it had snowed, "you will catch pneumonia" she said. Being young I wore them anyway no matter what the weather was like.
Anne Sheppard
In 1964 I was 16. Cathy Gale was played by Honor Blackman in the Avengers - white trench coat, collar turned up and black leather boots.
Oh those boots!!
I had seen them in Vogue - bottle green suede, Yves St Laurent, THIGH HIGH and very expensive. I had to have some. On a shopping trip to Birmingham I saw them in a shoe shop in Corporation Street - a copy in 'leather' for the huge (then) sum of £5. They would complete my Cathy Gale look. Oh how I loved them - I never saw another pair - I lived in a one horse market town - the interest they commanded was wonderful.
I shall never forget those boots.
Stanley Small
During the early 60s and onwards I was an agent in menswear through which I became a very close friend of David & Warren Gold, i.e. Lord John of Carnaby Street. I supplied merchandise to the Take Six Group such as the 3/4 coat now in the V&A.
In approximately 1968 I was also involved with my family which were, at that time, the largest fur manufacturers in the UK - Fantasia Furs of Princess Street, W1. I sold a Raccoon overcoat, DB 3/4 length coat to Mr. Fish of Clifford Street, W1 for £105 + tax (then tax was 55%). As he put it in the window, and before I'd left the shop, one of his clients bought it for £325. Do you know how much that would be today? I then went on to sell it to John Stephen, Take Six, Irvine Sellars, and Mr. Fox.
Those years of Carnaby Street were, without a doubt, the finest years in the fashion trade. They could never, ever be repeated. I just thought you would like to know of my many years in men's and women's fashion trade how exciting it was. I could go on all day with stories.
Margaret Anthoni
The dress was bought in Carnaby Street in 1969. I can't trace any pictures of me wearing it at the time. Most of my clothes were high street copies so I was determined to get something with the iconic label.
My favourite styles of the 60s were the geometric black and white and cream and brown designs. I had a cream linen coat with brown broad edging (Courreges style) that I loved. White furry helmet, white leather boots and black PVC mac was another ensemble I remember.
I made a cloak with metal frog and purple lining which was a mid-Sixties fashion. I still have the pattern ready for when my grandchildren decide it is in fashion again.
Miranda Rehm
Although I don't appear in it myself, I thought you might like to see this photograph from the archives of Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. (I grew up in Atlanta in the 1960's). The photo was taken outside Davison's department store, downtown Atlanta, in August 1965. As part of her tour of the USA that year, Mary Quant made a personal appearance at the store which I believe also included a fashion show.
The schoolgirls in the photo would probably have been part of what was known as a "Teen Board" - a group of outstanding (read also "attractive" and "popular") high school students who were selected by local department stores to act as a sort of advisory panel on teen fashion, although I'm not entirely certain what their role actually consisted of! The girls are wearing outfits characteristic of the time for schoolgirls in the Deep South - long sleeved blouses with "Peter Pan" collars, plaid skirts falling precisely just above the knee, and matching long cardigans. Considering that the temperature on the day must have been close to 90 degrees, I should think they were sweltering! Although the knee socks are typical of what high school girls were wearing at the time, I particularly like the unusual little tassles at the top. And the laced shoes appear to be a nod to the newly arrived British invasion look - I believe they were called "ghillies".
I especially like the juxtaposition of the model posing with them in her Mary Quant minidress, Courreges boots, and platinum blonde chignon!
Yardena Maron
These photographs are of London in 1966. All my clothes were bought in London - the beige coat is Mary Quant. The other items include a beautiful red suede hat from an expensive shop, bought in the sale, and a red and blue school scarf.
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Lorna Currie
This photo was taken in Durban, South Africa in 1969 and I'm wearing a dress I made myself with boots sent to me from London by a friend. She was the first one to travel and we were hungry for all her news about the city that influenced us from across the seas.
Our goddess was Jean Shrimpton and we all copied her hair and a-Line dresses, scouring the English magazines for ideas. Commercial options were few and far between.
Janet Langham
I left school at 16 (1965) having completed a one year commercial course which gave me the knowledge to get various typing jobs. I worked in several offices until I was approached by a guy called John Daly who was a business partner of David Hemmings (an actor at the time who starred in Blow Up, Camelot, Charge of the Light Brigade etc) who offered me a job a Girl Friday/Secretary. It was the most amazing experience meeting and working with such trendy people and all of us, including the actors and actresses who were on the books and the staff who worked at Hemdale, shopped in Biba, Bus Stop, Mr Freedom, Miss Selfridge, Kensington Market and for the higher earners Chanel etc!!! I remember so well when Mary Quant tights first came out - the freedom they gave us when wearing our minis was unbelievable!
I was a typical suburban (Sidcup) girl who commuted daily into town and was also a typical Biba Girl - I first went to the Kensington Church Street shop and I can still remember the excitement I felt going into the shop and trying clothes on in the communal changing room. I can also remember in 1967 going into the shop to buy a bikini which was a very fine cotton voile through which you could get a sun tan and it was nearly the equivalent of half a weeks wages - I persuaded my boyfriend to buy it though!
My eye make-up was very 60s - very dark browns, greys, blacks with painted on lower eyelashes - my lips were practically white and when I used to leave the house and go and say goodbye to my dad I can actually remember sashaying down the garden in my most outrageous clothes and make-up and I can so remember him saying nearly every time 'you're not going out like that are you?' Probably something that still happens in households all over the country today!!!
The first photo shows me wearing a grey vest, grey needle cords with a red belt and red boots - this picture was taken in 1968. The second photo shows me wearing brown Mr Freedom velvets with yellow stitching, a brown cardigan and a yellow and brown star t-shirt also from Mr Freedom - I also wore brown granny boots from Ravel...
Although my hair is longish in these photographs I did always go to Vidal Sassoon in Bond Street for my short cuts.
It is said that if you were really part of the 60s you can't remember them - well there are moments/times I can't but overall it was such an exciting, forward-moving time and one that I feel privileged to have been part of - it certainly was swinging for me!!!
Brenda Martin
During the late 1960s I lived with three other girls in one floor of an old Edwardian house in Queensgate, South Kensington. We loved the mini skirt fashions and with the one sewing machine we had were able to create a new outfit by buying a yard of material, running up a new mini skirt and teaming it with a t-shirt and a matching Indian cotton neck kerchief. I also remember making a bright pink a-line dress with a keyhole neckline and a bow at the back. My favourite designs were always by Mary Quant and we tried to copy them, bought her make up and accessories whenever we could. I even had a manicure set with her little flower logo on it.
When I got married in 1971 the fashion then was for very plain wedding dresses, so I chose white velvet and my mother made up my dress from a pattern in Vogue which copied the medieval look created by one of the top designers. It had a scoop neckline, narrow sleeves widening out into a large medieval shape cuff. The veil I made from a piece of patterned gold lace I bought from a specialist lace shop off Dean Street. For my going away outfit, I bought a brown velvet trouser suit from Biba, with a simple jacket without a collar and flared trousers. The velvet was printed with little round shapes. Underneath I wore a satin purple shirt, also from Biba, with frilled neckline and frilled sleeves.
Pat Edwards
I can remember I thought I was a bit of a 'fashion designer' in my teens (1965) and, prompted by Mary Quant, I designed and made an outfit - white tunic top edged in black with a V neck and wide flared trousers also edged in black at the bottom. I thought I was the cat's whiskers when my boyfriend took me to Battersea Park Fun Fair and bought me an ice cream (chocolate flavour). We went on the big wheel and I promptly emptied all the ice cream over my outfit. He then informed me we were going back to his house to meet his parents!!
Suzanne Morris-Marcus
I first dove into the London fashion scene arriving July 1968 from Toronto. My brother, studying at Imperial College, took me on a bus and told me to jump off at Harrods, go to top floor "WAY IN" and that was the beginning. It was amazing. I ventured further to Kings Road and explored Mary Quant's store, The Chelsea Drug Store and all the shops run by each designer. I scooped up my fish net stockings, an original Ozzie Clark fancy dress item, a mini skirt and as much Quant make-up as I could imagine using on my return to 'not yet British' Toronto. One place not missed was Carnaby Street. I feel the pulse of fashion was truly the Kings Road.
I return there at least once every two years and will be back December 2006. I will not miss the exhibit!
Felicity Allen
When I was 13 I lived 7 miles outside Brighton (about 1965). I got £5 a month allowance for clothes and everything. Biba briefly opened a little shop in Queens Road, just down from the station, so I'd go past it whenever I went to Brighton. It was before Biba had become famous - I think it was referred to in Honey magazine which I read, and there was another boutique, Snob, that opened on Western Road, run, I think, by the same person who is now known as the dj Annie Nightingale (the shop was painted red gloss, quite shocking). I seem to remember she was mentioned in Honey, too.
I was completely the wrong shape (curvaceous and not especially tall) for the 60s when Twiggy dominated the magazines, and I minded horribly. But I found a gorgeous dress, very unlike what we now think of as Biba style, that seemed to block out a lot of my roundness. I think it cost me £3/10 although it may have been even cheaper. It was turquoise with little geometric shapes, possibly purple or Indian red, printed all over it. It had a white rounded collar and I think it may have had white cuffs on long sleeves. Its cut was similar to the type of gym slip that my mother had worn in the 1920s, with a yoke cut above the bosom, and pleats coming down, sewn flat from the yolk to the hips, and then open. It was a mini-dress, it must have come to a couple of inches above my knew. The back was cut to fit, without the pleats. I really loved it, and it was the only dress that I didn't feel too gross in. However, perhaps because it wasn't typical Biba, it didn't stay fashionable, so I couldn't wear it for long and, instead, found myself wearing tent mini-dresses which became fashionable and made me feel big and lumpy, as well as vulnerable because they were so loose they would ride up really easily. I hated my chubby knees.
Altogether, the fashions of the mid-60s were pretty grim for a self-conscious teenager. It got much better a year or so later when I started going to Brighton market and a second hand shop called Mary's in Kemptown, and dressing in original 1920s and 30s clothes which covered me up and were altogether more flattering (and cost me about 2/6).
Pat
I bought two paper dresses, one pale gold in colour made up of very tiny hexagon shapes, with open spaces in between, each one connected to the next, the second... was white, with an all-over flowery pattern, it looked like lace, or, as my mum said, a paper doily. They cost me just over five pounds each, and were really simple to shorten, just a sharp pair of scissors.
I bought them for a really special occasion - my boyfriend and I were going to a Dave Brubeck concert in Liverpool. I decided to wear the white dress. When we got there he said it was still too long so he borrowed a cutlery knife from the hospitality area, folded and turned up the hem of my dress to his desired length, slid the knife in behind the fold of paper and gently slit it all round. On the way out of the concert someone caught the edge of my dress with a cigar and it started to smolder and smell.
My first job after leaving Art College was with a company of Architects and Designers in Manchester, I was a "Gofer" and was sent out to all sorts of showrooms in the City to collect samples and catalogues etc... The textiles samples that I was to collect were from a range of fabrics called Hurdy-Gurdy. The patterns were basic stripes which were very fashionable at that time, but these stripes were different, in as much they were made up in various widths... in really super colours...
My mum used to make most of my clothes in the sixties, I designed them, mum made them up. She made me a simple shift dress, round neck and no sleeves and a little short boxy jacket. We designed it with the stripes running horizontally which made all the difference. People actually raved over my suit and its colour, asking me where I got it. I often designed and made up my own clothes using contract furnishing fabrics from Caurtaulds, David Hicks and many more.
Mandy Griffin
At the age of 16 I couldn't wait to leave school and join my sister, working for a large car company that was based in Kensington. Just around the corner to our office in Kensington Church Street was Biba, and we were regular visitors, although trainees salaries meant that we rarely bought anything.
One day I spotted a dress that I just had to have, a 'little black dress', a plain black, crepe dress with a fitted bodice that was covered in black sequins, the shortest of skirts that went into an 'A line' and barely covered my bum, and tiny spaghetti straps, it was love at first sight.
The dress cost £6 7s 6d, which was more than a weeks salary, so I was allowed to pay the money off at 10s a week. At the time my sister and I were staying with our rather severe and extremely old fashioned (but lovely) grandparents, and my grandmother very kindly gave me the last 7s 6d so I could get the dress a week early, in time for my first date with a new boyfriend.
I can not tell you how excited I was as I rushed home that Friday clutching my Biba bag, I couldn't wait to put the dress on and show it off. I changed into the dress and, feeling like a million dollars, I swept into the living room posing like a fashion model for my grandparents. Face beaming I looked at my grandmother and asked her what she thought, I will never forget her reply, "Well that is a very pretty slip Mandy, now go and put the dress on so we can see it". Of course I explained that this was the dress but she was having none of it and both myself and the dress were banished to my room.
Until the day she died my grandmother never knew that I had actually climbed out of the window wearing my dress, to keep my Saturday evening date. Was it worth it, well not as far as the date went - I can't remember his name or even what he looked like - but I will never forget the very special feeling that I got from wearing that 'little black dress'.
Robin Wagner
Robin Wagner, 1967
I'm from Houston, Texas, and my first visit to England was when I was 13 for Christmas 1962 (It snowed! My first snowball!). Bought 'Please Please Me' before I even knew who the boys were. I visited again when I was 18 in the summer of 1967. Love Love Love. Bought my Sergent Pepper's. At home was my frog-eyed Sprite. England's in my blood.
During high school, I was on a modelling board for one of the department stores in Houston. There were 15 of us, and we did informal and formal runway shows and TV commericials for the store. So, when I went to London, I knew exactly what I wanted - a black Mary Quant mini-dress. It was D-vine. I shopped Carnaby Street too and found some great things, but nothing topped my visit to Mary.
When I was in college, I freelanced and was chosen for an Andre Courrege show at Neiman's in 1968. His dresses are wearable sculptures. I've always made a lot of my clothes, so seeing the workmanship left me speechless. They were so beautifully assembled that they could have been worn inside out and be just as grand. My mom purchased one of the dresses and hid it for my birthday. It was a knit, rose-colored a-line mini with stitchings and pipings. True art.
I couldn't find pictures of the dresses, but, [this is] one of the teen ads for Saturday newspapers in Spring 1967. Sorry it's in black and white. The dress was a drop-waist mini in hot pink with bright yellow and orange flowers and coordinating tights and shoes. Very flirty.
Thank you England for all those great shapes, colors and music. The best of times!
Gail Durbin
Gail Durbin, 1968
For my 21st birthday in 1968 I wore a dress by Jean Varon. I thought it was wonderful. The flared skirt stopped four inches short of the knee and the sheer sleeves draped beautifully. I think the dress cost £20 (or was it guineas?), a huge amount when my rent was £3 a week.
This was one of the few ready-to-wear dresses I had ever owned. The legacy of 1950s austerity and an aunt who was a dressmaker resulted in a series of sensible, unfashionable but beautifully made dresses, tailored coats and even, on one occasion, a hand-made hat. School needlework classes later enabled me to make my own clothes from paper patterns so it was a revelation when I discovered dresses in shops that fitted. Family expectation and finances, however, meant that most clothes were still made at home.
The hairdresser in Cheam Village pulled out all the stops on special occasions. She sent you to the haberdashers next door for a small bunch of artificial flowers which she unpicked. My hair was back-combed, pulled into an elastic band, back-combed again then twisted into a series of curls secured by a fistfull of pins and made hard and sticky with hair lacquer. As a final touch the flowers were poked into each curl. Life and aspirations in the suburbs were probably a little different to the King's Road.
Jessica Sutcliffe
I made this dress in about 1965 when I was a student at the Architectural Association and wore it to lots of parties. I made a lot of my clothes from Heals curtain material and was delighted to find this Op Art design - Op Art being all the rage with huge interest in the work of Bridget Riley (several of our friends worked in her studio). I was particularly pleased with the asymetrical use of the pattern which gives it more life and movement.
Robin Sutcliffe: In the design for this dress asymmetry is used to accentuate the symmetry of the body. I remember Jessica laying the newspaper pattern that she had made out on the fabric and talking about it. I can even remember the excitement watching her making it work, quite apart from when she actually wore it.
We felt wonderfully modern, me in my Carnaby shirt (or was it the one from Mr Freedom?!), Jessica in her op art dress. It was the time of Marimekko, a brave new modern world. I remember going to a 21st birthday party where the height of cool was a poetry reading accompanied by a trumpet. Jazz and Poetry. Way out man!
Karen Keeble
This is a photo taken in the Summer of 1967 of me wearing one of my favourite Biba dresses. I still remember trying it on in Biba's communal changing room in Kensington Church Street, listening to Sergeant Pepper on the stereo. What an exciting time that was.
I particularly loved this dress because it was cut in such a way that it fitted my petite figure perfectly and the halter-neck style looked very flattering. I had never seen a dress like it before and I thought it was
absolutely gorgeous!!!
I don¹t remember wearing this dress at any particular occasion, but I did go to a lot of parties with my friends that lovely summer and we often frequented the Café des Artistes in Chelsea and I would certainly have worn it there.
When I look at this photo now I think how lucky I was to have been 21 in the Summer of Love.
Gina J
I was at art school in 1962-4. I can remember the excitement of the new shapes and emphases. Very much like the 1920's originally, then the decade gained its own momentum, and all in all it was an exciting and life enhancing decade for both style and fashion. The designers were genuinely talented and understood how young people felt. The innovation in style was enormous - original and challenging.
I could never afford the major boutique prices, but hunted the look down wherever I could. I wore Quant tights and perfume, and still have the yellow box of Quant makeup crayons.
Fab.
Cate Phillips
Cate Phillips, about 1964
In the late Fifties and the Sixties, I had two shops for almost all my clothes - Marks and Spencer for underwear and casual and Bazaar in Knightsbridge for dresses.
Mary Quant clothes were my favourites, and almost all photos of me at occasions such as weddings show me wearing Quant.
Two dresses in particular stick in my mind. One was a cotton summer frock in dark green, purple and brown stripes, which cost me the enormous sum of fifteen guineas (£15.75) which I wore for years, with the hem being turned up shorter and shorter, until it finally fell apart. At the other extreme was the black eveining dress which I have lent the V&A. This I wore to the opera at Glyndebourne for several seasons. I have a funny memory of wearing it on an occasion when I was invited at short notice to join a family visit to Glyndebourne in place of my aunt who was unwell. As we both lived in London, it was agreed that I should pick up my uncle from the bank in Lombard Street where he worked. The face of the commissionaire was a picture, when instead of a sedate banker, a figure in evening dress with an opera cloak emerged and was driven off in a scarlet MGB-GT by a young lady also in evening dress!
I have never found a designer which suited me as well since, and I can remember far more of my Quant outfits than any others.
Derek
The delightful photograph at the V&A of fashion model Jackie Bowyer modeling the Mary Quant raincoat , Christopher Robin ,in 1963 ,revives very special memories for me , although of a few years earlier in 1955. I met Jackie during that year and she became a special friend to me . She also became my first love who I have never forgotten. I am pleased to learn that she became very succcessful as a fashion model during that unique period in British Fashion history . I often wonder how and where she is now . Derek Collins , Niagara On The Lake , Canada .
Sharron Wilcox
I was only young in the 1960’s but I remember the impact the music of bands like the Beatles had on my family and the way that suddenly all of the design around me seemed lively and bright.
It’s hard to imagine now but clothing really was very restrictive once. Young girls went to school in thick cotton knickers, vests, petticoats and dull soulless dresses. Many of these were often hand-me-downs, or bought bigger so we could grow into them. They had little sense of style and were designed to fulfil the basic function of keeping us warm. It was also just as bad for boys only much more formal and boring. There was certainly no fun in clothing that I recall.
I can still remember how it took my mum days to wash and care for all of this useless clothing and how it took ages to dry. The fabrics used were not as easily cared for as today’s modern fabrics. Women were really oppressed by washing in this era in my opinion.
The 1960s were like a breath of fresh air and it changed my whole life for the better.
Our family, like millions of other young families, went mad by the then standards of our community.
My mum bought an electric sewing machine and fell in love with the colour orange.
She painted the walls of our council house tangerine and bought myself and my sister bright orange dresses with tangerine spotted ties and tangerine overcoats with zips. This was all topped off with matching spotted hats.
We felt like a million dollars and both our mum and our dad thought that we looked great.
Our dad worked on the Nylon plant at Wilton, Teesside and he brought home early raw samples of the fibre for our Gran to crochet myself and my sister dresses. Gran really was an expert at crochet and the dresses were really snazzy. However, there was a problem with them that I remember, they were very itchy to wear. My dad bought himself coloured shirts and trendy shoes and soon we were all kitted-out in the latest gear.
The doors were thrown wide open then and every one discovered how to develop their own style. It was all such good fun.