Themes arising from the garment

Youth and an Emphasis on the New

By 1963 the media had become obsessed with youth and newness, and by the mid 1960s youth had the biggest impact on art, design and popular culture. Cultural historians and commentators have retrospectively acknowledged that before 1945, youth culture had not existed, and by the 1960s, children born directly after the war had become a social and consumer group in their own right, i.e. by 1964, 8% (4 million) of the British population were aged 15-19[1]. The juxtaposition of both social and consumer group is not incidental; young people had started forge a group mentality and identity through consumer choices (i.e. clothing, music, cinema, and popular culture in general), although often these were contradictory, embracing both a rejection of middle-class bourgeois ideology, and, the emergent affluence associated with a post-war consumer culture. This meant that new markets for clothing were being forged, but these were largely based on the development of a new and affluent youth consumer group.

The significance of youth was not merely a response to emergent numbers of young people. Consistent low inflation and virtual full employment created a buoyant economy sustained by greater disposable income, increased access to credit and consumer goods. In terms of a collective consciousness, youth culture in the 1960s emerged from a cross-cultural response to Americana and the genre of the ‘Angry Young Man’, brought to life in aggressive acts of rebellion, resulting from class distinction and social dissatisfaction throughout the early post-war decades. Although violent behaviour was largely associated with members of subcultures and to isolated incidents, rebellion became synonymous with youth.

Youthful rebellion was not limited to anti-social behaviour; it was endemic throughout culture, represented in the rejection of the ideology of earlier generations and in new patterns of consumption and display. An emphasis on ‘youth’ as a group, concept and consciousness, highlighted and privileged the ‘new’, a consequence of which was a focus on the ‘here and now’ rather than a projected vision of the future. The ease of access to credit offered consumers potential access to goods otherwise outside of their financial reach, as well as instant gratification. Valorisation centred on the novel, the fashionable, and therefore systematically fostered a culture of obsolescence, in which longevity was negated.

Obsolescence became a standard within product design, with goods having a limited ‘life-span’. Similarly, new, disposable materials became an innovative expression of the element of society defined as ultimately modern (living solely in the present). Furniture, a product group with traditionally a lengthy life-span, for example, was transformed by the introduction of cardboard or inflatable tables and chairs. Similarly, products emanating from disciplines which by design were ephemeral such as fashion, became increasingly obsolescent with the development of paper and edible clothing.

One might presume that with an emphasis on ‘newness’ that motifs were revolutionised as a response to the immediacy of culture; this didn’t really happen, although new motifs and forms of representation were added to ‘traditional’ forms and patterns like florals. To remove all remnants of the past would be to isolate design from its context and heritage, and how can one express ‘newness’ if there is no marker of the ‘old’? We might see this then as a period of change and challenges, in terms of society and culture, but also in relation to forms of representation, constantly challenging existing boundaries in relation to shape, form, colour and style, and redressing them with remarkable regularity.

The return to past styles in order to effect their transformation, can be demonstrated in the revivalist tendencies exhibited by the renewed interest and popularity of the flea market [2], second-hand shopping and mix-and-match [3]. The creation of a sense of individuality (in relation to interiors and fashion) from a variety of disparate sources, both old and new, was intended to highlight the eclectic, spontaneous and throw-away mood of the times. The past or the ‘old’ was resurrected through re-appropriation, used as a dressing-up box of visual signs and references that could enhance or comment on the contemporary world [4].

The new attitudes to the past, were tinged with both Romanticism and nostalgia. In an age defined by a cult of the new, the past took on a new meaning; one of loss, without being ‘lost’. The effect of such an analogy manifested itself in a variety of ways in relation to design; the styles of past eras were revived, i.e. Art Nouveau [5], as well as garments indicative of changing attitudes to gender and sexuality (a symptom of the permissive society), and, notions of the creative spirit, such as a reappraisal of 19th century Romanticism in menswear. Effectively though, these attempts at revivalism were purely aesthetic; the original intent of the designs, motifs and garments, were merely a stylistic nod to the past, rather than an attempt to embrace original ideologies and meaning. The past became a reference, a reaction, an expression of style rather than design with substance, paying lip-service to continuity in a time of contradiction and change.

The period is frequently understood as revolutionary, embracing and witnessing transformations in relation to gender, racial and sexual politics. These ‘revolutionary’ tendencies, combined with the new found cult of youth, influenced fashion and design, i.e. the Lolita look, which exploited a child-like youthfulness mixed with a sexual knowingness, embodied by the models Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton, and demonstrated in the fashion for baby-doll dresses, ditsy floral prints and childish motifs. Vogue’s ‘Young Ideas’ section stated in 1966: ‘It’s a small world – a two-sided story about little girls who like to look grown up, and big ones who don’t’ and of Twiggy wearing a white crepe dress ‘with the small flowers of barely remembered birthday parties [6].

This ambiguous approach to youth suggests innocence corrupted; the transition from child to woman. As Mary Quant stated in 1965:

Adult appearance was very unattractive, alarming and terrifying, stilted, confined and ugly. It was something I knew I didn’t want to grow into. I saw no reason why childhood could not last for ever[7]

Quant practically addressed this by featuring mini-dresses with peter-pan collars reminiscent of Victorian boys-wear and pinafores similar to school uniforms.

New forms of communication such as television facilitated the circulation of fashionable styles and trends. Programmes aimed directly at a youth audience such as Ready, Steady, Go! Promoted new designs, designers and styles and created new fashionable icons. The role of the media, along with new means of buying clothing questioned the dominance of couture, consigning it to the past, a revolution which was to have a profound effect on the fashion industry to the present day.

By the late 1960s, youth culture itself had transformed, embracing not just the mood of the times but political and social events. Most notably this manifested itself in ‘flower power’, the hippy movement and a general awareness of ethical and environmental concerns. The changing emphasis of youth culture from one based on newness, consumerism and membership of youth groups, towards one based on a collective consciousness was seemingly far more revolutionary than preceding youth movements. Here the ideological perspective was a focus on redressing the status quo, becoming more attuned to global issues and the effects of mass consumerism, which enabled fashion to develop and to draw influence from a new set of cultural referents. In particular, the influence of the East, in terms of print techniques (batik, tie-dye and block printing) and motifs, such as exotic flora and fauna, bright colours and so on, became a sign of anti-establishmentism and of global harmony.

Classified as an era marked by a cultural revolution, the 1960s heralded the beginning of new attitudes to fashionable dress. With a focus on youth and newness, followed with an emphasis on Green politics, the period witnessed a redress and questioning of exactly what it was to be ‘fashionable’. It was a period, in terms of design, which challenged boundaries between high and low culture, old and new, mix and match and, cultural fusion. For floral design, this was an era of change and challenge; from small and ditsy girly prints through to the over-sized designs associated with flower power, patterns swung between the sublime and the ridiculous.

[1] Nigel Whiteley, From Modernism to Mod, Thames & Hudson, London, p.15

[2] Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, Verso,

[3] Mary Quant & Conran

[4] Marni Fogg, Boutique – Granny Takes a Trip & I was Lord Kitchener’s Valet

[5] Biba

[6] L Watson, Twentieth Century Fashion, London: Carlton, p.58

[7] M Quant, Quant on Quant, 1965, quoted in J Gardiner, From the Bomb to the Beatles, London: Collins and Brown, 1999, p.133