A fashion spread from Drapers' Record, January 1968. © V&A
The V&A in London is having a swinging time in two exhibitions devoted to Sixties Fashion and Sixties Graphics. The fashion display is open until January 7 2007, while the complementary graphics exhibition runs until November 12 2006.
The groundbreaking work of the designers who dressed the decade are all on show in the fashion galleries, with Mary Quant, Ossie Clark, Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne taking centre stage.
The display of 60 garments shows how key looks evolved in London – which became the swinging city thanks to King’s Road, Carnaby Street and the trends set there.
Models Patti Boyd and Celia Hammond wearing felt hats by Edward Mann and John French. © V&A
The rise and fall of ‘Swinging London’, saluted by the famous cover of Time Magazine in 1966, is charted in clothes – from Mary Quant’s challenges to traditional couture in the mid 1950s to the decadent allure of Biba in the early 70s.
Mayfair Elegance & Chelsea Rebellion showcases the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, including Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies, alongside more radical Mary Quant pieces. Piccadilly Peacocks focuses on tailors who ‘broke the stuffed shirt barrier’, such as pioneers Mr Fish and Rupert Lycett Green.
Knightsbridge Chic looks at the response of middle-market designers and department stores to the new fashions, while Carnaby Street and the King’s Road examines the quintessential swinging designers – John Stephen, Michael Rainey, Foale & Tuffin and Ossie Clark among them.
Pierre Cardin Cosos outfit, 1967. © V&A
Kensington Haze goes on to focus on the shift from clean mid-60s cool to the escapism and nostalgia typified by Thea Porter and Biba. Finally, Out of London looks beyond the UK, at designers working in Paris and New York like Cardin and Yves St Laurent.
As well as items from the V&A’s dress collections and private lenders, archive footage of fashion shows and shopping in boutiques are also used to evoke the era.
The explosion of talent in 60s London encompassed a wild and colourful new approach to graphic design, celebrated in Sixties Graphics. Posters, magazines, album covers and printed ephemera such as badges dating from 1965-1972 fill the exhibition with psychedelic imagery and visual experimentation, charting the exmergence of counter-culture and the underground press.
Michael English and Nigel Waymouth, 1967 poster for UFO at 31 Tottenham Court Road, London. © V&A Images
Works by Peter Blake, poster artists Nigel Waymouth and Michael English (Hapshash and the Coloured Coat), Martin Sharp and others combine with images of musical heroes of the day – Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Graphics for underground gatherings and opsters advertising legendary clubs like UFO and Middle Earth are also included.
Rare examples of publications like Oz and International Times chart the revolutionary artistic and political ideas of the day, demonstrating the heady mix of idealism and experimental art that characterised the world of the underground press. Many pieces in the exhibition come from the collection of Barry Miles, a key figure of the era and founder of Indica Bookshop, the unofficial headquarters of the London alternative scene.
The crucial part played by the V&A in the Art Nouveau revival of the decade with its exhibitions Alphonse Mucha and Art Nouveau (1963) and Aubrey Beardsley (1966) is also indicated with vibrant pieces inspired by the style.
