Mix Go Go boots, mod mini dresses, Mary Quant, Space Age fashion, Beatlemania and Carnaby Street, and you get the fab British Invasion that took over 1960s clothing, music, and culture in the US.
The 1960s Youthquake
1964 should be declared the official beginning of the 1960s Youthquake. This was the year of the Beatles' invasion, Courrèges' go go boots, Mary Quant's mini skirts, and just about anything else that manufacturers could hype to the hordes of Baby Boomers, who had just stomped their feet and thrown a countrywide hissy fit... in an effort to demand hip, youthful, British-inspired fashion. Fortunately, designers saw dollar signs and gave them what they wanted.
The British Invasion and Beatlemania
How important was music to Baby Boomers? Well, music was right up there with lust and air. Most of us Baby Boomers still cannot draw a decent "mental timeline" unless we can correlate an event from our own lives to the release of a good rock song and all the memories that the music evokes. So, for all of you who can’t or won’t remember February 1964 (from the date alone), that was the month the Beatles threw the Beach Boys under the bus and planted a giant Union Jack on every radio station tower from New York to San Diego.
It was as if some rock star decided to move into your spare bedroom. The earnestness of Beatlemania changed the life of everyone who was between 10 and 18: Beatles bubblegum trading cards, Fab Four lunchboxes, Ringo boots, and God knows what else. But, Beatlemania also brought hip London-based fashion to the unwashed masses of gangly American teens and preteens.
Early 60s Fashions
1964 spanned a lot of stunning fashion styles as couturiers let their imaginations fly to capture amazingly creative looks for an affluent mid-sixties world. It seemed like the earth’s atmosphere was suddenly filled with some kind of artistic oxygen which gave everyone an inventive burst.
Dramatic energy was everywhere and fashion jumped well outside of 1950s norms, with things like Space Fashion (inspired by America's quest to reach the moon), Beatles' fashion (or anything worn by their girlfriends), and any type of clothing that looked like it could have come from Carnaby Street.
Eventually, we came to call these styles Mod, but the term was used a bit differently in the US than in the UK. To Americans, Mod just meant Carnaby Street fashion, while in Britain, Mod meant an entire subculture, as in Mods and Rockers.
Courrèges Mini Skirts and Space Fashion
Mini skirts and mini dresses started popping up on hip Americans during the early months of 1964. Both Andre Courrèges, a French fashion designer, and Mary Quant, a British designer, claimed to have invented the mini. The truth is (most likely) that Courrèges invented the mini dress and Mary Quant popularized it.
Courrèges was extremely adventurous with design and he hit the world head on with his 1964 Space Age Collection. His trend-setting designs reflected the excitement of the first manned rockets to orbit the earth in 1963. This unique collection mimicked the colors (white and silver) of real spacesuits:
- Courrèges-Inspired Space Girl Stewardesses
- Fashions from Courreges Space Age Collection With 60s Go Go Boots
- Audrey Hepburn in Space Age Clothes by Courreges
Original Mini Dresses Were Long
The original mini dresses were not very short. And, girls would have been sent home from school, back in the day, if their hemlines were more than one or two inches above their knees or if they rolled their skirts too high.
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