Sixties Fashion - From 'Less is More' to Youthquake

This is the decade in which everything changed 
– we are still living with the effects today

Fashion in the sixties was radical, revolutionary – like nothing the world had ever seen. At the end of the fifties, Yves Saint Laurent started looking for new ways to define the female form. By the seventies, styles, markets, materials, demographics, inspirations, and the very definition of fashion had been utterly transformed.

Sixties Fashion tells the definitive story of the clothes, the labels, the movements and the music that shook the very foundations of society.

‘Exquisite photography … fashion mavens will swoon over the cocoon cocktail coats and Pucci prints’ – The Lady

In the early sixties an unprecedented explosion of youth culture – Diana Vreeland’s famous ‘youthquake’ – led to a demand for informal 
but stylish clothes, and self-expression became paramount.

From the mods in London and the 
yé-yé scene in Paris, to the flower children in 
San Francisco, subcultures took fashion into their own hands and changed the world’s style from 
the bottom up.

The miniskirt, the ultimate expression of ‘less is more’, was a potent symbol of change that defied the establishment. Designers Mary Quant and André Courrèges were famous for raising hemlines, but as Quant herself said, ‘it was the girls in the street who did it’. By the end of the decade, fashion had given way to style, and 
clothes were never the same again.

Jonathan Walford charts these revolutions in this richly illustrated history in which period advertisements, images of clothes and first-hand accounts from contemporary publications bring high fashion and low fashion, and everything in between, vividly to life.

Beautifully designed, this is an essential sourcebook for professionals and retro enthusiasts alike, and will be treasured by all dedicated followers of fashion.

Jonathan Walford is the founding curator of the Bata Shoe Museum and a founder of the Fashion History Museum, both in Canada. His previous publications include 1950s American Fashion, Forties Fashion: From Siren Suits to the New Look, The Seductive Shoe, Shoes A–Z and Ready to Tear.