HIPPIE CHIC

For some, hippy style was the opposite of chic, associated with scruffiness, the rejection of high fashion ideals and couture and 50s straight-laced lines and design, instead an over-the-top combination of colour and fabric. This book is a companion to an exhibition of the same name curated for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Curator Whitley makes a compelling case for hippie chic and focusses on the work of big name and lesser known designers, analysing primary sources such as photographs, copy from fashion magazines, newspaper articles and the garments themselves from the 1960s and early 1970s. The latest looks trickled up into the top fashion houses, Halston and Yves Saint Laurent among them, by way of bohemian boutiques, avant-garde fashion lines and musicians like the Beatles, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. Fashion twisted and turned from trippy to retro and crafty to ethnic, with plenty of Indian and tapestry motifs, tie-dye, sumptuous panne velvet, Western fringed cowboy or Native American jackets and skirts with 'stash' pockets for hiding illegal substances! Central Asian floral embroidery known as suzani adorns the bodice of a Thea Porter printed chiffon dress, blue marabou feathers fluff out a Rive Gauche chubby jacket, Ossie Clark creates a bias-cut skirt in cherry-red crepe and then of course there are the BIBA models, Gloria Vanderbilt the socialite embracing the patchwork craze, the gypsy look, the 'smashing dresser' Patrick Lichfield, the Edwardian dandy style jackets or William Morris floral designs as shown by Barry Miles and George Harrison, and enchanting evening ensembles which flaunted acid colours. Take a trip down memory lane to spot what you once might have worn - if you can remember. 145 colour illustrations, 152 pages 21 x 27.5cm.
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