They said the 1960s swung and indeed it did—especially when it comes to fashion. In one corner of ’60s fashion, we had Jackie Kennedy delivering prim and presidential looks in simplistic silhouettes in pastel-pretty colors. In the other corner, we had Mary Quant and her fellow mods who trimmed their hair (into five-point-dos, a la Vidal Sassoon ) and raised their hemlines to miniature proportions—the mini skirt was born! In another corner, we had a group so enamored by the space race that they made futuristic shift dresses fit for the cosmos.
And, over in counterculture, peace and love were paramount—and folkloric hippie fashions helped a whole generation dress the part. But that’s just skimming the surface of ’60s fashion! A whirlwind recap of the decade, below. Never before in the history of fashion was the knee on show; you may remember that even the infamous flappers of the 1920s concealed their knees.
After the lowering of hemlines in 1947 by Christian Dior, skirts steadily rose over the next decade and a half. Though fashion historians pinpoint 1964 as the year we got the mini, there were precursors—for example, Cristóbal Balenciaga’s sack dress from 1957/58. So did Mary Quant invent the miniskirt as is often said? It’s not as straightforward as a simple yes.
But it was a lace dress from the designer in 1964 and Quant’s accessible price points that really caught on; her lower-cost label dubbed Mary Quant’s Ginger Group really helped fuel the shor.