TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/60s/60fashio

Text File | 1990-10-22 | 10KB | 196 lines

Fashion & Fun

  [Americans opened their closets to the fashions that have come to
symbolize the 1960s.]


                                                    (July 19, 1963)

  The chemise family is a closely knit group. Fashion-conscious
females who climbed out of the sack only a short while ago now find
themselves climbing right back into the sack's first cousin, the
shift. Already a slender trend as winter waned, the shift really
switched into high with the summer solstice. On beaches from Maine to
Malibu, Iissome Loreleis clad in the latest two-piece bathing suits
arranged themselves across the sand, apparently to ponder such
girth-shaking questions as: How is a girl going to look her best when
she isn't looking her barest? Thus, in a blinding flash, came the
shift to shifts, biggest cover story in beachwear this season.


                                                   (January 3, 1964)

  The galosh has gone galumphing into oblivion, and in its place is
the musketeer boot, the Robin Hood boot, the cossack boot, lined,
unlined, fur-topped, made of fake leopard or silk faille or nylon mesh
or even real leather. Office girls wear them to work at the slightest
sign of inclement weather, carrying their shoes in a tote bag (the
smarter ones keep a pair of shoes in their desk). For the evening,
slippers are carried in jeweled reticules.

  A special favorite is the high-heeled, calf-topping black leather
model with the rakish, lady-lion-tamer look.


                                                      (June 26, 1964)

  Rudi Gernreich was bored to tears with necklines. The V neck, the
scoop neck, the boat neck, the turtle neck, the square neck, even the
deep-cup plunge, all seemed drags. But the California designer is an
all-action-no-talk man, and in no time at all he had pulled himself
together and come up with a rather refreshing idea; drop a neckline
low enough, say to the waist. Then it actually won't be a neckline at
all, and no one will be even the least bit bored.

  Rudi was right as rain. His topless bathing suit (designed as "a
prediction of things to come") was first modeled in the flesh for
buyers early this month, drew S.R.O. crowds and, of course, caused
raging controversy.


                                                      (April 9, 1965)

  Recently imported from Paris, the short, short skirt has been
gleefully adopted by the avant-grade among U.S. teen-agers and coeds
as the perfect complement to patterned stockings and leather
boots--usually white. From San Francisco coffeehouses to Manhattan
discotheques, girls are beginning to reveal more thigh than they have
stocking to cover, and American males are scrambling for the best
vantage point.

  The man who did most to open up the vistas of "vastus lateralis" is
Andre Courreges, 41, the brightest new star in the Paris firmament.

  This February his pencil-thin mannequins popped out in severe white
dresses cut three inches above the knee and white, mid-calf boots open
at the toe. The French Vogue and Elle devoted so much space to
Courreges that Coco Chanel took offense.

  Ridiculous or not, knees and the lower thigh are now in the public
eye. For still supple gamines who can toss off a handstand or a
cartwheel, the new look will fit like an old glove. But for those who
cannot resist layer cake and ice cream, Courreges may take more
courage than they've got.


                                                      (March 1, 1968)

  Ever since the demise of the grey flannel suit in the early 1950s,
a revolution in menswear has been forecast as regularly as the
lifetime light bulb or a new Nixon. Until lately, men's fashion
changes have added up to little more than slimmer trousers, side
vents, a return of the shaped, double-breasted suit, and frilled
shirts--worn mainly by actors. Lately, however, there have been signs
of a real change in attitude.

  Current symbol of the freer male attitude is the turtleneck
pullover now being worn by just about everybody from Lyndon Johnson,
who fancies the comfort of turtlenecks for travel aboard Air Force
One, to the Duke of Windsor, who slips into one for small, informal
dinner parties. Those who feel that tuxedos are old-fashioned are
trying out the long, mandarin-collared Mao or Nehru coats. In Los
Angeles last week, TV's Tonight Show Host Johnny Carson marched
on-camera sporting American Designer Oleg Cassini's version of the Mao
in dark blue whipcord.


  [Americans discovered a new ways to spend their leisure time.]

                                                  (February 23, 1962)

  Skiing is probably the fastest-growing recreation on earth. In the
U.S. alone, 30 new areas have been opened this year, ranging from
Sierra Blanca in New Mexico to Stratton Mountain in Vermont, where a
giant lodge and twelve slopes and trails have been built at a cost of
more than $1,000,000. And the invention of snowmaking machines has
brought skiing even to such stately summering places as Virginia's
Homestead hotel. At Cataloochee Ranch in North Carolina, man-made snow
brings skiers from as far away as St. Petersburg, Fla.

  An even newer trend is the skiing vacation in Europe. A skier who
catches Alitalia's 8 p.m. Flight 603 at Idlewild Airport on Friday is
in Milan Saturday morning at 9:20, ready to jump into a rented Fiat
for the drive to Cervinia. At noon, he is schussbooming down a
6,500-ft. Alp.


                                                     (August 9, 1963)

  Bleached-blond Boy with bangs meets beach-bound Girl with bikini.
They stow their surfboards in his "woodie" (a vintage paneled station
wagon) and take off for Malibu. En route, a transistor radio beats out
the tune that has been topping the charts, Jan and Dean's Surf City:

  They say they never roll the streets up
  'Cause there's always something going...
  You know they're either out surfing
  Or they got a party growing!

  Like skiing, surfing was until recently the private passion of a
few bronzed dare-devils. But in the past few years, surfing has become
something like a way of life for thousands of devotees all along the
Southern California coast. Every weekend an estimated 100,000 surfers
paddle into the briny on 7-ft. to 12-ft. balsa or polyurethane boards,
struggle upright into a precarious balance with nature, and try to
catch the big breakers coming in.


                                                  (March 20, 1964)

  The most fashionable dancing these days is done at a
"discotheque," which is really nothing but a highbrow version of a
juke joint plus a disk jockey. But this simple formula and the dancing
that goes with it is giving international night life its newest sights
and sounds.

  The Twist, nowadays, is for squares. In its place is an open-ended
series of variations on the theme "stay put." The pelvis gets all the
play in the Frug, twitching sexily from side to side while the hands
make slow and sensuous gestures. The Wobble is a group dance like the
Hully Gully, with charade-style steps and gestures such as the Push,
the Frankenstein, the Popeye and the Barrel.


                                                  (February 17, 1967)

  Even for today's liberated career woman, walking into a bar and
ordering a drink on her own still borders on indiscretion, or at least
embarrassment. But there is one kind of saloon where the post-college
girl in her 20s enters without trepidation--although having a roommate
along helps. This is the fast-growing institution known as the "dating
bar," which deliberately seeks the patronage of single males and
females by providing the ambiance of a cocktail party mixed with the
nostalgic roar of a fraternity blast.

  The decor usually runs to dark panelling, Tiffany lamps and sawdust
floors, the entertainment to jukeboxes stocked with the latest rock
'n' roll hits. Signs sometimes read: "Age Limit: 24 for Men, 21 for
Women." Once the word is passed by the powder-room tom-toms that a
particular hangout has become "a nice place to meet people," the rush
is on.


                                                      (March 1, 1968)

  Though Northglenn will be the Denver area's fourth major new
shopping center in two years, that splurge only symbolizes the vast
change that has overtaken retailing. In the past ten years the number
of shopping centers in the U.S. and Canada has quadrupled to 10,900.
Last year they accounted for an estimated 39% of retail sales.

  By combining glamour and one-stop convenience, the shopping centers
have become the focus not only of retailing activity but of much
community culture and recreational life. In addition to restaurants,
banks, a post office, movie theaters, skating rinks and often a free
auditorium for club meetings or amateur plays, the centers entice
auto-borne families with a busy schedule of attractions. There are
fashion shows and symphony concerts, pumpkin judging contests and
senior proms, reptile-club snake exhibits and "petting zoos" (for
animals tame enough for tots to touch).

  Much of that country-fair atmosphere originated with the trend
toward enclosed, generally glass-roofed malls. Inside, developers
plant tropical gardens dotted with benches, fountains and even
aviaries. New Jersey's Delaware Township even changed its name to
Cherry Hill, after that of its shopping center, whose verdant mall
draws sightseers and customers from cities 100 miles away.