The Seventies had pillaged the Fifties down to its bare bones, and now that we were well into the Eighties the 20-year cycle meant it was time to dust off the Sixties. Needless to say, being totally obsessed with all things Sixties by this time, I was ready.
But not yet for Donovan, Woodstock, Carnaby Street and the man in the top hat rifling through military jackets in the King's Road, but more the post Fifties pre-Beatles Sixties, with its check shirts, quiffs, rock & roll and of course Levi jeans.
Did you buy into the whole Wonderful World, jeans-in-the-bath, Nick Kamen, standing-in-your-pants-in-the-launderette, Stand By Me black jeans thing? They were selling cool and I, along with millions of others, bought it. What a sheep, eh? A marketing man's dream. Still am. But it was all the rage and far more interesting than coursework. We plundered second hand shops - before they were called vintage - for leather and suede jackets and occasionally baseball jackets. But you had to get in quick. Everyone was at it.
Trips to London to the wonderful Flip in Covent Garden were in order too, where you could get all this US stuff - at a price of course, but it was worth it. And those ripped jeans to show a glimpse of your strawberry print seersucker boxer shorts. Ah, those were the days.
Not quite sure where 1969's I Heard It Through The Grapevine fits in, but it works.
A penny for you loafers?
What's a slide rule for, anyway?
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to forget that there was more to the Eighties than ra-ra skirts and dayglo headbands. I still have a beautiful, early Sixties suede jacket that I bought in a second hand shop in 1982. I still wear it sometimes, and people still ask me where I got it. I'm pretty sure our lot got their hands on most of the decent stuff. Ha.
ReplyDeleteAnd I still miss Flip...
It was almost everything and anything in the 80s very fifties/jazz in the early part, with Carmel and Sade, but then random fads like check shirts and tassle jackets for 6 weeks-ish (blame Aztec Camera for that). Then cowboy chic in the late 80s..
ReplyDeleteWe were always on the rummage around Kensington Market or The Great Gear Market, King's Road. Have you checked this site yet?
there was a Flip in Newcastle it smelled of moth balls and Black & White hair wax...I still miss it as well
ReplyDelete