With psychedelic prints and geometrics, the high street resembles another decade this summer and Jacqueline Wake Young tries to work out why.
There’s a definite Sixties feel to midsummer fashion this year.
Anyone would think we were living in a time when The Rolling Stones were the hottest ticket in town and Nasa sent spaceships to the moon – oh hang on, we are.
This month Mick and the boys will play France, Germany and Sweden, meanwhile Nasa is eyeing up August for the first phase of its Artemis programme that could, it says, “extend human existence to the moon and beyond”.
It’s mind-bending stuff, just as it was in the 1960s, with the fashion of the time reflected the cultural climate, with psychedelic prints, monochrome, geometrics and bright, acid colours.
If the Sixties could be summed up in one word, that word might be liberation, with massive societal and political changes and a breaking free of the restraints of previous decades.
Perhaps that’s not too far from our current situation, as the world attempts to emerge from the upset and constraints of the past two years and, at the risk of sounding simplistic, go in search of some fun.
We’ve already seen that optimism reflected in interiors trends, for example in the Dulux Colour of the Year, Bright Skies.
So it makes sense that fashion too would see a desire for the colourful, whimsical and bold.
At the very least, there’s a high street full of perfect outfits for anyone who fancies trying to catch the Stones this summer and is lucky enough to bag a ticket.
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