Pop Goes the Fashion

1960-1970 is a time of a huge fashion shift, and no one saw the link to music better than Diana Vreeland when she joined Vogue as editor in chief in 1963. Her pages across the seasons included Barbra Streisand wearing Madame Gres, Cher inside and on the cover of the magazine, coverage of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and styles encompassing rock to disco, heavy metal to country and western. In the U.K. stars like Sandie Shaw, Lulu and Cilla Black wore trendy London designers like John Bates or Biba, the elegance and ball gowns of the older stars now replaced with mini skirts or slender empire line dresses. During the 1960’s no one in British popular music was as stylish as Dusty Springfield; dressed by Douglas Darnell and Eric Plant as well as June Fernihough her look from hair to shoes looks as wonderful now as it did then. Menswear starts to relax, but early images of bands are shocking in their clothing looking back rather than forwards and it is not until the end of the decade Ossie Clark dresses Mick Jagger and even later 1974 to see Freddie Mercury in Zandra Rhodes. Of course, David Bowie flouts all convention and wears Kanzai Yamamoto but also not until after 1971.

1970-1980 is a decade that started with disco and ended with punk, but also where we see Aretha Franklin teach us how to drop a fur on stage, marvellous. Steve Nicks threw down a fashion and style gauntlet by having her own sketches translated into her personal style by Margi Kent, whilst David Bowie and Elton John broke every menswear rule. Diana Ross and all the Motown singers were dressed by designers Michael Travis and Pat Campano alongside Bob Mackie produced endless sequinned and feathered dresses, catsuits, tops and trousers glittering and dancing in studios, nightclubs, and concert halls. Note that across decades Cher does fashion on her own terms since she switches, even with Bob Mackie, from black velvet simplicity to insane pirate gypsy queen, she is in a sense outside, and even fashion.