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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[September 18, 1969] Neo-Rococo Dreaming

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by Gwyn Conaway

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair 1969 will live on in fashion for hundreds of years. Truly, this little festival of love is already making waves within weeks of the event. Like other artist-driven movements before it–the Pre-Raphaelites, Aesthetes, and Primitifs, to name a few–the Hippie Movement will inspire again and again, living on in infamy as the pinnacle of rebellion, freedom, and youth.


Ossie Clark Aeroplane, 1969 by Jim Lee.

Let us then take a moment to appreciate that we are living in a moment of great aesthetic change. If French Rococo had come from the cobblestone streets instead of the marble steps of the palace, this is what it might have felt like. Wondrous, confident, inclusive, worldly… Let us fall into our own naturalistic dream through a cacophony of colors and patterns, divine geometry, and just the exquisite mess of it all.

Without further ado, here are three les créateurs du jour to celebrate and thank for the vibrant fantasy that is 1969.


Ossie Clark has said that this photograph is meant to comment on soldiers that fool around and don’t take the war seriously. Celia Birtwell represents a peasant girl being sexually assaulted by a soldier holding a gun to her thigh while wearing one of Ossie’s floral dresses, 1969.

Ossie Clark is making the biggest splash of his career right now, and for good reason. Photographer Jim Lee helped bring his vision to life for the editorial series entitled 'Vietnam', a brutal commentary on both the realities of the war and his ardent hope for peace. His other photoworks with Jim Lee depict a similar combination of violence and vibrance that feel both glamorous and political. 'Target' uses the same bright, primary palette, but is reminiscent of suicide bombers. Ossie Clark has mentioned that his intent with the photo was to make it appear as if Celia Birtwell had survived a nosedive unscathed.


Celia Birtwell wearing an Ossie kaftan dress in parti color yellow and green. Interestingly, the fourth attempt at this photograph left the detonation expert badly burned.

Ossie Clark would not be complete, however, without his life and design partner, Celia Birtwell. Her Botticelli print has inspired much of Ossie’s fashion this year, making its way onto trousers, peasant tops, kaftans, and gowns. She is the mastermind behind the “floating” textiles that make his designs so bold and nymph-like.


The “Botticelli” print by Celia Birtwell on Ossie Clark’s chiffon and satin trouser suit, 1969.


The “Floating Daisy” and “Poppy” prints by Celia Birtwell on Ossie Clark’s crepe and chiffon evening dress and coat, 1969.

Zandra Rhodes is another exceptional designer with an eye for color that simply glows with life. Her first collection came out this year, titled “The Knitted Circle.” The stand-out piece from her very first collection is the jaw-dropping Butterfly Coat. This coat made of golden wool with a quilted collar that curls away from the neck like butterfly wings, dragged towards the ground with elegant beaded cords. The bodice’s embroidery is a trompe l’oeil print, which keeps its volume and shape from becoming too heavy. And the skirt’s rose and diamond print is reminiscent of gardens and tea in a charming, youthful way.


The Butterfly Coat’s skirt is a full circle gathered into a fitted bust, emblematic of the circular tailoring theme that Rhodes uses across the entire collection, 1969.

Other garments in the collection are ethereal and frothy, following the theme of full circle cutting in the skirts and balloon sleeves. The circular motif is inviting but powerful. When combined with Rhodes’ deft hand at color, it speaks to the energy of young women and their audacity to be happy as themselves.


Detail of the Butterfly Coat by Zandra Rhodes, 1969.

Let us end this little tour with a man of many talents. Giorgio di Sant’Angelo has apprenticed under Pablo Picasso and Walt Disney, worked as a textile designer for furniture, and studied industrial design. His personality is big and his look cherubic. Most stunning, though, is that his work embodies it all.


Sant’Angelo in 1968 photographed with a model draped in his scarves.


The scarf wall at the Phoenix Art Museum.

Sant’Angelo is daring and bold, but there’s an inherent softness to his work. He combines organic subjects with psychedelic color, and geometry with hand-drawn repetition rather than precision. There’s a speculative element to his work that makes one think he wishes to drape you in dreams rather than necessarily create clothing.

Even his heavier textiles maintain the dreamlike crossroads between geometry and mysticism. For his photoshoot with Veruschka for Vogue in 1968, he supposedly took only fabrics and jewelry, draping each frame by hand. The result is a mesmerizing dance of triangles and circles.



The above photographs are from the Vogue desert photoshoot, photographed by Franco Rubartelli.

Enjoy these watershed years, my friends! We are seeing the future being shaped as we live and breathe. What will the Hippie movement lead to next? Fops and dandies? Peasant dresses and pastorales? It will seep into our daily lives, of that there is no question.

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[July 12, 1969] Paco Rabanne and the Theater of War

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Be sure to join us today (July 13) at 9:15 AM PDT (5:15 in London) for BBC's broadcast of the first episode of Star Trek!


by Gwyn Conaway


Paco Rabanne posing with the circular chainmail that has swept Futurist fashion. The style needs no label as it's immediately recognizable as his revolutionary work.

NASA has set its sights on the moon, and their journey is mere days away.

The dead heat of summer has fallen upon us like a humid hug. We fan our sun-kissed skin and drink iced tea from sweating glassware. We crave the artificial breeze of a car ride and press damp rags into our necks. And despite our discomfort, our American breath is frozen in our lungs. Our conversations of anything else have dwindled to distracted murmurs and canceled plans.

I find myself preoccupied with broadcasts and newspapers, my mind muddied with what-ifs and what-thens. It all circles back–one revolution after another–to a single designer and how his first couture line managed to change the course of fashion from the runway to the street. How will he view the coming weeks?

Paco Rabanne.


From Rabanne's "Twelve Unwearable Dresses," 1966.


This first couture collection borrows heavily from the Byzantine period with plate mail and lamellar armor elements, giving his mail dresses an Athenian allure.

Rabanne created his first couture line only three years ago. “Manifesto: Twelve Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials” showed in Paris in 1966, and forever changed the fashion landscape for women. Until that moment on his runway, industrial materials had been relegated to the theatre of war in the forms of chainmail and lamellar armor, among other notable defensive garments.

These days, though, I wonder… Is fashion not also part of the theater of war? Propaganda is considered so, which suggests public perception is a weighty tool of any nation. What better way to proclaim the perfection of one’s ideals than through beauty?


Rabanne designed this in spring of 1969. Note how it mirrors much of the shape language of the height of the Crusades from the 11th to 13th centuries, and Bedouin niqab. This speaks both to the Crusades and the recent Six-Day War in the Middle East.


An example of German hauberk chainmail in the eleventh century.


A Bedouin woman in Sinai, Egypt wearing a niqab adorned with coins sometime between 1900-1920.

Paco Rabanne seems to have reached the same conclusion as me. Though his mother was a chief seamstress for Balenciaga and followed the designer to Paris when he was five, his father was executed during the Spanish Civil War. Of course, I can’t imagine the impact of violence at such a tender age, but politics and doom are common themes of Rabanne’s public statements regarding his own reincarnation and prophecies. Both he and Salvador Dali–who run in the same circles, so I’m told–explore the idea of utter destruction in intimate artistic detail. A political endeavor in and of itself.

So it’s no surprise to me that Paco Rabanne’s construction techniques rely heavily on pliers rather than sewing needles. His unforgiving poeticism armors the modern Cold War woman as if she herself were not just a prize of war, but an active participant.


Francoise Hardy in Rabanne, 1960s. She walks with an air of severity through stately rooms flanked by officers, signaling her authority and power. The untouchable quality of Rabanne's models enhanced their otherworldly power, emulating godly women of history such as Athena, Cleopatra, and Joan of Arc.

Which brings me to one of his most recent masterpieces. Le 69, affectionately known as the Moon Bag, is constructed in the same fashion as his metal and plastic mail dresses with heavy steel. Supposedly inspired by a French butcher’s apron that dates back to the medieval period with a strap made from a toilet-flushing chain, I wonder terribly what his personal feelings are on this accessory. Given our current moment in history, I can’t help but equate it with the covetous nature of the Space Race. Who will get there first? What happens when someone wins the race?

The answer to the first question is imminent. Women will now and for many years carry the “Moon” in their hands as if we have the right to possess it.


Rabanne's "Le 69" Moon Bag.

Paco Rabanne is aware of the inherent violence of his design language. In fact, he has explicitly stated it. “My clothes are like weapons. When they are fastened they make a sound like the trigger of a revolver.” And though many critics cite his architectural background as the reason for his exceptional choices in material and technique, his motivations seem to go deeper than that.

As the Apollo 11 launch approaches, perhaps Rabanne is asking the same questions. What happens when our adversaries see the Moon in our hands?

My only hope is that the doom he feels looming in his prophecies remains there.




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[March 22, 1969] Flowers Are Better Than Bullets

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by Gwyn Conaway

In December of 1965, Mary Beth Tinker, her brother John Tinker, and three other students were suspended from their high school for wearing black armbands on school grounds as a form of memorial for the lives lost in the Vietnam War and a call for a Christmas truce. Though they returned to school wearing all black shortly thereafter, they were only permitted to return once they agreed not to wear their black armbands.


The Tinker siblings in 1968, showing off the black armbands that started their five year journey to the Supreme Court.

On the 24th of February of this year, Tinker won a case against Des Moines in the hallowed halls of the United States Supreme Court. In a super majority decision, the Justices ruled that the students were wrongfully suspended and that they had a right to the freedom of speech in educational settings so long as the protest was not a disruption to the public peace. Though the use of black armbands has not been widespread, I suspect that this and other creative uses of clothing will be a hallmark of speaking one’s mind in public spaces moving forward and as an expression of the power of courageous youth.


"Work For Peace" reads on this man's armband at the Congregational Church protest, 1969, following the Tinker decision.

It’s not the first time that the underdog has employed this sort of tactic in the face of institutional power–the zoot suit of Mexico and Black America in the thirties or the Phygian cap and cockade of the French Revolution, for example–but it very well might be the first time in American history that the sons and daughters of the hegemony have taken up a cause in defiance of their predecessors. While these previous examples of fashion in protest were employed by oppressed groups, the majority group of these movements are white Americans from the suburbs.

In other words, an entire generation has signed on to the opinion that America is not as grand as it’s chalked up to be.

In truth, this should be no surprise. Tensions between those who experienced the Herculean efforts of World War II and those that are growing up amidst the morally black devastation of the Vietnam region and the draft simply continue to rise. While the newspapers take a pro-war or neutral stance, young people feel they aren’t being heard. So why not focus on being seen instead?


The Olive Drab uniform (or "OD" uniform), a version of which has been worn since the beginning of the twentieth century, now inspires protest rather than the patriotism it instilled in Americans following WWI and WWII.


Young men wearing OD uniform shirts along with their other protest regalia at an anti-war protest, 1968.

Young men have been defying the shackles of masculine European tradition for several years now, and it’s becoming more and more mainstream to do so. By growing their hair long, they renounce the military draft and clean-cut regulations for soldiers, but it goes much deeper than Vietnam. Growing one’s hair signifies a departure from the expectation that they will uphold the stability of the middle class. Most importantly, though, it signals that young men no longer see themselves as natural aggressors.


Michele Breton, Anita Pallenberg, and Mick Jagger on the set of "Performance", 1968. Notice Mick Jagger's long hair, Turkish tunic, and bell-bottoms.

Men are adopting long natural locks indistinguishable from women and an unisex dress code that includes elements such as tunics, t-shirts, bell-bottoms, sandals, and necklaces. The bell-bottom trend is particularly exciting in this new age, considering that in all of Western history, men’s trousers have always been slim to the shoe, or even tapered to fit the ankle. When our foremothers pioneered paperbag trousers and pyjama suits, the cut hid the line of the leg with a trapeze shape from hip to ankle that swung with one’s walk. Now, bell-bottoms combine both, with a slim thigh and a flared calf for both men and women that is named specifically for that feminine legacy of the swinging gait.

The Tinker v. Des Moines decision confirms the path of an exhilarating but violent future. This young generation of teens and collegiates is now defined by not only its opposition to the war, but by the power of its symbols of protest. Mainly, they understand that one’s identity is inherently political speech. The convergence of the Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Anti-War, and Hippie movements has led to a volatile cocktail that visibly threatens the status quo of Western tradition by adopting more equal and worldly fashions.

I can’t help but worry that we will reach a boiling point soon. What will be the next symbol?

Flowers, perhaps.




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Conventions/Performances, Fashion, music, politics, sports, Movies, TV

[December 14, 1968] The Emperor's New Nehru

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by Gwyn Conaway


The Emperor's New Clothes by Harry Clarke, inspired by the fashions of the Lucknow Court in present day India and Turkish fashions, a fitting comparison for this article.

A strange thing is occurring in American menswear this winter. A peculiar, most invisible thing. Invisible not because no one talks about it or buys it or advertises it… In fact, everyone from Playboy to J. C. Penny has brandished their bugle horn, lining up their bets behind this most fascinating fad.

No, it is invisible because although men are buying it, they simply aren’t wearing it.

It’s no surprise that men today yearn to move on from the somber three-piece suits and restrictive neckties that inspire discussions of Beau Brummel, Henry Poole, and two-hundred years of legacy. As the definition of American culture expands to include members of the Youth, Hippie, Women's Rights, and Civil Rights movements, just to name a few, young men have realized that they too can expand their own identities. Strangely enough, this ardent wish has manifested as the Nehru jacket.



Sammy Davis Jr in Fall 1968 wearing the new Nehru jacket trend with silk turtlenecks.

Named for Jahawarhal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, the Nehru jacket embodies many of the ideals of American youth. He was an anti-colonialist and social democrat determined to free his country from Western rule, a sentiment young people share against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Like many other revolutionaries and thinkers from colonized cultures around the world, he chose to wear a traditional Indian coat called the achkan as a way of reclaiming India’s cultural autonomy by rejecting Western rules of business dress. Namely, the three-piece suit and the necktie.


Nehru met with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Deutsche Bank Chairman Hermann Josef Abs during a visit to West Germany in June 1956. He looks at ease next to the others with his top button undone, embodying a working class confidence that's defiantly attractive for a generation that distrusts establishment wealth and power, and searches for their own generational identity.

The Beatles wore Nehru jackets for their Shea Stadium concert in August of 1965, less than a year after the prime minister died in May of 1964. As we’ve discussed previously the article "Sgt. Pepper's Anti-War Military Rock Uniform," The Beatles have been an unstoppable force in shaping the fashions, and therefore the identities, of young people in the West through their mop haircuts, peacockish military designs, and bold color palettes. Others such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Lord Snowdon also donned the achkan-inspired look before Pierre Cardin introduced it to the American public last year.


The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium in matching putty Nehru jackets in 1965. Nehru's jackets were also grey and tawny colors. Sammy Davis Jr. often favors this utilitarian color palette in his Nehru jackets this winter.


The first James Bond film, Dr. No, mirrors the hero and villain through the Nehru jacket. Both jackets are made of silk, but Bond's walnut brown jacket is a rough-hewn shantung while the doctor's appears to be a granite silk suiting. The contrast of the fabrics and the fit of the collars both indicate a struggle between the people (Bond) and power (Dr. No).

From there, gossip and excitement over the look has spread like wildfire among experts and celebrities. Esquire went so far as to suggest that the Nehru would be the talk of the winter. But where has it gone? Why have we seen so few of them?

The rather complicated answer is comfort.

Inspired by the total rejection of Western ideals, the Nehru jacket is largely comfortable only to those who also heavily criticize the sum of our mainstream society. However, most consumers are average by default. As a result, such bold shifts are too adventuresome for their everyday lives. These kinds of trends, which often come with great excitement, are bright but brief flashes in the pan.

So what do these emperor’s robes suggest, if they’re bought then stuffed at the backs of closets and into the bottoms of trunks? Bold shifts that make it to retailers and mainstream entertainment, no matter how brief, are indicative of a great yearning in society. And the revolution is happening—it is just taking on a different form.

Rather than rehaul the rules of their workplaces and ceremonies with the Nehru jacket, men are turning to designers like Bill Blass and Ralph Lauren, who are introducing wider, bolder ties and more athletic country tweeds that speak to America’s love of working class leisurewear.


James Coburn in Bill Blass fashions as of November this year for Vogue. Though the fabrics are bold, the shapes are familiar, sporting collars and cuffs with an expeditionary style that calls back to Western expansionism. This, perhaps, is a much more comfortable avenue for change in mainstream menswear than inspirations such as the Nehru that wholly reject the Western lifestyle. Photographed by Henry Clarke.

I agree deeply with the critic Marshall McLuhan in his opinion that after centuries of division, the great tectonic shift of equality in the West is pushing men and women to connect culturally in a way we simply haven’t before. While women are chasing educational and societal inclusion, men are chasing freedom of expression.

We can see this clearly in the rising popularity of Blass and Lauren, for example. The necktie is softer and brighter, but still a necktie. The turtleneck is less structured but still paired with a blazer for daytime events. The Norfolk jacket is slimmer and more youthful, but still made of traditional houndstooth wool. Does this not mirror the advancements of women in our society? Women may attend universities, but they must still wear stockings and skirts. They may work in offices but must maintain a certain figure.

Having donned the uniforms of war and business for as long as women have worn their gowns and corsets, the suggestion that Western men are decolonizing their own fashions, through styles such as Nehru’s achkan, is a hopeful sign of the future. Even if permanent change is slow. Only time will tell if the Western or the Eastern collar will ultimately be the victor…




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[September 22, 1968] Pageantry and Picket Signs

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by Gwyn Conaway


On September 7th 1968, Debra Barnes, also known as Miss Kansas, won the crown of the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, sharing the spotlight with protestors that managed to hang banners during the live broadcast and spark a nation-wide controversy over women's liberation.

“The personal is political.”

This astute piece of wisdom, born of deep discussions in the rising New York Radical Women group this summer, was voiced by one of its leaders, Carol Hanisch. She’s the feminist mastermind behind the Miss America Pageant protest that happened just two weeks ago on the Atlantic City boardwalk outside of the live broadcast of the event on the seventh of September.

When it comes to a woman’s image, she couldn’t be more on the nose. Women’s beauty has been touted as the ultimate symbol of the successes of nations, militaries, companies, and men. Even the origins of the Miss America Pageant are rooted in consumerism and marketing.


Miss America has two key duties after her coronation. Product placement and stimulating the economy is the origin of the pageant, and no surprise now includes brand sponsors such as Pepsi. Her other obligation, however, is touring the U.S. troops. The New York Radical Women call the latter a "death mascot."

In 1921, the first Miss America pageant was held just after Labor Day to lengthen the resort season and bring more revenue to the New York and Jersey coasts. The contest was described as an evaluation of a woman’s “personality and social graces,” with an initial round of judgment conducted by photograph–a medium, I should mention, that is hard pressed to showcase either of these laudable traits.

Within a score of years, the requirements for the pageant became clearer, though surely they were a requirement from the start. A contestant was to be a white woman in good health, never married, between the ages of 18 and 28. All the accolades that she brought with her were expected to be mildly bland, uninspiring, and only the sort of polite conversation one has with their in-laws. The Goldilocks Rule aboundeth: Not too hot, and not too cold. This contradictory manner was invented to define the Modern Woman by none other than Charles Dana Gibson, a male illustrator-turned-editor for Life magazine, once again linking the idea of women's beauty, national identity, and consumerism from the male point of view.


When Women Are Jurors, studies in expression by Charles Dana Gibson, 1902.

When New York Radical Women organized the protest outside of Boardwalk Hall, the history of the pageant was baked into its message of decrying the tradition's inherent sexism. Performances of being shackled and mopping the boardwalk with an infant in hand, for example, were meant to visually represent the unending pressures of Western women. Caricatures of the contestants were labeled as a cattle auction, and even a sheep draped in a banner that read “Miss America” was paraded around the picket line throughout the day.

But perhaps the most provocative element of the protest was the now infamous Freedom Trash Can.


Protestors throw their objects of oppression into the Freedom Trash Can on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Contrary to popular belief, no bras were burned that day, though organizers claim they'd wanted to do so in solidarity with recent draft card burnings.

Yes, the one into which women threw their objects of oppression: lash curlers and fakies, nylons and office pumps, girdles, wigs, lipstick, gloves, the Cosmopolitan… The one you’ve no doubt read mention of in the Atlantic City Press’s scorching article, “Bra-burners blitz boardwalk.” The assumption that women burned their effects seems trollish sensationalism from my point of view, though. In looking through statements from Carol Hanisch, she mentions they had intended to burn them, much like veteran draft cards in the protests on the lawn over the summer, but were instructed not to. The protest happened on a wooden boardwalk, after all.

The image of burning one’s brassiere is so striking that it will surely live in infamy, and I won’t be surprised if it happens during feminist protests in the future. Truthfully, it’s already become a double-edged sword. While women might choose to honor the efforts of the activists who came before them through bra-burning, their critics will latch onto it as well, claiming it a symbol of anarchy. To think, choosing one’s own most personal garments could be such a political threat.

However, harking on the Miss America Pageant alone only tells half of the fascinating tale of this year’s beauty brawl. The New York Radical Women’s protest revolved entirely around the misogynistic use of women as a patriotic trophy and how it signaled to American women what mainstream beauty standards should be in the eyes of male judges. But focusing on the pageant by nature necessitated the whole-cloth exclusion of brown and Black women who, as I laid out in the rules of the pageant, were barred from participation.

While white women in the United States have been oppressed by the gender extremes of our society for centuries, Black and brown women haven’t been included at all in the definition of ideal beauty. This means their struggle has been two-fold, balancing the incorrigible partnership of the legacy of slavery and a beauty standard that expects their hair, features, and physique to mold itself after the white ideal.


Phillip Savage (center) plans a civil rights march in 1963 with collaborators Cecil B Moore (left) and A. Philip Randolph (right). Savage cofounded the Miss Black America pageant with J. Morris Anderson. The poster below is undated, though this style of poster and rhetoric was ubiquitous throughout the events of September 7th.

Just down the street from the Miss America Pageant broadcast, there was another event being held: the first annual Miss Black America Pageant.

While the New York Radical Women’s protest challenged the male gaze and has received immense derision from (mostly male) newsrooms, the Miss Black America Pageant has enjoyed public success so far. J. Morris Anderson of Philadelphia decided to organize the event when his daughters lamented over not being able to participate in the long-standing contest. He, Phillip Savage, and others, came together to make a space for the Black beauty ideal on the American stage. They didn’t directly oppose Miss America and its whiteness. Rather, much like Thurgood Marshall in his Supreme Court hearings last year, they circumvented the argument altogether.


I can’t help but think that male involvement in the Miss Black America Pageant was critical to its warm reception, especially since men were barred from participating in the protests down the street. (New York Radical Women even forbade male journalists from interviewing participants.)

The strategic differences between the two events couldn’t have been more stark, nor the message more similar. While the Miss America Pageant protests on the boardwalk were meant to cast derision on men’s control of women’s bodies, the Miss Black America Pageant aimed to take ownership of Black beauty. Both events were after the same goals: to give women a voice in their own image, the power to decide what makes them feel powerful, and the platform to enact change for their communities. 


Miss Saundra Williams, crowned the first Miss Black America, gave a monologue entitled “I Am Black,” performed an African dance, and wore her hair in a natural halo of curls. Miss Williams took ownership of her roots before, during, and after her coronation. Rather than the event pressuring its contestants into following the more marketable approach of the longstanding Miss America Pageant, the organizers and contestants took it as an opportunity to speak directly to their own demographic and define beauty on their own terms.

Whether it's suffrage, the right to divorce, or the profit of our bodies, women have been fighting the same battles head on for centuries with abysmal results. Truly, if we’re fighting the same stigmas in the next century, it will come at no surprise.

Maybe the Miss Black America pageant has the right idea. We learned in looking at fashions of the Civil Rights Movement (of which many of its leaders were involved in this pageant) that the old saying holds true: it’s easier to catch flies with honey. I don’t believe that Miss Black America capitulates to the structure of how white America judges beauty, but rather makes room, and in doing so, diminishes the power of the mainstream.

While New York Radical Women and other women's liberation movements battle the mainstream head on, efforts such as the invention of Miss Black America flank our culture. In a trench war so long and grueling, I have no doubt that these mainstream ideals will sadly stand the test of time…

But they'll also be fighting for oxygen with every new space we create.


Saundra Williams speaking at the 369th Regiment Armory in Harlem New York, 1968.




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[June 24, 1968] Martin Luther King Jr. and the Fashion of Neighborly Protest

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by Gwyn Conaway

The tragic assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in April left America reeling. Images of his final march through the streets of Memphis have been presented everywhere, his apparition and his voice still echoing through American society now, and surely for generations to come.

This, of course, includes his movement’s fashion.


King upon his arrival in Memphis in March of 1968.

When you see photographs of King standing behind a microphone, or especially linked arm-in-arm with his collaborators, you might see nothing special. Three-buttoned suits in grey, black, brown, and navy. Pressed white dress shirts dressed with narrow silk ties and tie pins. Freshly brushed fedoras and homburgs. To many of us, this fashion is commonplace in America. This is the uniform of company men and Hollywood.

Which is exactly the point.


King flanked by Reverend Ralph Abernathy (right) and Bishop Juian Smith (left) in his last march in Memphis in March.

Let me interrupt myself here to say, if you haven’t perused my recent critique of Vogue and its use of women as decor for an escape from the instability of Western life, I humbly urge you to read it as a prelude to the topic of neighborly resistance I will introduce now. For in all things, fashion and beauty have purpose. In the case of Vogue in my last article, propriety is used as a tool to control the expectations of women, while here, we will see propriety used as a tool of protest.

In resistance fashion, there are two prevailing trends that exacerbate the divisions of society and define the identities and ideals of those pursuing a better world: one of negotiation, and one of force. Force is easy to recognize, often taking on militaristic elements of dress, such as the Black Panthers with their berets and leather jackets, or constructing a mystique of terror, such as the Ku Klux Klan with their pointed hoods. Negotiation, however, is difficult to separate from polite society. The message is, “I am your wife, your friend, your colleague. I am just like you.”

This approach makes the militaristic response to King’s peaceful protests all the more jarring. Black men and women dressed for church, walking the streets peacefully are met with primarily white servicemen and police officers with rifles, helmets, and combat boots. Rather than a potentially dangerous movement, cameras capture the dignity of Black America as it meets a terrified government at the end of a rifle barrel.


Black men and allies protest peacefully in Memphis this April in clean-cut suits, dress shoes, and ties as if attending a job interview for equal rights while the National Guard's response appears alarmist with guns raised and tanks rolling down the streets.

This isn’t the only time in history that we’ve seen this subtle but effective tactic in the pursuit of change. The suffrage movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also faced threat of violence and harsh criticism. Women across the Western world were caricatured by cartoonists, politicians, and journalists as brutish and ugly for their pursuit of the right to vote. Perhaps most insidious of the stereotypes was the thought that they were uncaring and selfish mothers, unfit to raise children. Suffragists fought back against these insulting depictions through hunger strikes, riots, diplomacy, literature… and by how they dressed. By the turn of the century, the movement realized they had a public relations problem.

Thus began the image of the beautiful, patriotic, charismatic “suffragette,” a term that had previously been used to belittle the movement.


A postcard entitled "Sermon of Stones!" in which a suffragist from the turn of the century is depicted as mannish, violent, and improper.


Walt Disney's 1964 production of Mary Poppins depicts suffragettes in the late 1910s, at which point they won the battle for voting rights in America (1920) and the United Kingdom (1918). The song "Sister Suffragette" was performed by Glynis Johns as Winifred Banks, Hermione Baddeley, and Reta Shaw.

Though critics of King’s tactics within the Black community claim he’s accepting standards of white American culture rather than lifting up their own, the truth is more complex. Our identities are literally worn on our sleeves, and while the Black Panther Party may be the most recognizable civil rights group, the image of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is just as powerful. Whether bombastic and rebellious or gentle and assimilated, fashion proves to be a powerful tool for identity, politics, and change.

I look forward to meeting my new neighbors, sooner rather than later.




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[March 24, 1968] A Frivolous Escape into Fashion

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by Gwyn Conaway

Recently I found myself reading Vogue, as I often do in the spring, to surmise the direction of fashion for the coming year. March’s issues did not disappoint in providing a vibrant view of the year to come in mainstream fashion. I speak primarily of its frivolity and lack of connection to the state of the world.


Mr. Dino brings in the summer with a "brisk ambassa-dress", a play on the word "ambassador", decorated in stately medals and ribbons of honor to invoke patriotic hopefulness in womenswear, Vogue, March 1968.

It’s apparent to me that womenswear this spring has a singular purpose in creating an escape from the tensions of politics and war. Vogue explores this through romanticizing the ancient empires of the Mediterranean – a common escape during times of uncertainty – and crewing the ship of our adventures.

Perhaps you've read that sentence twice, so let me set the scene for you and expand upon my findings. Many fashions this spring follow one of two roads. Firstly, a romanticization of the past through modern resort prints and silk taffeta skirts. Secondly, a sleek uniform style inspired by the Mod movement, but specifically naval in aesthetic that lends itself to our obsession with the classics. Combined, these two modes of fashion suggest that women this year are both the vehicles of escapism and the destination.

Above is a beautiful example of romanticization of the past with details in both mens and womenswear indicating details of Napoleon's army. He invaded several regions, including Egypt, one of the three classical empires in Western philosophy. Note the beaded cuff in a chevron to mimic that of an admiral, the jeweled buttons, and silver damask waistcoat, all of which mimic court dress of the French Empire in the early nineteenth century.

By comparison, the Mod and Space Age movements have evolved into a nautical theme this year with navy and white being the dominant color palette. Note the mantle in worsted crepe with Brandenburg braiding, the wide white belt with a rectangular buckle that mimics formal naval uniforms, and a pervasive use of white gloves all across womenswear, also indicative of formal military etiquette. The Contessa outfit to the right jaunts the hat to the side and sports chevron-detailed pockets indicative of infantry troops. Please also take a glance at the pillars at her back, which happen to be Egyptian in origin.


Another fascinating interpretation of our frivolous escapism this season is Estee Lauder's advertisement of crème makeup (left), in which the ensemble is made of chiffon and lost amongst the wallpaper, and Valentino (right). His ensemble here is quite a curious combination of a silk organza blouse with a sailor's collar paired with silverleaf shorts derived from statues of Greek archers and pottery.


Advertisements for The Wet Set by Hanes and Berkshire's Miracle Fibers. Both of these advertisements were accompanied by cosmetics that prided themselves on softness and transparency.

Much to my surprise, every page in this spring’s issues is dedicated to the delicacy and girlishness of women rather than our evolving brand of sharp intellectualism and keen pursuits. Even our undergarments have taken on the look of water, iridescent like velvet, advertised to invoke the sea. These liquid nylons are soft and transparent, two traits many of the fashions this spring strive for in their customers. Bold strokes in Vogue have been abandoned in opposition to the youth movements that so loudly defy long-held traditions and establishments of power. As a result of this feud, I find us returning to a dichotomy as old as time: the bold, intellectual woman and the more favorable docile lady.


There was no advertisement more en pointe than Van Raalte, which says of its sleepwear, "Beneath an air of independence: little girl sleepers."

Though the styles presented upon the main stage of fashion across Europe and New York are modern, beautiful, and tailored to perfection, I wonder… Is this how women view themselves in our age? I’m inclined to disagree with the ancient gods of couture this year, and I suspect that young women in particular resent being depicted as new mothers and home decor. I’m curious to see how women use their voices in the coming months, and to what end. How will they be viewed? How will we judge them? My expectation is that if major fashion publications continue this trend, there will be a stark divide amongst women, just as there was during the Suffrage Movement at the turn of the century. While soft-spoken, mannerly women will be seen as beautiful and proper, those holding picket signs will be viewed as ugly and brash.

The homefront war is just beginning…

[Want to discuss the evolving culture of 1968? Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge!]




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[December 12, 1967] The Che-Type Cometh

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by Gwyn Conaway

Less than two months ago, Argentinian-born Marxist revolutionary, Che Guevara, was captured and executed in Bolivia for his role in leading a revolutionary guerilla force to challenge the current US-backed regime.


Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, Havana Cuba, 1959. Guevara studied to be a medical doctor, and turned to radical left activism because of the poverty and disease he witnessed.

Recently, post-mortem photographs of Guevara became available to the public. His body was put on display in a brick-and-mortar laundry room in the countryside village of Vallegrande, lying peacefully upon a concrete slab with a content expression and a single bullet wound through his left side. 

If Che Guevara’s philosophies on governance and criticism of American capitalism haven’t seeped into the public consciousness themselves, the image of the man certainly has. The details of the end of his life have already taken on religious undertones. Guevara was once a revolutionary, but in death, he has become a Christ-like figure.


The press and local people were invited to view Che Guevara's body to confirm his capture and death to the public. More than two hundred people came to see him, and locals were observed clipping his hair to keep as tokens of worship.

You must be asking yourself, dear reader, why a fashion columnist would be so intrigued by this turn of events as to write about it in her quarterly offering. Fashion and politics hold hands like lovers do, lacing their fingers together in the timeless game of tug-of-war known as counterculture. I cannot say this with enough emphasis: self-expression is a dangerous game.

There is no better lens with which to examine this intimate relationship between fashion and politics than hindsight, so let’s first look at the zoot suit of the 1930s. Designed and worn by Black and Hispanic young men, the zoot suit was a symbol of these communities finding their own voice in America. Like many Black art movements of the time, such as jazz (anti-music) and swing (anti-dance), the zoot suit sought to defy the standard of beauty defined by European tradition.


Malcolm X chose to wear the suit at the age of fifteen to assume an identity counter to the American mainstream.


Mexican American boys in detained in Los Angeles during the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, in which more than 500 men and boys of Mexican, Black, and Filipino descent were arrested. The press applauded servicemen who took to the streets, beating the local community with clubs for wearing the countercultural fashion.

This fashion was also a form of political protest, defying the World War II draft and the nationalism that came with the total war effort. While the rest of America was committed to a patriotic fashion uniform, these men chose to stand out. Among them was Malcolm X, who chose to wear the suit in his teen years. It was also worn by Hispanic boys in San Diego and Los Angeles as a point of cultural pride. Servicemen from the nearby base took to buses and invaded local Hispanic communities, stripping men of their zoot suits and burning them in the streets. More than a thousand people participated in the five-day Zoot Suit Riots.

Che Guevara has been an icon of the radical left since the late 1950s, and his image already inspires countercultural and anti-capitalist movements in the United States and Latin America. Groups such as the Black Panther Party and the Hippie Movement have taken inspiration from his efforts. With his martyrdom, I’ve seen a rise in fashions that resemble his iconic army fatigues and red-star beret.


Huey P. Newton wears his iconic black leather blazer and beret, fashioned after Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, photographed in 1967.

Huey P. Newton is a prime example of this political phenomenon. The co-founder of the Black Panther Party has recently begun wearing berets himself. Tilted to the side to expose his afro, Newton pairs the cap with a plain black leather blazer and an unstarched, open-collared cotton shirt. His look militarizes the white-collar suit-and-tie, making it a symbol of resistance against institutional racism in the United States. He also uses the dressed down collar and beret to align himself with Marxist revolutionaries interested in a utopian future for laborers and people of color.


Vietnam veterans stand up in peaceful demonstration for the first time, siding with protestors and students opposed to the Vietnam War. This protest led to the founding of Vietnam Veterans Against War.

But it’s not just radical leftist groups that are donning the Che-Type, as it’s being called. Vietnam war veterans recently held a peace demonstration in which they sported the look, and the burning of draft cards on the Boston Common saw the same. This suggests, just as my previous article on military fashion, that the modern infantry uniform has become a civilian symbol of protest against US foreign policy and war abroad.

It bears repeating: self-expression is dangerous. The Che-Type is a direct challenge to American capitalism as an identity, not just a picket sign. While the revolutionary left is taking the moral high ground on affairs of state through their artistic expression, this pushes politics to do the same, making the argument no longer about policy but about identity and righteousness. The red-star beret, the infantry uniform, and the zoot suit all have this in common, and all signal a time of tension and division.

I suspect Guevara will live on as a symbol of the counterculture. Like Che the man, Che the symbol will be a sign that things are about change in a big way.




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[September 20th, 1967] Twiggy: Face of the 60s

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by Gwyn Conaway

Back in March of this year, a peculiar teenage girl by the name of Lesley Hornby stepped off the tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and, predictably, changed the world.


Miss Hornby was “discovered” by Deirdre McSharry by chance and coined her “The Face of ‘66.” She’s since then been on the cover of US Vogue three times in a single year.

At seventeen years old, Twiggy, as she’s more commonly known, has captured the lenses of every camera and magazine in the world. And while many critics claim that she’s taken fashion by storm, I have been awaiting her arrival for some time.

Despite my foresight, I’m no soothsayer! No, I’m simply a fashion historian watching the pendulum of humanity swing ever closer to its amplitude of enlightenment. It’s a dance as old as civilization, and I’ll happily reveal the steps.


Twiggy for Vogue, Summer 1967.

Twiggy is known mainly for her adolescent figure: a straight waist, lanky limbs, big lash-lined eyes, and diminutive chest. These youthful traits are the ideals of revolutionary beauty, and crop up during the political changing of the tides in which the next generation wants to wash away the structures of the past. When these sorts of proportions become mainstream, they signal upheaval that challenges tradition and demands social revolution.


What better indication do we have than the Long Hot Summer of 1967, in which we’ve already experienced over one hundred fifty race riots alone? Pictured here is tension leading to bloodiest challenge to the status quo so far, the 12th Street Riot in Detroit from July 23-28.

Eras such as ours set aside the domestic feminine figure with child-bearing hips and gentle curves in favor of androgyny for the express purpose of rebelling against standards young people no longer have faith in. Anti-beauty, as it were, pushes society to view women as more than the dichotomy of the Gibson Girl they’re often prescribed (combining two female archetypes: the voluptuous woman and the fragile lady rolled into one woman).


Thérésa Tallien was known for cutting her hair in celebration of Marie Antoinette's execution and foregoing undergarments and sleeves. She also wore cothurnus, or Greek sandals.


Louise Brooks is credited with introducing the sleek bob worn by so many Flappers in anti-prohibition America and also celebrated her sexual power in a modern world.

Twiggy joins the ranks of women such as Thérésa Tallien of the French Revolution and Louise Brooks of 1920s Hollywood fame. Not only do these revolutionary beauties reflect the daring spirit of their times, but also the search for truth. As miniskirts and monokinis find popularity, I’m reminded of the Neoclassical era, in which revolutionary women hung up their stockings and went bare-legged in thin muslin gowns to reflect the bareness of truth through nudity. And as drugs such as LSD gain influence in art, I have deja vu of the Dadaists, who sought to unravel reality after The War to End All Wars.

From my high vantage point, the arrival of Twiggy has been expected for quite some time. In fact, it would be more surprising if Miss Hornby hadn’t risen as the star of the 1960s. Now that she’s taken up the mantle of revolution, I suggest we all prepare for cultural turbulence. The voice of the generation has spoken.




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[June 18, 1967] Sgt. Pepper's Anti-War Military Rock Uniform

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by Gwyn Conaway


Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on May 27th, 1967 and has kicked off the album art era as well as bolstering the influence of psychedelic and progressive rock. This album is the flag ship of the Summer of Love.

The Beatles’ eighth album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, was released two and a half weeks ago, and it continues to top the North American and European charts with no end in sight! The album is a fascinating journey from beginning to end, with a story woven into every aspect of the experience. This includes, of course, the costumes.

The album’s cover will live on in notoriety for decades, I’m sure. It’s colorful, optimistic, and draws from a rich history of live performance and influential figures. More than that, though, it’s a call to arms. Paul McCartney was inspired by Edwardian military bands for the title track, a concept which bled into the rest of the production, and when a theme such as this permeates an entire collection organically, it often suggests that the creators hit on a message of timely significance. With the Summer of Love upon us, The Beatles are setting themselves up as battlefield drummers leading an era of peace and optimism against modern warfare and exploitative economics.

A bold assumption on my part, I know. Let me convince you of my point of view.


The Beatles in their Sgt. Pepper uniforms, designed by May Routh.

On the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the four band members are wearing neon color officers’ uniforms inspired by the military bands of WWI and standing behind an upright marching drum. These imaginative costumes were designed by May Routh as a celebration and a challenge. The celebration is the color palette, a symbol of mind-altering psychedelic drugs, and the materials, all shine and showmanship. The challenge, by comparison, is the blatant lack of attention to ranks and insignias. All four band members wear symbols of rank and power, but not in any way that pays homage to actual militaristic order. This is a conscious choice meant to commandeer the power and authority of wartime for a counter-culture defined by its vehement opposition to war.

At first, I thought this could be a direct mockery of the military, but then I considered that drum again, standing upright with the band turned in towards it. For over four thousand years, from China to the Americas, drums have been used on the battlefield as a way to keep in step, to make advances on the field, and to work in sync regardless of visibility. As recently as WWI, soldiers would time the reloading of their weapons to the beat of a drum. These brave drummers were often the first target of the opposing army. In the modern media, this analogy holds true: the monoliths of youth culture simultaneously lead the charge with the beat of their music and are subject to intense media scrutiny.

It's not a huge leap to see that The Beatles are calling on the world to embrace this new age, to fight back against injustice, war, and prejudice. Whether they’d planned to from the beginning, their message has become: Reload your hearts to the beat of our drum. The irony of using a militant image to convey an anti-war message has made their point of view far sharper, and is inspiring others to wield their visibility and influence – their drums, if you will – to the same end.


On the left, see a hussar in uniform astride his horse. The garment pictured center is a hussar's pelisse of the late 19th century, customarily worn over one shoulder as a mantle rather than a jacket. Note that Hendrix wears his pelisse as an open jacket and bare-chested.

Jimi Hendrix has also adorned himself in militaristic garments after his own experiences as a soldier. Hendrix has chosen the image of a royal hussar. These cavalry officers were prized for their unparalleled effectiveness on the battlefield for much of the past millennium, but disbanded after WWI in which they faced insurmountable odds. Regardless of being obsolete in the face of weapons of mass destruction, the hussars continue to be a symbol of militaristic supremacy and sophistication. By wearing an officer’s pelisse open over a bare chest, Hendrix supplants the power of the hussar and assumes their authority in defining himself as a sex symbol, an effortless master on the guitar, and icon of the Summer of Love. He challenges the role of The Beatles as the generals of the New Age while leading his own troops onto the battlefield of cultural change.


Left, a drummer boy of the 1st Scots Guard. Flaunting the same rules of rigmarole as The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger is wearing the uniform as if it's a casual garment.

The boldest (or perhaps the most blunt) symbol of the anti-war, peace-loving army, is Mick Jagger, who is also this year wearing the uniform coat of a drummer boy of the 1st Scots Guard. Let’s remember the call to arms in the drum of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. Their choices of fashion and costume aren’t coincidental. These rock stars are gathering their army to affect change in society.

They also reach beyond the military, looking to symbols of wealth and sex, redefining upperclass fantasies as symbols of equality and empathy. They dress in frock coats and cravats rather than suits and ties. The Hippie Movement even denies the use of modern notions, such as snaps and zippers, in favor of simple cords or buttons.


Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Shepherdess, ca. 1750/52. This is a pastorale genre painting of the French court which glorifies the countryside life without acknowledging their struggles. The genre of painting is now a symbol of how tone-deaf the French courts had become to their people's strife.


Marie Antoinette's le Petit Hameau on the grounds of Versailles.

As a historian, I see a direct correlation between these choices and the pastorals of Rococo France in the 18th century (back when buttons were fairly modern technology). Before the French Revolution, the nobility romanticized a countryside, working class life, glorifying shepherdesses and minstrels, farmers and hunters. Marie Antoinette’s le Petit Hameau is the perfect example: an extremely expensive designer cottage based on rural French homes, in which she held exclusive soirees and fed impeccably groomed farm animals as an escape from the pressures of the royal court. Fashion and portraits played a big role in this blind fantasy of the nobility as well.


Jimi Hendrix often wears stripes, frothy necklines, cravats, and even a carmagnole jacket. The carmagnole was a symbol of the French Revolution. Striped pantaloons and a loose cravat were also symbols of the Sans Culottes (or anti-nobility) movement of the late 18th century. Interestingly, this type of cravat was popular in France because of the Battle of Steenkerque, in which French troops were taken by surprise and had no time to tie their cravats properly. The French won the battle, making a disheveled cravat immensely popular thereafter.


Left, Jimi Hendrix in a carmagnole, stripes, and frothy neckline. Right, Mick Jagger and John Lennon bedecked in frock coats inspired by the habit à la française, menswear of the French courts in the 18th century.

How does that relate to the music scene of the Summer of Love? It’s no different than using militaristic imagery to disseminate an anti-war message and ridicule the institution. These musicians that speak directly to the youth movement are pulling down images of traditional wealth, power, and escapism to the level of working class people. The intent is to break down the barriers of social propriety and offer an alternative to the machine of tradition. They fully believe that their message of equality and empathy is more powerful than money or gender or race or religion. They are anti-wealth, and so equalize the symbols of wealth. They are anti-corporate, and so dishevel men's suits and grow their hair long. They are anti-division, and so adopt softer fabrics, lace, and makeup to challenge the definition of masculinity and femininity.

Mark my words, a cultural revolution is underway, and the generals at the forefront of the war know how to use the establishment’s symbols against them. Extremely narrow and rigid views on issues such as gender, race, and national identity are going to be challenged in the years to come. What an exciting and volatile time! Now excuse me while I flip my album over.




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