| THE SUMMER OF
LOVE MEANS THE HIPPIE IS RISING
 Hear
ye, hear ye….it’s the 40th anniversary
of the summer of love (think Woodstock). The Whitney
Museum of Art launched a spectacular retrospective
of this hippie fueled time and books and movies
are also fanning the flames of hippie nostalgia.
Even the New York Times is sending out
an SOS on the return to 60’s fashion sensibility.
And why not – there’s a war going
on (bring out the peace signs NOW), there’s
a struggle between good and evil - hot and cold.
And Paul McCartney just released a new CD. What
more evidence do you need?
There’s a rock musical set to Beatles music
opening this September (Across the Universe by
Julie Taymor) and there’s talk about a current
fashion revival of flowered dresses, porkpie
hats and Frye boots.
The Times article, Another Summer of Love
calls this haze filled phenomenon “a
latter-day magical mystery tour, revisiting the
hippie aesthetic of their mothers or grandmothers
and giving it a brash new spin. Their pavement-grazing
frocks, bells and feathers, flares and cascading
hair, recall the freedom that once was a hippie
rallying cry to go with the flow.”
“People don’t want to have to think
about what they’re going to wear —
they just want to throw it on,” said Jaye
Hersh, the owner of Intuition, a Los Angeles boutique
that is hard pressed to keep up its inventory
of neo-hippie staples like high-waist flares,
floppy hats and gauzy long dresses
with ethnic motifs.”
Marc Jacobs added patchwork and mixed floral
prints to his spring line and Roberto Cavalli
showed Art Nouveau and butterfly sleeves on his
catwalk for fall. There were also clashing neon
patterns (an ode to psychedelics) on the runways.
Teen Vogue fashion director Gloria Baume put
in her two cents as well: “The summer of
love 2007 is very different from the original.
On lower Broadway, young girls are wearing little
corduroy or patchwork dresses mixed with modern
elements: a piece of crystal, sandals in metallic
or patent leather.”
This is good news for the headwear industry.
The sixties was a time of floppy hats, pork pies
and head-wraps. Young people want what we had
in the 60’s - without the societal restrictions.
Perhaps you should give it to them!
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| ETRO COLOR TRIP |
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| PRADA MEETS
CARNABY STREET |
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