It was Francesca’s red shoes that got the ball rolling. Francesca is an old friend of my friend Perry, and she lives in England. When she emailed Perry a picture of some outrageous red shoes she wore more than fifty years ago that she found in her attic, it set off a chain reaction of remembering what we wore back then. Perry sent the picture to me; I sent the picture to another friend, and soon we were emailing pictures back and forth of a few of our choicest sixties looks.
Biba on Kensington’s Church Street was every girl’s mecca for the latest fashions in swingin’ London back in the 60s and early 70s. That’s where Freddie Mercury (Queen) met Mary Austin who worked there in 1969. Perry had the wonderful good fortune to have lived in London in the sixties and was a regular visitor to the avant garde store. When she couldn’t afford a bohemian-styled lamp she’d been eying, Canadian boyfriend Keith (now husband) bought it for her, which no doubt contributed to why she married him.
I didn’t save any of my sixties fashion follies but I remember when I went to England on my way to Europe (Eurail pass – remember them?) in 1967 and came back in 1968 with psychedelic print mini-dresses, platform shoes, and a new “frosted” Sasoon-style haircut.
I dare say there hasn’t been a generation since boomers who have redrawn the fashion scene as definitively as we did. We raised hemlines to never-before-seen heights, we grew out those perms our mothers gave us and grew our hair long. Gone forever were the Mamie Eisenhower bangs.
We risked broken ankles and other foot ailments with sky-high platforms. We mainstreamed false eyelashes, bought gallons of hairspray and Tame Creme Rinse, invented blusher, and whipped up little Twiggy-like village dresses on our sewing machines with less than two yards of material.
Our photo exchanges reminded me of the time our friend Terry pulled out a green leather miniskirt she wore in the sixties and seventies. It once had a matching jacket and she wore it with tall brown leather boots, a look that horrified her conservative German father whenever she walked out the door. I think she should frame it in a shadow box and hang it on the wall, like a trophy.
Thank you Francesca for sharing your amazing attic find. You launched a storm of boomer memories of Twiggy eye makeup, the beauty of Jean Shrimpton and her perfectly symetrical face, Mary Quant’s radical new take on fashion, colourful platform shoes, psychedelic mini-dresses, and mod hairstyles. How we ever managed to negotiate our way up the subway stairs or bend over to retrieve a file at work in those outfits will remain a mystery.
Sneaker-wearing Gen Zs and Millennials should try walking a mile (to work) in Francesca’s red shoes like we did more than fifty years ago and they would understand what we meant when we sang “These boots were made for walking!”. Real women wore red, orange, blue, green, yellow, and purple shoes. That’s why boomers deserve so much R-E-S-P-E-C-T. And, we have the fallen arches, bunions, hammer toes, and plantar fasciitis to prove it.
The fashion, the music, the movies, and everything about life in the sixties was and remains a special part of history. We lived it and we loved it.
Would you care to share a picture in the comments section below of your fashionable look in the sixties or seventies?
Lynda, Francesca, Perry, Terry
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