The Sixties

This text concentrates on the design and architecture of the 1960s. It traces the transition from the "contemporary" design of the 1950s to the pure geometry of "the look" and the styles that proliferated throughout the momentous events of the decade to the proto-high tech developments of the 1970s. In all fields of design - architecture, ceramics, glass, textiles and furniture - the popular cultural explosion and the consumer boom generated visually stunning and colourful images and fashions. Products of the most prominent designers and manufacturers are shown in contemporary photographs and advertisements from the period. Design in the Sixties represented energy and fun; it was dynamic, cheap and cheerful and it prompted a consumer "youthquake" revolution. Op Art fabrics, plastic chairs, inflatable houses, mini skirts, paper furniture, pop glass and psychedelic posters were part of the design phenomena. When Mary Quant launched "the look" with her range of ready-to-wear fashions in the early Sixties, its style, like the Habitat interior look launched shortly after, was immediately appropriated by the trendy younger generation.
This book also examines the rise of the global design superpowers of the Sixties. While the United States was the undoubted leader in the field of architecture, and the Scandinavian style remained a potent force in the applied arts, Britain, at the centre of the fashion and popular culture explosion, and Italy, adding a whole new dimension to furniture and plastics, were emerging as the two new international design superpowers.