1960's Fashion Trends
"I defy anyone to design a hat, coat or dress that hasn't been done before...The only new frontier left in fashion is the finding of new materials" - Paco Rabanne 1966.
The 1960’s was a decade of great change, inviting new ideas and fashion trends which still have a noticeable influence today. The beginning of the era showed fashion aimed at a wealthy mature audience, quality of material was important and mainly natural fabrics were used, and trends were largely dictated by high profile designers, and the price often reflected the work gone into producing these. However throughout the 1960’s style influence evolved and began to be lead by the domination of youth culture. This steered designers to be more daring and liberal, stepping out with …show more content…
bold, more eccentric designs. Shorter hem lines, bright geometric shapes and new man made materials. Boundaries were beginning to be broken, distinct separations between male and female clothing, casual and formal were becoming more blurred. Conventional fabrics began to be used in new and creative ways, but a courageous few turned to outrageous fabrications and began using paper, plastic, vinyl and metals for ready to wear fashion.
INSPIRATION (THE CONCEPT – SOURCES / REFERENCES)
The American paper dress was a short lived, yet iconic and innovative fashion garment of the 1960s.
The wave began in 1966 when first mass- produced by Scott Paper Company as a marketing stunt, offering a coupon for a paper dress as a gimmick to sell their newly introduced disposable plates and napkins. However, the novelty fashion items captivated young, trendy ‘Mods’ across America, throw away clothing evoked a futuristic world of convenience and fast changing fashion.
One of the main unique selling points of these dresses were the fact they were disposable. This came at a time when society was adopting a ‘throw away’ attitude, disposable cutlery, cigarette lighters.. it almost seemed the next natural step, disposable clothing. The dresses were not made to be practical, they were spontaneous fun pieces, with eye catching patterns and prints. They were affordable for the mass market and allowed creativity to the wearer with easy customisation in terms of length and colour. The paper dresses addressed a more rebellious era, tapping into sex appeal, being able to be cut as short as one dared, flimsy appearance and the connotations of paper being ripped and unwrapped, portraying shifts in cultural and social life. Writer Jonathan Walford stated in his book, ‘Sixties Fashion From 'Less is More' to Youthquake': “In the self-consciously modern mid-1960s, the quest for a space-age future had created a progress-minded society ready …show more content…
to embrace the ephemeral quality of disposable paper apparel.” (Walford, 2013: 110)
Image 2. Paper Caper Dress (1966)
Paco Rabanne is a fashion designer known for his totally contrasting use of materials, starting out as an architect, he took a step back from the traditional cut and sew method. His architectural training gave him an appetite for contemporary technical innovations. He understood how to evaluate volume, understand space and work with a wide range materials.
William Zinsser explains in an article titled Who wants maxi in a mini age? for Life Magazine “Overnight, fashion has turned from a humourless cult, ruled by a few fashion priests, into a game that anybody can play, any way they want to play it.” (Zinsser 1968: 17). Disposable clothing offered a freedom and fun to women which was exciting and new, breaking away from convention and highlighting the liberation of social culture of the time.
REALISATION (THE MAKE – MATERIALS / TECHNIQUES)
The original Scott Paper dresses were made up of a little more than just paper; they were often built of 93% cellulose and 7% nylon (like dry baby wipes), or occasionally made of "Dura-Weve," which was cellulose strengthened with rayon. The material was more certainly more fragile than cloth, but it was unlikely to rip with the smallest movement and some could even be washed several times. Paper dresses were sometimes fastened with Velcro, making them seem even more “space-age”. The dresses were also dipped in fire resistant compounds for safety - although I doubt you would still want to get close to an open flame.
With the 1960s an era for increased foreign travel, the lightweight garments were convenient for compact packing. Packaged lightly and neatly, they were ideal garments to wear on the beach and warm locations, as a throw over or as an interchangeable outfit. Every dress came with a slip of paper that explained how the garment should be cared for and optionally altered:
“To shorten the paper dress, all that is needed is a steady hand and a pair of scissors. To mend it, sticky tape is dandy.. While you should not count on more than one wearing, depending on use many have been able to get three or four wearings from a Paper Caper dress. You can also cut up the dress for using as disposable guest towels, placemats or an apron.. It will never displace that little black dress as a wardrobe staple, but as a conversation piece, as an attention attraction, the Paper Caper is unique”. (Walford, 2007: 14)
In 1968, a new enthusiasm for posters as a quick, cheap, and temporary way to decorate a domestic interior lead American graphic artist Harry Gordon to design novelty mod-pop ‘Poster Dresses’ in a series of 5 different designs. Produced in London, the paper shift dresses included the 'Mystic Eye', 'Giant Rocket', 'Rose', 'Pussy Cat' and ‘Hand’. All five designs came in one package, so a dress could be chosen based on ones mood. The dresses were made with a blend of 75% rayon and 25% nylon. The manufacturer, Poster Dresses Ltd, stated “Toughness is woven into the non-woven fabric for long, l-o-n-g wear, an should you tire (which is doubtful), just cut open all the seams and hang it on your wall as a poster, or cover pillows.” The idea that the garments were also multi purpose, perhaps encouraged more unconvinced consumers, to make an investment. The designs were screen printed onto tissue, wood pulp and rayon mesh and packaged in polythene and card.
The beauty of this material is that it was available to a wide variety of people. Paper dresses could be picked up in drug and grocery stores, as well as department stores and boutiques. The material is inexpensive so designs were made for every budget. The disposability of the garments and their sought after purchase implied modernity and leisure. The dresses offered speed and convenience, little clothing care and often retailed less than the cost of laundering or dry cleaning cloth garments.
Image 3. Harry Gordon Poster Dresses (1968)
PROMOTION (THE SELL – AUDIENCE / MAKER)
Scott and Kimberly Stevens, owners of the Scott Paper Company, both saw the potential paper clothing for industrial and institutional purposes, but were unsure how to market the material to the mass market.
They did not want to over exaggerate its qualities and underrate its possibilities. In 1965, engineer Robert Bayer, working with Scott Paper asked his wife to design a simple A-Line dress, as he felt there was commercial potential in paper fashion. Constructed from nonwoven cellulose tissue reinforced with rayon or nylon, the dress created little interest, so the item was just made as a promotional garment as a sponsor for Junior Miss Pageant in 1966. However, this caught the attention of the mass market and the dress was launched in April across Canada and America for $1.25 with two designs (a black
and
Image 4. Scott Paper Company Advertisement (1966) white Op Art motif and a red bandanna pattern) and was ordered using a coupon through the mail - sold under the title the ‘Paper Caper’.
In 1966, Seventeen Magazine promoted the paper dress, a one wear A line dress selling for $1.25. Half a million were sold by the end of the year but the inexpensive price of the garments left for a very small profit margin. The Scott Paper Company cut the advertising for the garments claiming they did not want to become dress manufacturers.
As the trend took off, other companies began to experiment with style and fabric, adding other materials to the paper to make a sturdier garment that could even be washed. Mars Manufacturing Company invented a wide range of paper dresses, from a basic A-line style, to a paper evening dress, to a full paper wedding gown, all for under $20. Other companies followed behind, inventing such things as paper slippers, paper bell-bottom suits and waterproofed paper raincoats and bikinis.
The designs and images used on the paper dresses were taken from visual stimulants of the time, contributing to their popularity. The dresses themselves were often used as a platform for promotion, and as a ‘walking billboard’. The Times magazine showcased adverts on paper dresses and iconic pop artist Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup can was printed as a paper dress design. Political campaigning in 1968 took advantage of the paper dress craze, and prints supported Richard Nixon, George W. Romney and Robert F. Kennedy, as part of the election propaganda.
Image 5. Robert Kenndey (1968)
With the aim to bring a serious respectability to the fad, Look Magazine commissioned photographer Horst P. Horst to shoot a series of paper dresses by leading designers, including a gold foiled evening gown by Fabiani, black and white print culottes by Pucci, a wedding dress by Belville, and a short white dress by Dior. The images were published in the March 1967 issue of Look magazine. Although there were big names behind the designs, the fashions themselves were not particularly imaginative and was not very effective for the intended purpose of promoting the material.
The trend wore out at the end of the 1960’s as recycling entered popular culture, safety concerns increased, and the general stiffness of the fabric and non form fitting silhouette became less appealing. Although intended for only one wear, women found disappointment in uncovering this to be true and the material would bind and billowed when the wearer sat. The coupon offers in magazines for paper dresses dwindled and articles on the subject slowly disappeared throughout 1968. By 1969, the hippie movement began to change the public perceptions of a disposable society. With the back-to-nature awareness and growing anti-pollution message, what had been seen associated with futurism was now seen as wasteful. However as recognised and initially developed for, a lasting business for disposable apparel in industrial and institutional applications did remain.
Today, a similar attitude largely remains, the push on reusing and recycling is very apparent, the facilities available and the range of materials which can be recycled are more developed than ever before. However people tend to associate recycling and reusing with food packaging, paper and often forget that textiles can be recycled too. To a degree fashion is still very disposable, with constant change of seasons of fashion coming and going and instant gratification at the forefront of our society, consumers want the cheapest price. High street stores such as Primark, H & M and Topshop are all leading the way in offering this, meaning ever-rising quantities of discarded clothing being sent to landfill sites. Over the past 20 years there has been a decline in repairing garments, it has often become easier to cough up and buy new than to get a needle out and repair old. In an article entitled The Rise of Disposable Fashion, for the website Inside Retail, it states “In fact, it was recently reported by Britain’s Environment Select Committee that the weight of textile waste has jumped from seven per cent to 30 per cent in just five years, which means disposable fashion is no longer an industry term – it is actually very real”. (Walker, 2014). One way to start to overcome this still very apparent issue is reviving needle power and encouraging consumers to invest in quality garments which should see them through. An incentive for this is the recession. Disposable fashion is not sustainable. Hopefully in the future, more brands will recognise the long-term commercial opportunities to be had and produce garments that are made to be mended, not made for obsolescence.
The 1960’s was a decade of great change, inviting new ideas and fashion trends which still have a noticeable influence today. The beginning of the era showed fashion aimed at a wealthy mature audience, quality of material was important and mainly natural fabrics were used, and trends were largely dictated by high profile designers, and the price often reflected the work gone into producing these. However throughout the 1960’s style influence evolved and began to be lead by the domination of youth culture. This steered designers to be more daring and liberal, stepping out with …show more content…
bold, more eccentric designs. Shorter hem lines, bright geometric shapes and new man made materials. Boundaries were beginning to be broken, distinct separations between male and female clothing, casual and formal were becoming more blurred. Conventional fabrics began to be used in new and creative ways, but a courageous few turned to outrageous fabrications and began using paper, plastic, vinyl and metals for ready to wear fashion.
INSPIRATION (THE CONCEPT – SOURCES / REFERENCES)
The American paper dress was a short lived, yet iconic and innovative fashion garment of the 1960s.
The wave began in 1966 when first mass- produced by Scott Paper Company as a marketing stunt, offering a coupon for a paper dress as a gimmick to sell their newly introduced disposable plates and napkins. However, the novelty fashion items captivated young, trendy ‘Mods’ across America, throw away clothing evoked a futuristic world of convenience and fast changing fashion.
One of the main unique selling points of these dresses were the fact they were disposable. This came at a time when society was adopting a ‘throw away’ attitude, disposable cutlery, cigarette lighters.. it almost seemed the next natural step, disposable clothing. The dresses were not made to be practical, they were spontaneous fun pieces, with eye catching patterns and prints. They were affordable for the mass market and allowed creativity to the wearer with easy customisation in terms of length and colour. The paper dresses addressed a more rebellious era, tapping into sex appeal, being able to be cut as short as one dared, flimsy appearance and the connotations of paper being ripped and unwrapped, portraying shifts in cultural and social life. Writer Jonathan Walford stated in his book, ‘Sixties Fashion From 'Less is More' to Youthquake': “In the self-consciously modern mid-1960s, the quest for a space-age future had created a progress-minded society ready …show more content…
to embrace the ephemeral quality of disposable paper apparel.” (Walford, 2013: 110)
Image 2. Paper Caper Dress (1966)
Paco Rabanne is a fashion designer known for his totally contrasting use of materials, starting out as an architect, he took a step back from the traditional cut and sew method. His architectural training gave him an appetite for contemporary technical innovations. He understood how to evaluate volume, understand space and work with a wide range materials.
William Zinsser explains in an article titled Who wants maxi in a mini age? for Life Magazine “Overnight, fashion has turned from a humourless cult, ruled by a few fashion priests, into a game that anybody can play, any way they want to play it.” (Zinsser 1968: 17). Disposable clothing offered a freedom and fun to women which was exciting and new, breaking away from convention and highlighting the liberation of social culture of the time.
REALISATION (THE MAKE – MATERIALS / TECHNIQUES)
The original Scott Paper dresses were made up of a little more than just paper; they were often built of 93% cellulose and 7% nylon (like dry baby wipes), or occasionally made of "Dura-Weve," which was cellulose strengthened with rayon. The material was more certainly more fragile than cloth, but it was unlikely to rip with the smallest movement and some could even be washed several times. Paper dresses were sometimes fastened with Velcro, making them seem even more “space-age”. The dresses were also dipped in fire resistant compounds for safety - although I doubt you would still want to get close to an open flame.
With the 1960s an era for increased foreign travel, the lightweight garments were convenient for compact packing. Packaged lightly and neatly, they were ideal garments to wear on the beach and warm locations, as a throw over or as an interchangeable outfit. Every dress came with a slip of paper that explained how the garment should be cared for and optionally altered:
“To shorten the paper dress, all that is needed is a steady hand and a pair of scissors. To mend it, sticky tape is dandy.. While you should not count on more than one wearing, depending on use many have been able to get three or four wearings from a Paper Caper dress. You can also cut up the dress for using as disposable guest towels, placemats or an apron.. It will never displace that little black dress as a wardrobe staple, but as a conversation piece, as an attention attraction, the Paper Caper is unique”. (Walford, 2007: 14)
In 1968, a new enthusiasm for posters as a quick, cheap, and temporary way to decorate a domestic interior lead American graphic artist Harry Gordon to design novelty mod-pop ‘Poster Dresses’ in a series of 5 different designs. Produced in London, the paper shift dresses included the 'Mystic Eye', 'Giant Rocket', 'Rose', 'Pussy Cat' and ‘Hand’. All five designs came in one package, so a dress could be chosen based on ones mood. The dresses were made with a blend of 75% rayon and 25% nylon. The manufacturer, Poster Dresses Ltd, stated “Toughness is woven into the non-woven fabric for long, l-o-n-g wear, an should you tire (which is doubtful), just cut open all the seams and hang it on your wall as a poster, or cover pillows.” The idea that the garments were also multi purpose, perhaps encouraged more unconvinced consumers, to make an investment. The designs were screen printed onto tissue, wood pulp and rayon mesh and packaged in polythene and card.
The beauty of this material is that it was available to a wide variety of people. Paper dresses could be picked up in drug and grocery stores, as well as department stores and boutiques. The material is inexpensive so designs were made for every budget. The disposability of the garments and their sought after purchase implied modernity and leisure. The dresses offered speed and convenience, little clothing care and often retailed less than the cost of laundering or dry cleaning cloth garments.
Image 3. Harry Gordon Poster Dresses (1968)
PROMOTION (THE SELL – AUDIENCE / MAKER)
Scott and Kimberly Stevens, owners of the Scott Paper Company, both saw the potential paper clothing for industrial and institutional purposes, but were unsure how to market the material to the mass market.
They did not want to over exaggerate its qualities and underrate its possibilities. In 1965, engineer Robert Bayer, working with Scott Paper asked his wife to design a simple A-Line dress, as he felt there was commercial potential in paper fashion. Constructed from nonwoven cellulose tissue reinforced with rayon or nylon, the dress created little interest, so the item was just made as a promotional garment as a sponsor for Junior Miss Pageant in 1966. However, this caught the attention of the mass market and the dress was launched in April across Canada and America for $1.25 with two designs (a black
and
Image 4. Scott Paper Company Advertisement (1966) white Op Art motif and a red bandanna pattern) and was ordered using a coupon through the mail - sold under the title the ‘Paper Caper’.
In 1966, Seventeen Magazine promoted the paper dress, a one wear A line dress selling for $1.25. Half a million were sold by the end of the year but the inexpensive price of the garments left for a very small profit margin. The Scott Paper Company cut the advertising for the garments claiming they did not want to become dress manufacturers.
As the trend took off, other companies began to experiment with style and fabric, adding other materials to the paper to make a sturdier garment that could even be washed. Mars Manufacturing Company invented a wide range of paper dresses, from a basic A-line style, to a paper evening dress, to a full paper wedding gown, all for under $20. Other companies followed behind, inventing such things as paper slippers, paper bell-bottom suits and waterproofed paper raincoats and bikinis.
The designs and images used on the paper dresses were taken from visual stimulants of the time, contributing to their popularity. The dresses themselves were often used as a platform for promotion, and as a ‘walking billboard’. The Times magazine showcased adverts on paper dresses and iconic pop artist Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup can was printed as a paper dress design. Political campaigning in 1968 took advantage of the paper dress craze, and prints supported Richard Nixon, George W. Romney and Robert F. Kennedy, as part of the election propaganda.
Image 5. Robert Kenndey (1968)
With the aim to bring a serious respectability to the fad, Look Magazine commissioned photographer Horst P. Horst to shoot a series of paper dresses by leading designers, including a gold foiled evening gown by Fabiani, black and white print culottes by Pucci, a wedding dress by Belville, and a short white dress by Dior. The images were published in the March 1967 issue of Look magazine. Although there were big names behind the designs, the fashions themselves were not particularly imaginative and was not very effective for the intended purpose of promoting the material.
The trend wore out at the end of the 1960’s as recycling entered popular culture, safety concerns increased, and the general stiffness of the fabric and non form fitting silhouette became less appealing. Although intended for only one wear, women found disappointment in uncovering this to be true and the material would bind and billowed when the wearer sat. The coupon offers in magazines for paper dresses dwindled and articles on the subject slowly disappeared throughout 1968. By 1969, the hippie movement began to change the public perceptions of a disposable society. With the back-to-nature awareness and growing anti-pollution message, what had been seen associated with futurism was now seen as wasteful. However as recognised and initially developed for, a lasting business for disposable apparel in industrial and institutional applications did remain.
Today, a similar attitude largely remains, the push on reusing and recycling is very apparent, the facilities available and the range of materials which can be recycled are more developed than ever before. However people tend to associate recycling and reusing with food packaging, paper and often forget that textiles can be recycled too. To a degree fashion is still very disposable, with constant change of seasons of fashion coming and going and instant gratification at the forefront of our society, consumers want the cheapest price. High street stores such as Primark, H & M and Topshop are all leading the way in offering this, meaning ever-rising quantities of discarded clothing being sent to landfill sites. Over the past 20 years there has been a decline in repairing garments, it has often become easier to cough up and buy new than to get a needle out and repair old. In an article entitled The Rise of Disposable Fashion, for the website Inside Retail, it states “In fact, it was recently reported by Britain’s Environment Select Committee that the weight of textile waste has jumped from seven per cent to 30 per cent in just five years, which means disposable fashion is no longer an industry term – it is actually very real”. (Walker, 2014). One way to start to overcome this still very apparent issue is reviving needle power and encouraging consumers to invest in quality garments which should see them through. An incentive for this is the recession. Disposable fashion is not sustainable. Hopefully in the future, more brands will recognise the long-term commercial opportunities to be had and produce garments that are made to be mended, not made for obsolescence.