‘Describe popular culture in Britain at the beginning of the 1960s’
Popular culture describes how many people appreciate styles and interests of that current day. Features such as music, colours and entertainment are commonly liked by ordinary people. Britain in the 1950’s was still gloomy; people were still getting over the devastation of World War Two as they had lost their loved ones. Rationing had ended in 1954-1955 and they were still recovering from the economic hardship. But as the result of couples putting off children until after the war, there was a baby boom in 1945 - 1947. In the time of the 1960’s, consequently there were many teenagers. They came into their own and energised popular culture.
People finally had money to spend, especially the teenagers (£8.00 a week). This was the result of increasing employment and income tax decreasing from 47p in 1950 to 38p in 1959. This change let sales increase and advertising took off. Teenagers spent their money on new fashions, different to their parents. Magazines they bought encouraged these fashions and television enabled them to follow the style.
In the 1950’s and early 1960’s, teenagers would follow their parent’s styles. Girls wore full calf-length skirts with petticoats (swing skirts), hairstyles were tidy and well-groomed. They often wore corsets or girdles perfect their figures. Boys wore suits, scraped back hair and suede shoes, overall fashion was rigid. At the beginning of the sixties, fashion designer Mary Quant changed this as she made clothes which allowed women to be free and have fun. However, Chelsea dominated these changing styles and also popular culture.
Regional accents were unheard of before the sixties, the radio and the television had the voice of an educated, wealthy individual. TV was educational, cooking, gardening and toddlers bedtime hour was more or less what was on. A few programmes such as ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘Wagon Train’ were occasional. American