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 The 1960s
Almost everything about the Sixties seems to be an icon. David
Bailey wore a crewneck sweater to marry Catherine Deneuve while Mods
and Rockers spent the Easter holidays hurling deckchairs at each other
on the seafront, and when England won the World
Cup, A cartoon lion
called 'World Cup Willie' was everywhere. Julie Christie starred in
John Schlesinger's Darling and Jane Birkin in Richard Lester's
The Knack, both creating images that defined 'Swinging London'.
The Beatles made the film Help!, played Shea Stadium,
visited Elvis Presley at home and went to Buckingham Palace to receive
their MBE's - not quite all in the same week, but almost. Some
predicted the mini skirt would lead to anarchy - or even worse, to
joy.
The Pill and the miniskirt seemed to promise some kind of utopia,
providing the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
While Bob Dylan said that the answer was Blowing In The Wind, many
women found a better answer in The Pill. Meanwhile, The Rolling
Stones were in and out of police vans for puffing weed and peeing on
walls, the Krays were being remanded and Hindley and Brady were
charged.
Internationally, the big issues were Vietnam and civil rights (both
of which commanded the attention of young people throughout the
western world, touching mass instincts that have no parallel today)
and the 'Space Race'. For a while it seemed the air was full of abuse
and tear gas and paving slabs, the streets were alive with the sound
of shattering glass, every wall was papered with posters of
exhortation, and every poster was splattered with blood. But it wasn't
all violence. The quiet unflinching dignity of the civil rights
marchers in the USA wore down a system that had abused black people
for nearly 200 years.
The youth of the 1960s certainly had plenty of heroes to choose
from - Mary Quant, Twiggy, Che Guevara, Mick Jagger,
Malcolm X,
Muhammad Ali, Bernadette Devlin, Yuri Gagarin . . . DJs, pop stars,
footballers, racing drivers, film stars and those four lads from
Liverpool. And sandwiched between the studied sloppiness of the beat
generation - sandals and shapeless sweaters - and the floaty
self-indulgence of the hippies was the time of the Mods. All targets,
chevrons, bright colors, flags and crisp hard edges. Pop
art, Op art
and Psychedelia.
The 1980s
 What
were the 80s all about? . . . Bueller? . . . Anyone? Well, you are
truly a child of the 80s if any of the following statements are true
for you: You know what leg warmers are; You know who Mr. T is; You
remember when Atari was a state of the art
video game system; You used
to be able to breakdance (or wished you could); The phrases
"bright
light" and "phone home" actually mean something to you; You had a
BMX
bike . . .
The eighties was a decade where young folk wore fluorescent, neon
clothing and business folk wore double-breasted suits with shoulder
pads and believed "Greed Is Good" . . . and when
Prince sang about
partying "like it's 1999" it seemed so far away! Dallas and
Dynasty ruled the airwaves, Transformers were more than
meets the eye, leggings under a short skirt was considered a stylish
look, Michael Jackson was still black and 'by the power of Greyskull
you HAD the power!'
Sophisticated equipment for leisure and pleasure became
increasingly affordable as incredible advances in technology
continued, and the eighties soon also became the decade of gadgets -
From digital watches to cappuccino machines to cellular phones to
computers (Even though a Commodore 64 was the pinnacle of computing
excellence).
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