1967 - The Fashion Pendulum Swings into a Psychedelic Swirl

This blog is part of a series where we look at the styles of the 1960s: A decade of change. As we analyze this transition we can see the 1960s started as a continuation of family values and fashion styles of the 50s. But that changed….

The swinging 60s was - by 1967 - in full swing! The fashion world was, by now, driven by youth culture. Fashion was being shaped on the streets instead of in designers’ studios. That’s not to say that those same studios were quiet. Not by a long stretch. Inspired by the thriving street culture, their fashion salons dreamt psychedelic dreams that inspired millions.

One streetwear fashion trend that was popping up was bell bottom jeans and pants. I love the story of the bell bottom almost as much as I love the jeans themselves. Kids in the mid to late ‘60s would wear old naval attire as a way to create their own style and combine naval attire with street wear. Sailors wore bell bottoms so it was easy to roll them up when work conspired against keeping their pants dry….like swabbing the deck, I guess. But also, they were easy to remove if they got wet. Bell bottoms were considered practical.

In any case, naval bell bottoms were popular because they could be bought from second hand stores or cheaply from army and navy stores. And better still, if you could not get those naval bell bottoms you would simply make your own by opening up the side of the bottom part of your jeans, add a triangle of fabric … and voila! It was a way the youth could make their own style, avoid the big box stores and rebel against the conservative dress of their parents.

Even though bell bottoms would not make mainstream fashion until the ‘70s, their origin story involved kids making their own or buying second hand naval pants to create their own sense of fashion. These inspirations were picked up by designers who spun denim, corduroy and (later) polyester variations to ensure bell bottoms were available to all. Although, in 1967, besides the kids’ own designs, only a few movie stars were wearing bell bottoms. Famously Cher and Twiggy wore designer-made bell bottom pants … and totally rocked them.

Fashion was becoming ever more relaxed. Conservative dress wasn’t gone but it was fading in everyday wear and with the youth it was disappearing entirely. Mini skirts and mini dresses were popular and psychedelic patterns (and psychedelics generally) were all the rage.

The summer of 1967 was known as “the summer of love” in the United States. Although it stemmed from anti-war sentiment toward the Vietnam War, the summer of love was a feeling, laced with hallucinogenic drugs and hippie styles, that imbued a loose and dreamy youth culture.

But ‘making love not war’ wasn’t just about anti-war protests. It was also about free love and anti-establishmentism. And though Canada didn’t participate in the Vietnam War, Canadian kids were still part of the summer of love counterculture movement. ‘Love’ seemed to be the theme of 1967. Even The Beatles, whose music was synonymous with youth culture, shed their jaunty pop hits of the early ‘60s in favour of songs such as “All You Need is Love”.

In May of 1967 there was a “love-in” at Toronto’s Queen’s Park that caused traffic to be re-routed. The hippie movement was starting to encroach on mainstream culture and particularly in fashion. I’m told that the Toronto neighbourhood of Yorkville was the place to be for a Canadian youth. It was the center for hippie cafes and psychedelic fashion boutiques. Hippie styles were developing, but in 1967 we see a mix of mod and pixie haircuts and clothes from the mid ‘60s mixed with psychedelic colours as we witness the fashion pendulum swing.

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