“Fashion is self-consciously sociological and frankly featherbrained. It’s classic and immediate. Nostalgic and now. Worldly and other-worldly. Whatever’s happening you are part of it and at last you can be yourself and look as you choose.” English Vogue, 1968
1968 was the year fashion run amok. Hemlines on the runway ranged from the mini to just above the knee to the midi and the maxi. Women wore midi-coats with mini-skirts and minidresses over bell-bottoms. Velvet jumped off the formal rack and raced over to casuals and was seen everywhere. Thrift store chic meant looking like you dressed in a thrift store, not actually dressing in a thrift store. Fashion became not just a way of looking good, but a signifier of political and generational divides. Tonight you can visit the wild and crazy 1968 at The Velvet from 7 to 9 SLT – as Rock per Annum moves forward one more year.
1967 was the Summer of Love and 1968 was the year of sorrow. Martin Luther King was assassinated. So was Bobby Kennedy. The My Lai Massacre revealed that the American soldiers were not always the “good guys” of the romanticized war movies. The Tet Offensive challenged the military superiority of the American army. Richard Nixon is elected president after derailing the Paris peace talks by contacting the North Vietnamese and promising a better peace treaty with him. But it was not a completely horrible year. Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in a black power salute when getting their medals at the Olympics in Mexico. The Civil Rights Act was signed. Yale University opened admission to women. Intel was founded and President Johnson ordered that all computers purchased by the government support ASCII encoding, paving the way for generations of ASCII artists. Elvis made a comeback and the Beatles released The White Album and Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In debuted.
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