Fashion of the 1960s featured a number of diverse trends, as part of a decade that broke many fashion traditions, adopted new cultures, and launched a new age of social movements. Around the middle of the decade, fashions arising from small pockets of young people in a few urban centers received large amounts of media publicity, and began to heavily influence both the haute couture of elite designers and the mass-market manufacturers. Examples include the mini skirt, culottes, go-go boots, and more experimental fashions, less often seen on the street, such as curved PVC dresses and other PVC clothes.
"Swinging London" fashions on Carnaby Street, 1966. The National Archives (United Kingdom).
Swedish beatniks in Stockholm, 1965
US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy arrives in Venezuela, 1961
A pair of go-go boots designed by Andre Courrege in 1965.
Dame Barbara Mary Quant was a British fashion designer and icon. She became an instrumental figure in the 1960s London-based Mod and youth fashion movements, and played a prominent role in London's Swinging Sixties culture. She was one of the designers who took credit for the miniskirt and hotpants. Ernestine Carter wrote: "It is given to a fortunate few to be born at the right time, in the right place, with the right talents. In recent fashion there are three: Chanel, Dior, and Mary Quant."
Quant in 1966
Mary Quant dress chosen as the Dress of the Year in 1963
Jersey minidress by Mary Quant, late 1960s
Mary Quant minidress at a 1969 fashion show in the Netherlands