Swinging London

The international perception of London as "the place to be" was boosted by a Time cover story of 15 April 1966 that launched the phrase "Swinging London". The opening paragraph runs:

In this century, every decade has had its city. The fin de siècle belonged to the dreamlike round of Vienna, capital of the inbred Habsburgs and the waltz. In the changing '20s, Paris provided a moveable feast for Hemingway, Picasso, Fitzgerald and Joyce, while in the chaos after the Great Crash, Berlin briefly erupted with the savage iconoclasm of Brecht and the Bauhaus. During the shell-shocked 1940s, thrusting New York led the way, and in the uneasy 1950s it was the easy Rome of la dolce vita. Today, it is London, a city steeped in tradition, seized by change, liberated by affluence, graced by daffodils and anemones, so green with parks and squares that, as the saying goes, you can walk across it on the grass. In a decade dominated by youth, London has burst into bloom. It swings; it is the scene.

The full text of the story can be read here.

With the devaluation of the pound sterling in 1967, London became more attractive to foreign visitors than ever.

Pop music, fashion boutiques and fashion photography were the main components of "swinging" London, an international image further underlined by the rather overheated Italian film Blow-Up:

Routemaster

The Routemaster was a bus specifically designed for London traffic. It went into production in the 1950s, and was decommissioned by Transport for London in 2005.

An important aspect of the design is the open access through a platform at the rear end of the bus. This enabled sharp-witted and able-bodied passengers to hop on and off almost as they pleased (paying a conductor who moved around the bus, rather than the driver), contributing to the sense of risk-taking and personal freedom that was so important in the "feel" of the period. It was to enable young women to hop on and off such buses unimpeded that Mary Quant designed the miniskirt. It was in part to prevent such "risk-taking" behaviour that the design was discontinued.

The design features on the Icons of England website and the 2009 British Design Classics stamp issue.

The Sixties

Britain in the 1960s looked rather like a country reinventing itself. From an imperial power renowned for stiffness, Stoicism, formality, hypocrisy, and clearly marked class divisions, it became an international trend-setter in popular youth culture. British bands topped the charts not only at home but across the Atlantic and even across the Channel - the Beatles and the Rolling Stones most famously, but lesser-known groups also produced songs which many will still recognise by ear, even if they don’t know the name of the band.

Popular youth culture began to become a media phenomenon in the 1950s, with public disturbances caused by gangs of Teddy Boys (who dressed in a parody of Edwardian gentlemen’s attire), or in the 1960s by the fights between Mods and Rockers (two radically alternative styles of youth culture). It was only with the Beatles, in the early 60s, that pop concerts became national news. Crowds of screaming teenage girls were very far from any traditional notion of typical British behaviour, but were the background noise to the popular music of the era - even that of Scottish singer-songwriters in the folk tradition (see here).

Some of the stereotypically "Sixties" sights on the streets of London were, besides the mini, the new Routemaster bus (which went into production in the late 50s, but was only a familiar sight on London streets from 1961) and the miniskirt.

The new sensibility was reflected in a swathe of permissive legislation, rolling back the power of the law over what were coming to be thought of as purely private affairs, on the grounds that it was not the business of the state to tell people how to live their lives.

The late 50s and most of the 60s were an era of economic prosperity, technological advance, and massive expansion of access to university education (which in Britain had been among the least egalitarian in the industrial world). The importance of education and technology was given strong emphasis by the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson (in office 1964-1970 and 1974-1976).

Miniskirts

In the mid-1960s London suddenly became a centre for international youth fashion.

One of the most characteristic fashion developments of Sixties London was the miniskirt designed by Mary Quant (at six inches - 15cm - above the knee, the shortest skirt in fashion history up to that time). These have become symbolic aspects of a new feeling of opportunity and freedom that marked the decade.

The availability of pantyhose (rather than stockings) and of roll-up leggings made it possible for women to wear short skirts without fear of unintended flashes of thigh. While there may have been some aspect of sexual liberation in young women showing off the shapes of their legs, there was also an important element of women's liberation: the design was inspired by the desire for a skirt that wouldn't hamper a young woman running for a bus.

A Rank cinema newsreel about Sixties fashion, with a characteristically Sixties sneer:



A collage of images of Sixties fashion:



Extensive pages on the fashion and fabrics of the period can be found on the website of the Victoria & Albert Museum

Pop becomes national news

British Pathe News reports on The Beatles playing at the ABC Ardwick, Manchester, 1963.



Note the audience reactions, the Stoicism of the cinema staff, the lone policeman as security, and the length of hair that passed for "long hair" in the early 1960s.