Grad students from FIT will be visiting the ARC next week to get a tour and look at some fashionable things from our collection.  So we thought we’d pull a few covers by groups who have a strong or ever-so-weak link to clothing, style, mode, fashion and fabrication. These students in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice, will be presenting a symposium @ FIT on Saturday, May 5, “Two-part Harmony: Music and Fashion.”

Monday night was an opening of “Youthquake! The 1960s Fashion Revolution” by another group of grads @ the FIT Galleries.  The show is beautifully mounted, Eurocentric and London specific.  If you’ve ever seen the poor clothing displays at some other institutions – ill-fitting and badly draped – you can appreciate the care.  The Bob Dylan face-dress is a revelation.  With an emphasis on Mod, what people wore here in the States is only lightly touched on, with nary a tie-dye in sight – let alone a Velvet Underground all-black beat leftover.

This is not a survey of my sixties: long hair, flowers in your hair, Afghani coats, embroidered Indian shirts, Amerindian fringe, macramé, granny dresses, granny glasses, peace signs, bra-less, boas, beads, bellbottoms, headbands, sandles, guitars, sitars and some rockabilly beat-girl skiffle styling.  Or some Rockers to battle those Mods.  But they do mention Françoise Hardy (THE “Ye Ye” Girl), display some extraordinary leather boots and Beatle booties, and offer a loop of fab vintage pop shop footage.

I would recommend a viewing of “Comic Strip” by Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg for French TV, (worst jumpsuit ever by a major designer – you do the research) and a little more about the music that accompanied the look.  But this is a fine overview of Eng-a-land Swings and the kids who made designers pay attention to the street, be it Carnaby or Haight.

Click on any cover to see the slideshow…