While sharp suits might have been suitable wear in Rome for scooting about on a Vespa, over in England a sensible woollen outergarment is just the ticket for these two Easy Riders.
This knitting pattern for a buttoned top by Lee Target has managed to attract a lot of comment from the moment I bought it from a charity shop in Horsforth, near Leeds. The lady on the till gasped at the model’s tiny waist. I then showed it on a couple of vintage fashion Facebook groups, partly because I had to do quite a lot of digital retouching of the original patters, which was quite badly damaged. An absurd argument broke out in the comments when I mentioned that the poor woman could probably hardly breathe due to the undergarments needed to squeeze her into such an unnatural shape. Dior foundation garments to fit into the New Look Self appointed experts came out of the digital woodwork to tell me that women were just thinner in the 1950s and 60s, thankfully countered by others sharing memories from relatives who were around at the time, and actually wore these type of clothes. One comment was especially insightful: “Looks like the Dior New Look inspiration that came after the Sec...
Blogs such as this one could easily give the reader an impression that the world of knitting is and was always terminally unfashionable. This is actually quite unfair and ignores a history now becoming forgotten of how people outside the wealthy few in metropolitan centres managed to follow fashionable trends. If you lived in a mining town in North Yorkshire, say, you didn't have a branch of Biba or Mary Quant nearby, even if you had enough money to shop there. A lot of people either worked, or had families who worked, in the textile industries. One lady I was discussing this blog with says that she could show a picture of a dress to her mum, who could then make it. Her uncle was a pattern cutter who could see an item of clothing worn in a film and recreate it from memory. For those without that level of professional skill, there was the knitting magazine. There were three main fashionable knitting magazines in the UK in the 1960s and 70s. Knitting Pattern company Paton and B...
Sometimes you see an image which looks quite ordinary, but with a little background knowledge a fascinating story emerges. Take the chap on the cover of the knitting pattern below. He's clearly very pleased with his new knitted waistcoat, but check the other details: the small collar, the thin tie with bang up to date pattern and the neat, but stylish haircut. Our hero aspires to Mod style. Similarly, check out the young man on the right. Banished are the chunky cable-knits, pipe and the general impatience for the arrival of middle age which were so often the hallmarks of the knitting pattern aimed at young men. Instead we see a close fit, a stylish houndstooth check pattern and an air of youthful confidence and style. If you grew up in the seventies, as I did, there was always the feeling that the sixties was a huge party to which you weren’t invited. The music was better (sixties Soul and Jazz versus seventies Disco – no contest!), typography and graphics were crisp...
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