The sixties is always thought of as the era of the mini-skirt and associated swinging designs. But it didn't start out like that. It all started in London, where I was living at the time. We'd just got through the '50s, which was still an age of austerity in England and much of Europe.
Not a mini-skirt in sight when I finished my compulsory service in the Royal Air Force in 1962. Skirts were well below the knee, and the glimpse of a petticoat showing below it was very much to be deplored.
The USA was even more conservative, although there was much talk of 'Swinging London' when I visited in '66. A couple of years earlier, a Swiss colleague had been asked to leave a restaurant in New York because he had a beard. If you watch a '60s TV show such as "Get Smart" notice how the villains have foreign accents, and wear beards!
I guess it must all have started with the new general availability of "The Pill", as it was referred to. The young ladies in London, initially, then all over the country, suddenly realised they didn't need to keep the boys under control, they could afford to tempt them! The designers leapt at this opportunity to bring out new shorter skirts and dresses, and shorter, and shorter...
As the skirts grew shorter, a new problem arose. Girls at that time wore stockings, held up by garter, or suspender belt, or some associated garment like a girdle, or corset. The problem was that these garments were not permitted to be visible to the other half of the population, the men, for fear they would become inflamed with desire (as indeed they were, and still are!)
Wearing a shorter skirt, garters and all the associated bits were in view if the girl leaned over a little. This would not do, so some idiot invented the pantyhose, or tights (modified dance tights), the most terrible item of female clothing ever (Male opinion). Male fantasies of hosiery were lost forever.
This was good news for the designers, they produced an endless variety of panties or knickers, intended to be seen, if not shown, perhaps by mistake.
In the meantime, the once completely hidden bra strap became OK to be glimpsed, then openly displayed. Men could mention the word bra without becoming too embarrassed. Plus size Bra was still not for polite conversation.
So began a long era of new designs and different approaches, though we are condemned to see them being re-invented every few years.
Grant Johnsonis has retired, and is now running a few web sites. This topic is the subject of his web site All Bras and All Panties
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