Men's Fashion: Care More, Dare More

MEN'S FASHION: CARE MORE, DARE MORE

More Style Conscious

By the 1960s many men had generally started to think more about what they wore and to be a little more style conscious and daring than they had for several decades. Men's fashion palettes had expanded, which was not surprising, considering that clothing choices for men during the 1950s could hardly have become more conservative.

A Uniform Direction

Women's fashions of the early to mid 1960s had two different strains. While Jacqueline Kennedy was passively paring down style to a ladylike, elegant clarity, Mary Quant, the mods, and André Courrèges were turning fashion on its head, paring down little but the number of yards it took to make a shirt. The trend in men's clothing stayed in one fairly consistent direction: whether one was young, old, Chelsea mod, or New York businessman, fashion was becoming more ex-citing on the whole. Of course, the increasing "antifashion" sentiments of the late 1960s altered the course of all fashion trends.

Start at the Top

The days of the 1950s crew cut were also coming to an end. During the 1960s men were more concerned about having a neat, well-styled haircut. In-stead of the cheap trim on the back and the sides at the local barbershop, many men began to go to hairstyling salons, which had begun to offer services to both women and men in the same large, open-design setting. Hair was neatly combed, often parted on the side, and young men hardly ever left the house without combs in their pockets. When their girlfriends fell in love with the Beatles and their look in the mid 1960s, many of the younger crowd copied the straight-across-the-front fringe of the four megastars. In the late 1960s many young men wore their hair longer, influenced by the back-to-nature sentiments of the flower children.

Suits

Suits followed a more exciting trend: men became more conscious of what they wore both to the office and on social occasions. The gray flannel suit of the 1950s had been rather boxy in appearance. By the end of that decade Italian designers had begun to influence the standard suit design with a much slimmer line. In the early 1960s the jacket was even narrower, nipped and shortened to give a more fitted look. Small dress-shirt collars were either pointed or had rounded edges; white collars were seen on checkered, striped, or colored solid shirts. Gingham checks, particularly in blue and white or black and white, were popular. Ties became narrower, as did belts. Slim-cut wool or blended pants legs without pleats were cuffed at the beginning of the decade, then cut straight. In the middle of the 1960s the Edwardian look, characterized by a single-breasted suit jacket with narrow lapels buttoned high on the chest, was popular. Vests, which had been discarded for several decades, made a fashionable reappearance.

New Dandyism

For more adventurous men, suits with brighter, more daring colors were becoming available, often made of synthetic blends. These came in many combinations: with plain oxford-cloth shirts, shirts with ruffles down the front, wide ties, bow ties, and so forth. The key was a sort of dandyism, a new freedom of dress.

Bold Experiments

As early as 1957 Pierre Cardin had introduced the collarless jacket, which was tight fitting and double-breasted. The mods adopted the collarless-jacket look, modeling themselves after the popular Beatles. To the newfound dandyism, the mods added decorative waistcoats, paisley and floral patterns, wide belts, and bell-bottom dress trousers. With the release of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album in 1967, satin uniforms trimmed in braid, like those worn by the group on the album's cover, became popular with some. The same year experienced the short-lived popularity of the Nehru jacket, with stand-up collars and but-tons to the neckline. The Nehru jacket, inspired by Jawaharlal Nehru, the former Indian prime minister, was often worn with a synthetic-fabric turtleneck shirt or sweater.

Not Everyone

Some men continued to wear gray flannel suits with oxford-cloth shirts. Not every man had the courage, or even the desire, to raise the excitement level of his wardrobe. But during the 1960s that had become a viable option.

Sources:

Maybelle S. Bigelow, Fashion in History: Western Dress, Prehistoric to Present (Minneapolis, Minn.: Burgess, 1979); J. Anderson Black and Madge Garland, A History of Fashion (London: Black Cat, 1990).