I remember, back in my early teens, gawping with horror at pictures from the 60s and 70s. I thought people looked utterly ridiculous. More than that, I thought they looked alien or possibly ill.

Faces were ashen and cheekboney. Skin seemed pockmarked, spotty, or bubbly with moles. Hair came in one look: oily. For the best part of two decades the human sebaceous gland apparently went into overdrive and pumped pint after pint of ghee into everyone’s scalp. The result was a prevalence of shiny basins, greasy feathers and matted waterfalls  — all seemingly cut by the same arthritic psychopath.

And, my God, the clothes. All-in-one jumpsuits with bellbottom trousers. Satin shirts with collars the size of stealth aircraft. Rollnecks so tight they’d circumcise your larynx.

I remember looking at pictures of the band Mungo Jerry and concluding they were 90% facial hair.

I was I admit a sensitive lad, but the whole thing genuinely made me feel queasy.

I feel differently now. Last week I visited the exhibition Beautiful People: The Boutique in 1960s Counterculture at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum. I found the exhibits fairly unremarkable. Not, I should point out, because it isn’t a good show. It’s a fine show. Presented as a series of boutiques, visitors can see, up close, the work of legends you’ll certainly have heard of like Biba and Granny Takes A Trip, but also the less familiar (and equally out there) Hung On You, Mr Fish, Dandie Fashions and Quorum.

As an achievement in curation it is remarkable. Yet for me, the giant neon paisleys and shaggy mustard coloured furs have lost much of their power. The skin-tight tank tops look less ridiculous. The stack-heel shoes seem to have shrunk.

Sure, our perceptions change over time. But I think there’s more to it.

Digital has changed everything. It used to be possible to discern when a specific mode of human artistic expression (art, music, fashion, film, theatre…) was having a moment. But now we find ourselves within a state of cultural pluralism; a perpetual global conversation where each idea and influence is as valid as the next. Nothing is sacred. Everything goes in the crucible and emerges tweaked and twisted and crucially, different enough.

When a million kids from Korea can take raw footage of Carnaby Street in the 60s, re-edit it, re-soundtrack it and animate all over it, before sharing it with millions more, who cares about the original?

And it is no surprise that fast fashion mirrors this hectic cycle of assimilation and regurgitation. Put simply, people demand it.

When the average consumer is happy to dismiss thoughts of ecological disaster, a puritanical approach to stylistic appropriation is probably not top of mind. Hence every clothing style you’ve ever seen from bellbottoms to headbands, clogs to cagoules gets sucked in, given a lick of the contemporary and tossed back out again for another 15 minutes of fame.

“Seen it all before”, used to be something my dad would say  — usually when I was trying to impress him with a new shirt or (to my mind) a bonkers pair of trainers. I know what he felt like now. With bells on.

Against a backdrop of digital anarchy and a superabundance of fast fashion, the question isn’t: why didn’t I feel the 60s exhibition packed much punch? It’s why did anyone think it ever could?

————

Blazer, hat: Engineered Garments
Shirt: Comme des Garçons Homme
Trousers: Perks and Mini
Sneakers: Engineered Garments x Hoka One One