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1960's
Afros
Everyone had an afro. It was the hairdoo of choice.
The bigger the better. Even the girls had afros.
Beatlemania
Rabid Beatles fans suffered from Beatlemania. The
British rock group was a huge hit among the kids of the 60's. People would faint
at their concerts and even just from seeing them
perform on tv.
Balsa Wood
Airplanes
Model planes made from balsa wood. Kids would make them and fly them just
like paper airplanes, but they would fly better.Companies
stopped making them because kids were sniffing the glue used to make the
planes.
Barbie Dolls
By 1965, one hundred million dollars of Barbie merchandise was sold. Barbie
is the one to help make Mattel the biggest toy company in the world. Created
by Ruth and Elliott Handler (owners of Mattel), after watching there daughter
play with paper dolls, realizing there weren't any 3-dimentional
dolls to play with and dress. Barbie was names after the daughter for the
idea.
Black Light
In the late sixties, black light put things in a new perspective - adding a
fluorescent glow to the room. White T-shirts and teeth would light up the
room with their bright white glow. Black light would reveal secret symbols or
slogans on posters located in college dorm room. These lights also appeared
in nightclubs and theater productions around the country, creating a surreal
atmosphere. Coupled with a strobe light, black lights created a disorienting
purple haze. Nowadays, you can still find these black lights in nightclubs.
There are more fluorescent materials on the market - paints, dyes, and
clothes, markers - that seem to come to life with the existence of the black
light.
Bellbottoms
These wide-legged pants were derived from Navy styled uniforms and became
very popular with the young society in the 1960's. Elvis Presley, Sonny and Cher helped make bellbottoms a fashion statement for the
hippies and counter-culture audience. They were typically made of denim until
they were produced with corduroy and polyester so they could be worn in any
situation. Bellbottoms were still popular in the 1970's during the disco
years and even in the 1990's when the Gen X crowd was wearing them to be cool
too.
Bouffant
Hairdo
A trend launched by First Lady Jackie Kennedy. It was a difficult style to
wear, time consuming to achieve and required a great number of tools to
concoct. Came to an end about 1964 after the assassination of President
Kennedy.
Fallout Shelters
With the threat of a nuclear war on the horizon, some Americans looked for
ways to protect themselves from horrible destruction. They decided upon bomb
proof, fallout shelters. Most looked like basic units, providing space only
for necessities (which were generally only two-week supplies) while others
looked like small guesthouses, equipped with pool tables, paintings and wine
cellars. The fallout shelter fad reached its peak in the early 60's as the
Cuban Missile crisis loomed. But it was waned in the 70's as various treaties
were signed, calming apocalyptic fears.
Go-Go boots
Created in 1965 by Andre Courreges, a leading
French fashion designer. Worn by women from Los Angeles to New York, at
nightclubs all over. Nancy Sinatra also chopped the charts with "these
boots are made for walking" establishing her as the poster child for
go-go boots.
G.I.
JOE
the popularity and millions
of dollars being made from Barbie Dolls for girls, prompted the development of a toy for
boys. It couldn't be called a doll, so
the term "action figure" was used to describe this toy solider.
Granny Glasses
Was once a fashion statement of vibrant youth, also known as Ben Franklin
glasses. First appeared in the 60's in California. Adorned by such famous
faces as John Lennon and Roger McGuinn. Within
about 2 years from its beginning, the granny glasses had soon died out, and
became undecidedly cool.
Hair Ironing
Once the troublesome bouffant had begun to look old, young girls in the
northeastern states staged a revolt. Taking up hot irons and ironed their
hair dead straight. The ironed tresses lasted about an hour, this fad
diminished in the early 70's followed by less dangerous styles.
Lava Lamps
Invented by Craven Walker in the mid 60's, people were entranced with this
device that consisting of illuminated glass cylinder within which a colorful,
wax like substance was heated.
Love Beads
Love beads came in a variety of patterns and were given as gifts between
friends or made by the person wearing them. They were worn around the neck
and wrist and were very colorful. They could be purchased in a store or could
be made at home. Love beads are one of the traditional
accoutrements of hippies.
They consist of one or more long strings of beads, frequently handmade, worn
about the neck by both genders. The love bead trend probably evolved from the
hippie fascination with non-Western cultures, such as those of India and
Native America, which make common use of similar beads. Some believe that when one's string of love
beads breaks, they are soon to fall in love.
Love beads were a common sign
of friendship in the 60's and early 70's.
Miniskirts
Began the era of women's liberation. Miniskirts achieved the height of their
popularity around 1967. By that point, virtually every young woman was
wearing one, most as a sign of rebellion. Demure was out, "letting it
all hang out" was in., and the new woman demanded that the world
appreciate her on her own terms.
Ouija Boards
First brought about after many viewed the movie "The Exorcist",
where a young girl was possessed by the devil while playing with a Ouija board. A once thought dangerous game that in the
late 1960's outsold the venerable game Monopoly. Thought to believe that we
could communicate with the dead through a Ouija
board, the game was born in the mid nineteenth century brought upon by a
spiritualism craze that sweeped through Europe and
spread to New York.
Rickie Tickie Stickers
These were colorful flower stickers. People were sticking these rickie tickie stickers on
everything from automobiles, waste baskets, walls,
windows, and more.
Sea monkeys
In 1957, Harold von Braunhut discovered a true
freak of nature and recognized its potential to become one of the greatest
marketing opportunities in history. After watching the creature known as Artema nyos, a relative to the bryn shrimp. Out of water it would appear dead and once
introduced back into water it would mysteriously come back to life, without
any suffered ill effects. He then began to sale them through mail order,
around the early 1960's, packaging them in a box labeled "Instant
Life" and they were sold for $.49 thought comic book advertisements. The
fad kept growing and now 40 years later, his freaks
of nature are still charming kids everywhere.
Scully
A street game where the course was painted or chalked on concrete grounds.
The object was to go from the starting line to each of the numbered boxes and
then back down to the beginning by flicking your bottle caps on the course.
Slogan Buttons
First began in 1896, during the presidential race between McKinley and Bryan.
But in the 1960's, it attained true fad status. The typical hippie backpack
was positively bristled with them. The buttons gave voice to many sentiments
and declarations, most of which were political.
Slot cars
Well before the eras of video games, young boys throughout the world shared
another obsession, the slot car. It's an electric toy-racing car that ran on
a grooved track. Slot-car racing was a part of the British culture, but it
wasn't until it hit the United States in 1965 that its popularity really took
off. Many fans built their own cars, and constructed their own tracks. By
1967 the slot car had been sidelined, in this high tech world, that flashier
and more powerful toys would rule the world.
Smiley faces
Started in 1963 by creator H.R. Ball. He was working in Massachusetts for an
ad agency when one of his clientele asked him to come up with a way to soothe
employees. He was only paid $45 for the drawing, which he never trademarked.
The Smiley Face has appeared on millions of items since, including a United
States postage stamp.
Superballs
Norman Stingley conducted experiments with highly
resilient synthetic rubber. He accidentally produced an astonishing new toy.
When compressed under extreme pressure, the substance would bounce like
crazy. The compound was called Zectron, but the
ball became known as the Superball. More than 6
million of these bouncing balls had been sold by 1965. At the height of their
popularity, the balls even infiltrated the White House; Cabinet member McGeorge Bundy passed them out to staff members.
Surfing
California surf music and films like "Gidget"
made it cool to ride the waves, and all those beach party movies made us wish
we could have an endless summer, too.
Tie
Dye T-shirts
Nothing said 'psychedelia' better than the rainbow
explosion of swirling colors and bold designs of the ancient art of tie-dye.
Tie-dye is one of the oldest forms of fabric manipulation and design. The
concept is simple: dye can only penetrate loose fabric, and when portions are
bound off by string, rocks, clothespins, or rubber bands, the dye cannot
reach that part of the fabric. That untouched section could remain the
original color, or you could then dye the pristine sections a separate color
to create works of art.
During the 60's, the hippies' revival of old ethnic crafts resurrected the
art and put a new spin on tie-dye. The hippies' tie-dye was no subtle
handicraft-they tie-dyed with several colors, layering one on top of the
other for wild bursts of color and crazy visual trips. Hearts, peace signs, bulls eyes-anything could be done with a little
creativity. Tie-dyeing became the ultimate sign of the times.
The 80's returned to tie-dye when a new generation pulled out the crazy Dead
Head shirts their parents wore when they were kids. Parents passed down the
knowledge by turning t-shirts, sheets, socks and more into colorful pinwheels
of fun. Even when it wasn't a widespread fad, tie-dye remained a style of
choice for 60's holdovers and people who just wanted a little psychedelia in their wardrobe. Tie-dye will never die,
and the sky's the limit.
Troll Dolls
Created by Thomas Dam, the inventor of the Dammit
doll, names after Thomas. The dolls were established into a company called
Dam Things in 1964. A year which more than one million of these trolls were
sold in the United States. The doll was made for his daughter, cause he couldn't afford to buy her a birthday present.
The doll was inspired by the legend of trolls whom inhabited deep dark
forests and brought good luck to the human that could catch one. It would
seem many humans at that time were catching them.
Turtlenecks
Daily News Record magazine proclaimed 1967 the year of the turtle, as in
turtleneck sweater. Favored by beatniks and flower children. At its peak, the
turtleneck was worn by such high-profile celebs as
Johnny Carson, Sammy Davis Jr., Senator Robert Kennedy, Paul Newman and Steve
McQueen.
The Twist
Chubby Checker made this dance style very popular when he appeared on
American Bandstand in the early 1960's. It originated in a small New York
club called The Peppermint Lounge in 1961. The dance was featured in a few
films in the early sixties but quickly faded when other dances such as the
Mashed Potato and the Watusi were introduced to TV
shows and movies.
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