Fashion Shows In The 60s - An Interview With My Nan About Her Role As A Model.

Today I will be sharing with you an interview that I did with my nan about her role as a model during the 60s and what fashion was like at the time.

What did your role consist of during the fashion show in the late 1960s?

Strangely enough, I used to have to model some clothes! The fashion shows were for charity and it was because my boss that I worked for, although she was a hairdresser and I worked as a hairdresser, she had a little clothes shop that she used to run alongside the hairdressing business. We used to do fashion shows, with the clothes for charity. That would have been in the late 60s - mid to late 60s. 

What did you enjoy the most/what was your least favourite part of the show?

I don’t know it was all a bit fraught because you were rushing between every clothes change. I don’t know, it was fun because we often had a giggle but that was quite stressful at the time. Having to get changed quickly was a struggle, as we had several changes of outfits and me being short, prior to the fashion show, many of the trousers had to be shortened with pins. So very often the clothing had pins at the bottom of the hems to keep them up, so I had to be careful when changing as I didn’t want to knock the pins out of place or hurt myself! 

What was the show itself like?

There would have been music and my boss would have already done the comparing by notes and usually we handed her post it notes or a postcard with details of what we were wearing so that she could read it out. Throughout the show music would have played as we were walking on the catwalk. The audience consisted of the general public who wanted to support the charity that we were raising money for. Sometimes there would be a journalist from the local newspaper but mostly the audience consisted of the general public. The models were common people who either worked in the salon or we knew because they were customers. Although there was a variety in age ranges, I would have been in my late teens then but some of the models were older ladies that were modelling for the collections suitable to them. As models we had to make sure that our hair was appropriate but we had to do it ourselves.

What clothes did you have to wear for the show/during the 60s in general?

We were laughing about this when grandad and I went for a walk the other day, he remembers us wearing hot pants for the fashion show. They were often an all in one, almost like a unitard and they were rather short. We used to wear them with knee high white boots that were usually made out of PVC. These were not only for the catwalk; we often went out on a Saturday night in them. Miniskirts were all the thing then and I remember working with a girl who was not much taller than myself and we used to have a competition between us to see who had the shortest skirt on. She once wore a skirt that only measured 12 inches from the waist to the hem. Whis is pretty short! The miniskirts at the time tended to be hipsters not waist skirts. I often wore these skirts to work but at the time in the salon, we did not have many back-wash basins they were front ones, which meant that I was leaning over the side of them rather than standing behind them when washing their hair. I had to be careful that my skirt was not too short otherwise I would have shown a lot more than I bargained for. But at the time unisex hairdressers were not around during those days so it was not that risky. The other piece of clothing that I can remember wearing on the catwalk was winklepicker shoes. They had pointed toes (which my grandmother said would ruin my feet) as well as thin stiletto heels that were metal. If you wore them on vinyl flooring, they would often leave indents, in some areas they were banned, for example on dance floors. I never had any Mary Quant clothes as they were out of my price range so I often made my own clothes as they also did not offer many small sizes. I had short skirts and the straight styles that she designed. Also, during the 60s, my nanna took me to London for a few days to see a show at the Palladium but before that we went to Petticoat Lane Market. It was the in thing in my day to go there, if you went to London you went to Petticoat Lane Market. She bought me, I think I remember it being a lilac colour, a net petticoat. The fashion was that you made your dress stick out as far as it could, so you had a net petticoat under it. That was my pride and joy. 

Were you part of any fashion groups during the 1960s?

I didn’t really fall into either the mods or the rockers to be honest. I never wore leathers although mods tended to wear the longer grape coats and I suppose I was more of a mod. Although because I lived in the countryside, us country girls were not always high up in the fashion as it did not get out to us as quick as it did in the cities. And as I previously mentioned before, because I was so small, I couldn’t find many clothes that fitted me so I made them myself. I looked at magazines for inspiration and would go to the material shop to look for that pattern so that I could make it.

What were the hairstyles that were worn on the fashion shows/in the 60s?

Men in those days often had long hair. Most women had what you now know as a beehive although when I first left school I had quite short hair that was classed as a beetle cut. Then I grew my hair longer and it was fashionable to have your hair in what they called a French pleat but I also often backcombed my hair and had it very high at the front. Then there was a stage where women wore flick ups, your hair was down to your shoulders and was flicked at the end. There was also a spell where it was fashionable to wear wigs. When I was a bridesmaid at a wedding, I couldn’t get the whole day off work so I prepared the wig before and put little white daisies so all I had to do when I finished work was put the wig on. Hair pieces were very popular as well. I used to use a clip-on ponytail and blended it in with my own hair. 

How was the fashion show that you helped out with in the 90s different to the fashion shows that you modelled for in the 60s?

They were definitely wearing different styles and colours. For the show that I did in the 60s, we were walking on a raised platform whereas the one I helped out with in the 90s, they walked through the audience. That was probably the main difference between them. In principle they were the same although for the show in the 90s, I was doing the hair and we had someone to do the makeup. There were trial runs before the show so that we knew what we were doing and what hair worked best with a certain outfit. Again, the audience consisted of people who wanted to support the charity. It was held in a car show room whereas the one in the 60s that I modelled at was held in a village hall. They also had a radio presenter who did the comparing for us. At the fashion show in the 60s we had an interval where cups of tea were given out but that was probably it food wise. The fashion shows that I modelled for in the 60s were quite regular whereas the one in the 90s was a one off for charity. 

Image Sources: getty images, eventbrite.com