In what is perhaps our favorite NEWSWEEK man cover, “Male Plumage ‘68” describes “the once securely buttoned-down fortress of male fashion under heavy siege.” Men from New York to San Francisco, the article claims—influenced by the Beatles, the hippies and student revolt, among other things—were breaking loose from sartorial regimentation and wandering off into a bizarre world of perfumes and hairstylists; wrapping themselves in form-fitting suits of every shade and fabric; hanging pendants and beads from their necks. To sum it up, the late Yves St. Laurent—himself just delving into male fashion at the time—put it this way: “Today it’s the great idea of liberty.”
Um, yes.
Note from Secklerism.com: From another corner of the fashion universe (and Newsweek’s tumblr) comes a flashback of wild Sixties style. The looks reflected a riotous mash-up of marketing, media and popular culture influences. Most of them now lie in the seldom-seen-today vault.
