Personal reflections on hippy style 

Brighton & Hove Museums' Renegade collection contains oral history interviews with hippies in which they describe their personal style.

 
June Neville:

'I did wear some outrageous things in those days. Well I had a fur coat, long brown real fur, and I wore it with a brown-brimmed felt hat, also an old one, which was tied around with a long organza scarf that floated behind me ... One of my favourite dresses, old dresses, was black actually and it was floor length with a train that trailed behind me, and I wore this to college discos, the train used to get a bit dirty.'

'There was a lot of fringes and flowers and movement in the clothes. At the time it was very cheap to buy vintage clothing, particularly dresses, there were lots of lovely dresses around from the 30s and 40s and I had a little silk dress, sort of mid-calf length, it was very flimsy and fine ... it had long sleeves and a very fine print on ivory silk and I wore it everywhere and I even wore it without shoes. I remember getting on the bus in it with no shoes on.'

Oral history interview, OH000143
 
Roy Pennington, describing one of his own oufits in a photograph from the late 1960s:

'[trousers] Is that a paisley pattern? No it's not quite [the] paisley sort of pattern you'd see on a sofa, cos it's furnishing material as I recall. Is that a pink shirt? ... wonder if that was a Ben Sherman? I might have dyed a Ben Sherman. And then a rather hideous neckerchief which is a ladies female neckerchief and a necklace made of seashells. The trousers were made for me by someone down here in Brighton. The neckerchief I probably stole from my mother's wardrobe. The pink shirt I can't remember.'

Oral history interview, OH000119

Back to top