Swinging London

Swinging London is a catch-all term applied to the fashion and cultural scene which flourished in London, in the 1960s.

It was a phenomenon which emphasized the young, the new and the modern. It was a period of optimism and hedonism, and a cultural revolution. One catalyst was the recovery of the British economy after post-World War II hard times had lasted through much of the 1950s. Journalist Christopher Booker, a founder of the satirical magazine Private Eye, recalled the "bewitching" character of the swinging sixties: "There seemed to be no one standing outside the bubble, and observing just how odd and shallow and egocentric and even rather horrible it was".^[1]

"Swinging London" was defined by Time magazine in its issue of 15 April 1966,^[2] and celebrated in the name of the pirate radio station, Swinging Radio England, that began shortly afterward. However, "swinging" in the sense of hip or fashionable, had been used since the early 1960s. In 1965, Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue magazine, said "London is the most swinging city in the world at the moment".^[3]

Although The Beatles came from Liverpool, The Rolling Stones, and the rest of the new culture was London-based. Most of the new fashion designers, models and photographers were young, and packed into a small area in Soho around Carnaby Street, W1., and another area round the King's Road, Chelsea.^[4][5]

1. ↑ Christopher Booker (1980) The Seventies
2. ↑ 'Most famous (if not the first) identification of Swinging London Gilbert, David (2006) "'The youngest legend in history': cultures of consumption and the mythologies of Swinging London" The London Journal 31(1): 1–14 doi:10.1179/174963206X113089
3. ↑ Quoted by John Crosby, Weekend Telegraph, 16 April 1965; and in Pearson, Lynn (2007) "Roughcast textures with cosmic overtones: a survey of British murals, 1945-80" Decorative Arts Society Journal 31: pp. 116–37
4. ↑ Salter, Tom 1970. Carnaby Street. Hobbs, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. ISBN 0-85138-009-3
5. ↑ Decharne, Max 2005. King's Road, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London.