The 60's & 70's Costumes
The 60's & 70's Halloween Costumes

The sixties were a decade where millions of post World War II baby boomers had reached the age of teenagers and young adults. Raised in the conservative 1950’s, these young people were more than ready for change. These youths had a strong influence on just about every aspect of living, from fashion and music to art and politics.

Fashion ran the gamut during the 1960’s. The decade started with men in crew cuts and button down shirts, while women sported the beehive hairdo and wore the bouffant style knee length dresses. However all that changed in the mid-sixties; everything flip-flopped. The hair styles on both men and women became much longer and the skirts became much, much shorter. Unisex dressing was popular featuring bell bottomed jeans, love beads, scarves, embellished t-shirts and anything with psychedelic colors.

Some famous speeches were given in this decade: John F. Kennedy gave his famous speech, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country;” Martin Luther King Jr. made his speech, “I have a Dream;” Apollo 11 landed on the moon giving way to Neil Armstrong's famous speech for the historical steps, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

A lot of the fashions and fads from the 1960’s carried over into the 1970’s. Men wore their hair shoulder length and sported Leisure suits, bell bottom pants and Lee jeans, while women wore everything from hip huggers and hot pants to ankle length dresses and miniskirts. Roaming around barefoot in the 60’s soon made way for covering your feet in clogs, platforms and earth shoes.

People were glued to their TV’s watching some of the best programming ever; The Brady Bunch, Gunsmoke, All in the Family, Happy Days, Three’s Company and Mash. Bean bag chairs, swag carpets, mood rings, lava lamps and the Rubik's cube all held the interest and imagination of the American people during this decade.

By the 1970's, “rock & roll” was weakening and in its wake came the dance craze of the decade, disco. The movie Saturday Night Fever fueled the “disco fever” to an even greater pitch. The popular movies were American Graffiti and Grease.