Yesterday I was looking at some images by Japanese illustrator Kazuo Hozumi and came across one that had five of his signature smiling figures in a random assortment of outfits.
Something clicked and I realized that two of the figures, who were side by side, formed a clever cartoon parody of the fall of the Ivy League Look.
On the left we have Mr. Class of ’67, who looks straight out of “Take Ivy” from a few years earlier, with his madras jacket worn over shorts, athletic socks and loafers. Basically the same stuff guys on campus had been wearing the past 15 years or so.
On the right is Mr. Class of ’68, who has made a sharp break with the past. Note the long hair, sandals, and virtue-signalling t-shirt.
The funny part is that when ’68 was a freshman, he asked ’67, then a sophomore, where he got his madras jacket. — CC
Both are candidates for the “It’s a Small World After All” ride at Disneyland.
I feel like a cross between the two today. Wearing Levi’s blue jeans, white socks and camp mocs.
@GS
You sound like an IT guy.
Cheers
Will
Sacksuit, nope just a college student who tries to avoid looking like a one. I forgot to mention that I’m also wearing an OCBD.
I wonder what I would’ve done…
Having been there I would have put the change year more at the fall of 1967 after the “Summer of Love”. At least at my northeastern college, everybody came back smoking weed and wearing denim in ’67. Perhaps the change took a bit longer to arrive in other parts of the country.
Exactly, as noted here several times before, the fall semester after the Summer Of Love would’ve had the boys talking about the change in the air.
I had a crew cut in ’67 and was sure I would never wear it any other way. However, by about ’74 I found myself having hair that slightly overlapped my ears. There was an equally powerful revolution that I noticed around 1979 when buzz cuts made a shocking comeback. I recall my mother in law remarking about that time that there were suddenly a bunch of nice, clean-looking young men around Boston where she lived. My wife later pointed out that the young men she saw were what my wife called “punk rockers.” I remember that conversation vividly because it was the first time it occurred to me that the rebel sub-culture were then the short-hairs.
Incidentally, I went back to a crew cut about ’79 and never wavered again. Although today it’s only a crew a bit on the sidewalls.
I quite like these illustrations but one thing that seems odd to me are those lines (whiskers?) on the sides of the character’s noses.
The John Lennon/John Denver granny glasses were also an essential part of the uniform.
I believe John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful was the likely the first musician of note (or Person Of Influence, as a cultural anthropologist might say) to sport wire-frame “Granny Glasses” as a fashion statement. The first known sighting was 1965 at the Moulin Rouge on the Sunset Strip; the same year that The Beatles played Shea Stadium dressed in Nehru-style jackets.
The cartoon doesn’t look like a parody to me–more like a pretty accurate representation, except that the guy on the right looks too clean.
John Sebastian and John Lennon’s frames were somewhat oval. John Lennon, like the chap in the illustration, wore round frames.
Those, technically, were granny glasses.
We called them Gandhi glasses at the time.
For those interested, here’s the reason that John Lennon started to wear them:
http://www.feelnumb.com/2010/09/29/john-lennons-windsor-granny-glasses/
John Lennon wore more than one style of glasses but he is best known for popularising the British National Health Service’s (NHS) frames style number ‘NHS422CJ’, shown at the top left here: https://www.college-optometrists.org/asset/8900FD2C%2D320B%2D4663%2DAE2FD9C49CCFF63A/
Founded in 1948 to give comprehensive, universal and free health care at the point of delivery, the NHS provided free or subsidised spectacles from a limited and unimaginative range until 1985 (when eligible patients were given vouchers for use in the open market instead). Until Lennon’s adoption of ‘NHS specs’, they were almost universally loathed among the young because of the social stigma attached to unattractive state-subsidised medical appliances: https://www.selectspecs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/1978_NHS_glasses-750×367.jpg
However, when Lennon removed the mock tortoiseshell plastic coating on his NHS422CJs, revealing the gold coloured wire underneath, he immediately turned ‘stigma’ into ‘style’, something for which a generation of myopic Britons will always be grateful, possibly making him more popular than Jesus.
Tim Koch
They still make the National Health Service frames made at the Algha factory , they will set you back about $500 USD.
https://www.framesdirect.com/framesfp/Savile_Row-tekamg/r.html
Jung:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vae5W8sCOSA/V6qLa2KtwiI/AAAAAAAADIw/5J-GtcY36X8ky3-1VSAeEIPJy5ND9P68gCLcB/s1600/Prof.%2BCarl%2BJung%2Bwith%2Bhis%2Bglasses.jpg
Beckett:
http://www.gig-lamps.com/home/gallery/images/samuel_beckett.jpg
Joyce:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f8/58/c9/f858c9826e49fc4fdcac79242dc39d50.jpg
Mac, those nice frames were also worn by Indiana Jones. Also, the OPH says that those horn rim shaped tortoise covered wire glasses are acceptable wear for preps.
http://www.lunettesde.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/harrison-ford-indiana-jones.jpg
GS
My ex wife was wearing those in late seventies, they weren’t that expensive back then. I recently ordered a pair, although I currently wear Anglo-American frames.
@GS
Denim? Yuck. Too degenerate for my taste.