We loved the 50s for opening up a whole range of paint possibilities in the home. In the 60s we pumped up the volume and went crazy with swinging colours that were full of psychedelic panache and raided the dressing up box of history for inspiration.
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The 1960s were all free love, flower power and pop music but, as the saying goes, if you remember it, you weren’t there and, let’s face it, most people just continued gently on with their ordinary lives. But for the trend setters the previous decade’s love of American design was replaced, as Swinging London became the centre of all things groovy. |
The modernism of past decades had rejected historical influences so, in a spirit of rebellion, 1960s plundered the past for inspiration. The result is a ragbag of styles culled from all over, including Victorian and Edwardian, the 1920s and Art Nouveau. But it was not just about replicating past styles; everything was given an irreverent twist to make it all its own.
The cover of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album of 1969 is a prime example.
Pop art and op art both had a firm footing in the 1960s. Artists such as Andy Warhol and David Hockney with their pop art references to mass culture (soup cans, comic strips, images of icons like Marilyn Monroe) crossed over into interiors, and on to murals, wallpaper and posters.
Similarly, op art with its use of pattern and colour to simulate movement found its way on to everything from furniture to wallpaper. Artists such as Bridget Riley, who works predominantly in black and white, became the vogue.
And then, later in the decade, there were the hippies, and design was influenced by travel, especially the exotic colours and culture of Morocco and India.
So what about paint colours? They included all of the above influences:
The most famous interior designer of the period was David Hicks.
He mined all the influences of the age and came up with his unique smart blend which he used to decorate the homes of the rich and famous – high gloss, strong colour, graphics from op art, perspex and glass from the space age, Victorian furniture upholstered in modern fabric and the odd rattan chair or hippy detail.
This was more like it for the rest of us – though both rooms take colours from the chart above. So there we have it – a quick blast from the past but the interesting thing for me was the freedom of expression and eclectic influences. So, whether you choose pop art, op art, hippy, the ethnic look or plastic space age, it will be far out – what would your 60s dream house look like?
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