The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
This film is part of Free
Clothes to Please
Responses to questions about dressing to please are of their day.
From the collection of:
Overview
The apparel oft proclaims the man. Or woman. In the days before involuntary celibacy makes news, four women respond to the question of whether they buy clothes to please themselves or to please others, namely in the shape of their male partner. Thankfully, the women give an honest opinion, fashion is determinative garb to please oneself. The sixties in Britain is a time of sex, drugs and rock and roll and free will helps drive more freedoms for women and how they dress.
Appearance is or is not everything. Ready-to-wear and easyfit clothes are reaching the average fashion-conscious shopper and the nuclear family of the fifties gives way to a young generation able to embrace new freedoms. Under the influence of music and fashion and occasionally psychoactive hallucinogens, the swinging sixties takes hold and attitudes towards sex, love and relationships change. A significant second wave of feminism including the freedom to wear a miniskirt begins to establish some notions of gender equality. The Time’s Up and the #MeToo Movements have instigated a new wave of feminism and gone global with their demands for gender equality, equal pay and a new higher level of respect.
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