There’s a famous quote, attributed variously to Dennis Hopper, George Harrison, and Robin Williams: “If you remember the ’60s, you weren’t there.” When it comes to menswear, however, it seems that the legacy of the 1960s is hard to forget. The styles that came to prominence in that storied decade, from mod-inspired sharp tailoring to the dandy plaids and crushed-velvet loucheness of its latter, more decadent half, are still very much with us. Our primer on the legacy of ’60s style covers its movers and shakers, and looks at the pieces still leading the way today.

What Is 1960s Style?

One day in 1965, Michael Caine turned up at David Bailey’s studio to have his picture taken. The resulting image was so emblematic of its time that it might as well have had “The ’60s” emblazoned across it. Caine faces Bailey’s camera, the characteristically punchy monochrome silhouette enhanced by his chunkily-framed glasses and the unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth (Caine had wanted to light it, but Bailey had assured him that “if you just leave it, it’ll look cooler”).

The dark suit, white shirt, and slim dark tie are, of course, impeccable; but it’s Caine’s attitude that still smoulders, over half a century later. “Post-war London was dismal and full of smog,” said Caine, “and then we had the shadow of the atom bomb hanging over us. So we looked around and thought, well, we might as well have a bit of fun then. And that’s when the ’60s started. It was no longer a case of the working-class knowing our place; we said, fuck it.” No consideration of menswear in the 60s can afford to underestimate the power of those last two words. Yes, the great loosening-up had begun in the 1950s, with the birth of rock ‘n’ roll and the Beat Generation leading the countercultural charge; but what Bailey called “the Big Bang of the ’60s” changed everything. The prime look, for Caine and his working-class-made-good peers, was haute-mod; Italian-cut suits, tab-collar shirts, whip-cord slacks and Chelsea boots, and an off-duty preppy uniform – navy blazers, Oxford shirts, woven polos, knit ties – that had looked so good on the ill-fated JFK on his downtime in Nantucket.