Bob Dylan. Andy Warhol. The Who. Allen Ginsberg. James Dean. The Beatles.

These world-renowned artists are household names among people of all ages, recognized for their various crafts and for being pioneers in artistic expression. There’s something else they have in common: They’re style icons from the prolific “Beat Generation” of the 1950s and ’60s.

The Beat Generation

Following World War II and the Great Depression, the late 1940s and early 1950s in America was a period known as the Age of Conformity. Daily life was conservative, from the neighborhoods people lived in and the foods they ate to the cars they drove and the way they dressed. Men’s fashion during this time was especially unimaginative, with a typical outfit consisting of a neutral-colored suit or a cardigan sweater over a button-down shirt.

In the post-war years, some Americans began to reject mainstream ideals, dissatisfied with their unexciting lifestyle. A radical shift started to spread through art, literature, and music, led largely by influential creative and intellectual types such as The Beatles and Peter Sellers. Inspired by this group of anti-conformist people who had been “beaten down” by mainstream society, the time period was coined the “Beat Generation” by American novelist Jack Kerouac.

Then in 1958, San Francisco news columnist Herb Caen used the word “Beatnik” to describe the individuals who were a part of the Beat Generation. Though the term held a negative connotation, describing people who didn’t work and spent idle time in cafés, it caught on and became representative of the period’s distinct style and attitude. Beatniks emphasized expression of freedom and creativity in their work and this was reflected in how they dressed. Their dark, form-fitting fashion was simplistic yet rebellious, and that was exactly its appeal.