You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-70

Nostalgic exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at four years in the 1960s which changed society.

I didn’t really understand the narrative of the exhibition at first. I think I’d expected it to be more about music than it was. Music was a big part of it but it was about much more so at times early on in the show I was puzzled. However then I got to a point where I didn’t care I just enjoyed it! As I would have been 4-8 at this time I think this point came in the section on advertising where I suddenly saw things we’d had when I was a child and adverts I’d seen.

The early section was very stylish with a recreation of Carnaby Street with displays looking at how retail and design changed including Vidal Sassoon’s hair dressers, lots of fashion shown on lovely shaped mannequins with flat photographic limbs and a record shop with a browser outside with real record sleeves you could flip through. However this section was quite cramped and progress round it was slow.

I loved the section on politics. It made you realise how much happened in those four years and it helped me understand things I remember seeing on the news at the time. There was a good section on gay rights and Stonewall also a French riot police unicorn from the 1968 unrest. Even now I found the section on the Vietnam War unsettling and remembered hiding my head in a cushion when it was mentioned on the war.

Then of course the wonderful section on consumerism! This was more like the ordinary 1960s I had known! It included a PanAm uniform to show the growth in international travel and a soup dress by Campbells. There was also a section on Expos and I realised I always had this idea in my head of Expo 67 etc but I have no idea why!

The best section however was the tall room which was devoted to Woodstock and a wonderful arrange of hippy clothes many of which had been worn at the festival. As a rather plump child miniskirts had never appealed to me I’d always wanted to be a hippy and the first piece of clothing I remembering picking out for myself was a pink gypsy skirt from Ladybird! Yes these styles even filtered down to 8 year olds! There were beans bags on the floor in this room with a wonderful surround style film of the festival shown at regular intervals.

All in all a great immersion show. Don’t look for the meaning, just enjoy it!

Closes on 26 February 2017.

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