Everyday Fashions of the Sixties as Pictured in Sears Catalogs

This fabulous oversized Dover book came directly from our local library and was edited by JoAnne Olian. Since it's getting harder and harder for me to find original vintage catalogs and magazines lately, I've resorted to republished material. I hope Dover doesn't mind if I share with you. Everyday Fashions of the Sixties As Pictured in Sears Catalogsis still available through Amazon, but be forewarned: it's basically a slew of Sears Catalog pages and only three of them are in color. Still, as an indicator of 60s fashion, this is tops.

Look how cool Sears and the sixties were together.




Flats are for fun, so let's stick one up the butt of the fashion industry until they give up on the concept of five-inch heels for everyday wear.




These gals look kicky in their 1968 separates. We used to shop from the Sears Catalog in the 70s and a lot of times the clothes would look nice on the page but when you got them home in their plastic bags, they were weird fabrics in unflattering colors that hung wrong. I would look from the page to the real thing and shake my head in wonder--it was like two different planets of reality and me with nothing to wear.




Let's check out the junior set, who look like 37-year-olds in these "costumes." Same feeling I got when I used to look through my mom's 50s-era high school yearbooks. The sophomores were so matronly. Everyone was styled "old" back in the day and we think of the 60s as a "youth quake" so this is kind of peculiar.



What if we add a new hat to the mix? That will liven up these fuddy-duddies. Hmm, maybe not...



Perhaps you want a more sophisticated chapeau? Why did women want such an enlarged-head look? This baffled me as a child. And probably frightened me too.



Whereas footwear was pointy and whimsical. Like something a go-go dancing elf would wear.



The Uggs of their day. Still works for me, unlike Uggs today.



How about a little "Jungle Magic," including leopard-print suspenders, for timeless hipster cred? Then put on a cozy fur hood to make your head look even BIGGER.




Back in the day, in order to pose in stretch pants, ladies had to stand with their legs splayed in the stiffest triangular way possible. It was fashion law.




Or else you could go for the Right-Now Pants look of '68. And that model on the right will make damn sure you do. Note that by decade's end, two out of three models are styled to have normal-sized heads. What a relief!




How I long to colorize this page, but I'd be here all night and even I'm not that obsessive. It's almost criminal of Dover not to put these on the inside colorized cover, especially because they're period-era Ban-Lon knits of Textralized™ nylon yarn, wrinkle-shy and un-crushable, i.e., scritchy-scratchy dresses that will hurt you with chafing and rashes. Still, great for travel!