Flower Power, Peace Signs and Hanging Beads Don't Mean Sixites Party!
I found this 60s Hippy Party video on YouTube and was cracking up at what today's generation thinks our parties might have looked like.
Guys, you made a valient effort to create the mood, you even got those beaded room dividers up all over the place. The Peace sign was pasted all over the walls along with large daisy like flower outlines and some poster reproductions were strategically placed. You got some long haired wigs, some headbands and hung some beads around your neck, but. . . .
The posters were a little offbase for a sixties hippie crash pad. You had one of James Dean who was killed in 1955, I saw one with Ann Margaret's 1964 movie Kitten With A Whip (not hippie!), and a Beach Party poster with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon - these two people who were almost anti-hippie! What you would really have seen on our walls were posters from the rock concerts of the Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and always a poster that said "War Is Not Healthy For Children and Other Living Things".
At least you got the year of the real Woodstock right, 1969. Thank God I didn't see any of those posters from those silly, ersatz Woodstock concerts of recent years.
Your guests got a little confused in the clothing department too. I saw a couple of guys that looked more like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever than Abby Hoffman at a Viet Nam war protest rally. Take note, paisley, tie die and some olive drab (army jackets) were fashion musts in the sixties. I'll give you all points for wearing beads - I just wish they'd been real love beads and not souvenirs from a Mardi Gras parade!
The saddest part was that your music was not only not the sixties of Donovan or The Grateful Dead but it wasn't even American Rock or Pop at all. Now, how can you have a sixties party without our iconic music? I really wanted to hear "One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, but the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all. Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall" or maybe just one "Truckin"!
You had those hanging beads everywhere - not just in the doors or windows but all over the room. Trust me, if we'd had those beads hanging from every rafter during one of our parties we would have gotten tangled up in them and started the "love in" a bit too early! I do thank you for reminding me about those hanging beads - they were really popular in the late sixties and seventies and for some reason I had forgotten about them. Yes, I had some. What self respecting Hippie didn't?
Any interior designer will tell you that lighting is important to mood and I didn't see that sixties glow here. I saw a couple of flashes that might have been an attempt at strobe lights, but, kids, if you really want to throw a real sixties party you need the right lighting. We didn't even have twinkle lights in the sixties and where, in the name of Bob Dylan, are the black lights and the lava lamps???
I know most of you weren't even a twinkle in your (probably hippie) parents eyes in the sixties, so I forgive you for turning the parties of my youth into a cliche. But the next time you guys want to have an authentic sixties hippie party, take some pointers from someone who was there. You might even want to invite one of us for true authenticity - after all we really knew how to party back in the day! Peace out, man and don't bogart that fun!
Get my Retro Inspired Pop Culture Art on Cool Stuff like Cups, Tees, Cards, Aprons and more at the POP ART DIVA BOUTIQUE!
I found this 60s Hippy Party video on YouTube and was cracking up at what today's generation thinks our parties might have looked like.
Guys, you made a valient effort to create the mood, you even got those beaded room dividers up all over the place. The Peace sign was pasted all over the walls along with large daisy like flower outlines and some poster reproductions were strategically placed. You got some long haired wigs, some headbands and hung some beads around your neck, but. . . .
The posters were a little offbase for a sixties hippie crash pad. You had one of James Dean who was killed in 1955, I saw one with Ann Margaret's 1964 movie Kitten With A Whip (not hippie!), and a Beach Party poster with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon - these two people who were almost anti-hippie! What you would really have seen on our walls were posters from the rock concerts of the Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and always a poster that said "War Is Not Healthy For Children and Other Living Things".
At least you got the year of the real Woodstock right, 1969. Thank God I didn't see any of those posters from those silly, ersatz Woodstock concerts of recent years.
Your guests got a little confused in the clothing department too. I saw a couple of guys that looked more like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever than Abby Hoffman at a Viet Nam war protest rally. Take note, paisley, tie die and some olive drab (army jackets) were fashion musts in the sixties. I'll give you all points for wearing beads - I just wish they'd been real love beads and not souvenirs from a Mardi Gras parade!
The saddest part was that your music was not only not the sixties of Donovan or The Grateful Dead but it wasn't even American Rock or Pop at all. Now, how can you have a sixties party without our iconic music? I really wanted to hear "One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, but the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all. Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall" or maybe just one "Truckin"!
You had those hanging beads everywhere - not just in the doors or windows but all over the room. Trust me, if we'd had those beads hanging from every rafter during one of our parties we would have gotten tangled up in them and started the "love in" a bit too early! I do thank you for reminding me about those hanging beads - they were really popular in the late sixties and seventies and for some reason I had forgotten about them. Yes, I had some. What self respecting Hippie didn't?
Any interior designer will tell you that lighting is important to mood and I didn't see that sixties glow here. I saw a couple of flashes that might have been an attempt at strobe lights, but, kids, if you really want to throw a real sixties party you need the right lighting. We didn't even have twinkle lights in the sixties and where, in the name of Bob Dylan, are the black lights and the lava lamps???
I know most of you weren't even a twinkle in your (probably hippie) parents eyes in the sixties, so I forgive you for turning the parties of my youth into a cliche. But the next time you guys want to have an authentic sixties hippie party, take some pointers from someone who was there. You might even want to invite one of us for true authenticity - after all we really knew how to party back in the day! Peace out, man and don't bogart that fun!
Get my Retro Inspired Pop Culture Art on Cool Stuff like Cups, Tees, Cards, Aprons and more at the POP ART DIVA BOUTIQUE!
