London: The Swinging City.

In a decade dominated by youth, London has burst into bloom. It swings; it is the scene. This spring, as never before in modern times, London is switched on. Ancient elegance and new opulence are all tangled up in a dazzling blur of op and pop. The city is alive with birds (girls) and beatles, buzzing with minicars and telly stars, pulsing with half a dozen separate veins of excitement.

On 15 April 1966 the American weekly news magazine Time, published a special edition celebrating 'London: The Swinging City.' Through fashion, photography, film and music, deliberate contrasts were set up between tradition and modernity. A new irreverent spirit in British social attitudes was rising that ignored the prejudices of the Establishment. London in the sixties was truly a cultural phenomenon. Designers like Mary Quant with her miniskirts, Ossie Clark with his feminine, bias-cut sillhouette and Biba who made high-fashion accessible to all, reigned. It was a step away from the buttoned up, girdled, prim and proper look of the fifties. Women's liberation was truly reflected in the rising hem-lines and unstructured sillhouettes of the Sixties. I love London! It's one of my favourite cities in the world and it's where I was born. Camden Town is where I live.