Trousers, purple moss crêpe, designed by Ossie Clark, London, 1967-1969

Purple moss crêpe trousers.

Given by Shirley Abicair

Registered File number 1994/873, Streetstyle exhibition 1994-1995, in the exhibition it was part of an outfit called 'Hippy UK/USA 1969' (includes the hat T.433-1994, the waistcoat T.434-1994, the blouse T.435-1994, the necklace T.437-1994, the necklace T.438-1994 and the necklace T.439-1994).


Part of an outfit worn by Shirley Abicair and donated by her to represent the 1969 Hippy in the Street Style exhibition. In the late 60s Shirley Abicair was a musician and television presenter. She loved wearing Ossie Clark's clothes and combined them with special garments made by her creative friends, such as the hat and waistcoat here. The mud stains on the trousers are from Stonehenge. Shirley Abicair sometimes painted her face with fluorescent coloured lacy designs while wearing this outfit.

"Shirley Abicair arrived in England from Australia via Singapore and Karachi in the Fifties. 'I was a music student. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for me to arrive at the airport wearing a Punjabi dress, silk baggy trousers, tunic and embroidered slippers, with dead jasmine in my hair and around my wrist - it had been a long flight. I was singing folk songs and was interested in different cultures. It just seemed a natural thing for me to do.'

In the Sixties Abacair spent her time between America and England. 'I was in New York because I was writing an album there, and then I spent some time in Oregon which I loved because of the space and air. When the Sixties arrived I was in my element. I bought beautiful Twenties and Thirties clothes from the Chelsea Antique Market, and tie-dyed T-shirts and jeans from stalls in the King's Road or Carnaby Street. I had a beautiful burgundy Borsalino hat that I bought in Greenwich Village and wore everywhere and with everything. It was, in fact, my second Borsalino - I lost the first one at a Grateful Dead concert at the Phillmore West in San Francisco.'"

(Shirley Abicair, interviewed by Sarah Callard for "The British supermarket of style", published in The Independent, Saturday 25 September 1994)

T.436-1994