60s Style In Playdate Magazine

Fashion Week is almost here and to celebrate, the Ellen Melville Centre in conjunction with magazine maestro Murray Cammick present a retrospective look at kiwi fashion as seen on Auckland’s High St, Vulcan Lane and on the sets of the C’mon! pop music show, recorded in the Shortland St television studios.

This projection show features swinging 1960 fashion images from the pages of Playdate magazine. As youth culture boomed in the 1960’s, the local magazine that documented the move from staid styles to mod fashion was Playdate (1961 to 1972). The magazine’s initial focus was movies but it broadened to include music and fashion.

Playdate was used by clothing manufacturers to reach young women and sell their new fab styles while the magazine’s fashion spreads also included designs from local indie boutiques such as Hadny 5, Annie Bonza, and Paraphernalia.

As clothing imports were banned in the 1960s Kiwi teens had to accept local knock-offs of London’s Carnaby Street styles or had to go D.I.Y. and on mum’s sewing machine. Projection images include the mini-skirts and go-go action of the teen TV show C’Mon! and Larry’s Rebels and The Underdogs in fashion pictorials.

As 60s male hair styles grew longer and the San Francisco hippie scene captivated the world, Playdate covered the changes and used young photographers such as Roger Donaldson, Kim Goldwater and Max Thomson to shoot hip fashion spreads; young illustrators who appeared in Playdate included Pat Hanly. Advertisements in Playdate were not only for clothes; as the decade progressed banks started to market cheque accounts to independent young women and cigarette adverts embraced cool corduroy styles.

By the end of the decade there was a chasm between the conservative styles of the New Zealand clothing manufacturers and the youth culture that was represented by the movie Easy Rider (1969) and rock icons such as Jimi Hendrix. As Playdate magazine embraced the music of the Woodstock generation, local manufacturers gave up on the jeans and t-shirts generation.

One advertising executive who kept print advertisements contemporary was a young Bob Harvey whose advertisements for the Maggy brand fitted in with the rapidly evolving music and youth culture of the sixties.

Playdate was owned by the Kerridge Odeon movie theatre chain. The editor Des Dubbelt was adventurous and extended the magazine’s editorial beyond movies into music and life style. The Kerridge Odeon company also moved into music and toured The Beatles and hosted nationwide theatre tours such as the C’Mon! On Stage and Golden Disc Spectacular.

A 1965 advertisement to encourage young women to save has images of ‘Denise and her exciting future’: car ownership, travel and her wedding day. The editors of Playdate depicted a more modern young woman – twisting, hitch hiking and surfing.

60s Style in Playdate Magazine free projected exhibition at Ellen Melville Centre, Friday 27 July-17 August weekdays from 9am-5pm on the Helen Clark Room big screen and after hours on the TV screen in the window

This community hub has five hire spaces, lots of classes, programmes and events… many are free to attend.

Presented by: The Ellen Melville Centre