- Opinion
- 17 May 18
Europe began to change in earnest in Paris, in 1968, when students and workers united in defiance of the French right, and in opposition to the dead hand of patriarchy. A lot has changed in Ireland in the interim – but Repealing the 8th is the next vital step towards freedom...
Under the stones, the beach!
For Vreeland, youthquake described the youth-led fashion and music movement of the swinging sixties, which saw baby boomers reject the traditional values of their parents. Financial heft was a factor. Records were relatively cheap, kids had more money and the generation born after World War II was so large, relative to those that had gone before, that their taste was always going to change things.
A new kind of entrepreneurship was a factor too. New ways of selling and marketing emerged to target this new demographic. Just twelve months before Vreeland coined ‘youthquake’, Bob Dylan had already penned the script in his ringing manifesto ‘Times They Are A-Changin’. If there’s a song that captures the decade’s zeitgeist, this is it.