Sixties Style

by Judith H. Miller

Written by an international expert, a series of compact, richly illustrated guides furnishes up-to-date information on purchasing, valuing, selling, and collecting a variety of popular antiques and collectibles, using a star-rating system to indicate the value of each item, information on influential designers and makers, and hundreds of full-color photographs.

Genres: Fashion, Art, Nonfiction

448 pages, Paperback

First published April 17, 2006

About the author

Judith Henderson Miller began collecting in the 1960s while a student at Edinburgh University in Scotland. She had since extended and reinforced her knowledge through international research, becoming one of the world’s leading experts in the field. In 1979 she co-founded the best-selling Miller’s Antiques Price Guide and has since written more than 100 books, covering antiques, collectibles, architecture and interior design.

Judith was an expert on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, and had also appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and CNN. She was a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines, including Financial Times, The Telegraph, BBC Homes & Antiques and House & Garden. She lectured extensively, including at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Smithsonian in Washington.
She died in April 2023

Reviews

[Frankie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This catalog/encyclopedia of 60s trends caught my interest for its simple designs. I've always admired 60s pottery, glass, even plastic housewares and kitsch, but I've never had the names or dates. With very little text - captions and a few section heading pages - this brightly colored, guidebook-sized book covers a lot of ground. The 60s was perhaps the most interesting era for naively futuristic design with artificial media like plastics, polyester, etc.

Designer Pieces and Ceramics are the first sections, and perfect for a graphic designer. My original idea behind getting this book was to incorporate some of these iconic patterns in advertising designs. The difficult part is to modernize them so they don't appear anachronistic or pirated. Unless I'm designing a throwback themed piece, which you often see today using Peter Max patterns.

The best examples of transferable designs are Midwinter Pottery's "Tango" pattern (seen here) or "Sienna" by Jesse Tait seen here. I've done some live tracing on these and others, and hope to find a place for some version of the patterns. I also thoroughly enjoyed the furniture and clothing sections as well, especially the Seating with reference to Eames and Mathsson.

Unfortunately, I lost interest in the last few sections, which focus primarily on toys, memorabilia, factory merchandise, etc. It serves the book's purpose as an antique buyers guide, but not my purpose of tracking product designs. Most of the toy designs, for example, reflect not on fashion but on TV and film, which is for me a step too far removed from design.

[Bloodorange]

Interesting concept makes getting familiar with the distinct esthetic of the era quick and easy. However, the book is quite inconvenient to read, since the descriptions of the items are placed on the margins, and most of the pictures are oriented towards them, too, and as a result you have to turn the book all the time.

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has a rather exploitative feel to it (especially with the REMEMBER THIS? section toward the back).