Youth Fashion in Poland in the 1950s and 1960s: Ideology, Resistance, and Manipulation

Abstract

The Polish author and composer Stefan Kisielewski made the following observation in his diary on July 3, 1968: How odd that one fought, true to ideals, for these things [music, fashion, cinema, music festivals, and so on] during the Stalinist period, because they represented Western culture. And now the communists have understood that the whole show works in their favor—turning people completely stupid and making them completely harmless for the authorities … Blast! It’s just a political and ideological stylization of a generation, which funnily enough, is being carried out in the name of ideology and politics (in actual fact, first and foremost in the name of maintaining power).1