The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Paper Fashion
Fashion doesnt grow on treesor does it! Tyne Tees TV was bang on-trend with this brilliant news feature on the hip 1960s cult for a disposable age - paper fashion.
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Overview
Popular, transient, expendable, low cost, mass produced, young, witty, sexy, glamorous and Big Business. The British artist Richard Hamiltons definition of Pop Art perfectly fits with the throwaway fashion fad that hit the high street in 1967. In this droll Tyne Tees TV news feature paper clothes in psychedelic prints and bold Op-art designs are modelled in one of the landmark modern high-rise tower blocks that sprang up in Newcastle during the T Dan Smith decade.
Filmed by Keith McWhirter, this Tyne Tees TV feature was entered in the 1967 Britannica Awards for British Television News Film. A coupon offer by the American Scott Paper Company started the craze for paper fashion in March 1966. Customers who mailed in a dollar received a Paper Caper sleeveless A-line shift dress, and surprisingly, there were a million orders from women in under a year. The paper products trend took off with a post-World War Two generation that rebelled against their parents values, craving ephemeral fashions and contemporary products. The fad died out quickly with the rise of a back-to-nature hippie lifestyle and new environmental concerns at the end of the 1960s.
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