Read more:Mend and make do: How women won the ’40s with fabulous fashion.  

Mass-production and ready-to-wear was also becoming a significant part of fashion, Smith said, with stores and department stores stocking a new variety of synthetic products that were much cheaper than ever before. As much as it was about cost-saving, it was also about convenience.

“You could have a polyester hostess gown, wash it and it would be fine the next day,” she said.

Yellow 60s dress.
1967 colour transparency from Australian Women’s Weekly.
Source: National Archives of Australia.

Read more:How 1950s glamour is still setting the tone for evening wear

The ‘youth quake’ is what Smith credits for a lot of the change in the styles of the era.

It was the youth of the day, who were inspired by music, architecture, travel, reading books and magazines, and were fully aware of what was going on around them, that deciding what they wanted to wear, rather than be dictated to by the older age-brackets.

“The ’60s was all about the young people expressing themselves and being rebellious,” Smith said. 

1969 Fashion parade.
Fashion on parade at the Melbourne Show, Australia, in 1969. Source: National Archives of Australia.