Hippies sought to free themselves from societal restrictions, choose their own way, and find new meaning in life. One expression of hippie independence from societal norms was found in their standard of dress and grooming, which made hippies instantly recognizable to one another, and served as a visual symbol of their respect for individual rights. Through their appearance, hippies declared their willingness to question authority, and distanced themselves from the “straight” and “square” that is to say conformists segments of society.

At the same time, many thoughtful “hippies” distanced themselves from the very idea that the way a person dresses could be a reliable signal of who he was, especially after members of the criminal underground such as Charles Manson began to adopt hippie customs for a brief time starting in 1968, and also after plainclothes policemen started to dress “like hippies” in order to harass members of the counter-culture. Frank Zappa admonished his audience that “we all wear a uniform”: the San Francisco clown/hippie Wavy Gravy said in 1987 that he could still see fellow-feeling in the eyes of Market Street businessman who’d dressed conventionally to survive.

As in the beat movement preceding them, and the punk movement that followed soon after, hippie symbols and iconography were purposely borrowed from either “low” or “primitive” cultures, with hippie fashion reflecting a disorderly, often vagrant style. As with other adolescent, white middle-class movements, deviant behavior of the hippies involved challenging the prevailing gender differences of their time: both men and women in the hippie movement wore jeans and maintained long hair, and both genders wore sandals or went barefoot. Men often wore beards, while women wore little or no makeup, with many going braless. Hippies often chose brightly colored clothing and wore unusual styles, such as bell-bottom pants, vests, tie-dyed garments, dashikis, peasant blouses, and long, full skirts; non-Western inspired clothing with Native American, Asia, Indian, African and Latin American motifs were also popular. Much of hippie clothing was self-made in defiance of corporate culture, and hippies often purchased their clothes from flea markets and second-hand shops. Favored accessories for both men and women included Native American jewelry, head scarves, headbands and long beaded necklaces. Hippie homes, vehicles and other possessions were often decorated with psychedelic art.

L’esthétique hippie

En partie par rébellion contre les usages, les hippie portaient les cheveux longs, pour les hommes comme pour les femmes. Ces dernières les portant généralement défaits, sans aucun apprêt. La liberté du corps (Body freedom) est complémentaire à la liberté de l’esprit que le mouvement hippie prône. Les relations sexuelles dites “libres” ainsi que le naturisme sont des valeurs qui sont mises en avant dans leurs mode de vie.

Les vêtements se voulaient choquants pour une époque où les tenues étaient assez uniformisées et sombres. Leurs pantalons étaient à « pattes d’éléphants », style lancé par les hippies californiens et l’influence de l’Orient leur avait donné le goût des sandales, des tuniques indiennes avec des motifs très fleuris et colorés, des gilets afghans et du patchouli(voir notre article sur le patchouli!!). Ils portaient de petites lunettes rondes, des bandeaux dans les cheveux, des colliers et des bracelets de perles. Ils pouvaient tout aussi bien être nus quand la situation le permettait. Le blue-jeans est également un vêtement emblématique de la génération hippie, il est souvent porté peint, brodé, cousu, couvert de coquillages, de strass, de bijoux, de fleurs, et toujours à  pattes d’éléphant.