In 1968, aged 28, I wrote the first English book on art deco of the 1920s and 30s. Some people who had lived through that entre deux guerres period — in particular, the interior decorator Martin Battersby, who was girding his scrawny loins to write about it but was pipped at the post — resented my poaching on what they felt was their preserve. Just over 40 years on, I suppose I could feel the same way about this book on the 1970s by young art historians; but I don’t. They have given me insights into that fabled decade which escaped me as it swanned and swaggered by.
When I began writing about the Twenties and Thirties, I thought: why couldn’t I have lived through those fascinating times, when modernism was busting out all over — charlestons, skyscrapers, Bugatti sports cars, cocktails and laughter, the pristine Strand Palace Hotel, Fred and Ginger at the movies? But then I suddenly realised that I was living through a period just as captivating and enviable: the Beatles; the Twist; Biba; mini-skirts and flares; Beyond the Fringe; Not Only But Also; the space race; Pop art with at least two indisputable masters, Warhol and Hockney; kaftans and joss-sticks in boutiques; the human artworks of Punk in the Kings Road, Chelsea, Mohicaned and safety-pinned.
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