The Style of the '60s

For a few frantic years in the '60s, London--swinging and otherwise--became the center of the world of fads and styles. Now the inevitable outburst of reviews of the passing decade has begun, and among the first is a book, Goodbye Baby & Amen (Coward-McCann; $15), by British Entertainment Writer Peter Evans and Photographer David Bailey. Obviously, Goodbye is no serious history book. But neither is it just a picture book with filler text.

Bailey's highly subjective shutter shows Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski in a bare-chested embrace, looking like an older, less innocent reincarnation of Romeo and Juliet. Candice Bergen poses as though she belongs on the prow of a ship--and says that she "can't think of anything grimmer than being an ageing actress; god, it's worse than being an ageing homosexual." Rudolf Nureyev romps with Cecil Beaton; Jeanne Moreau presses her fingers nervously to her mouth; Malcolm Muggeridge scowls in fearsome closeup. And Fashion Designer Douglas Hayward remarks: "Everyone is so insecure . . . what can a Rolling Stone do at forty?"

Bailey did not merely photograph swinging London; he was part of it. As Evans puts it, Bailey was "the prototype of the dashing Cockney photographer"--and the prototype for the hero of Blow-Up. Other photographers, of course, collected a lot of money and a lot of girls. But few did it with Bailey's flair. A tailor's apprentice at 15, he was in his mid-20s when he bought his first two-tone Rolls-Royce (light blue on dark blue). At about the same time, he was traveling the world with his favorite model, Jean Shrimpton. Since then, there have been other cars, other trips, other girls. Now 31, Bailey has an annual income of about $100,000, an E-type Jaguar as well as a Rolls and two other cars, a beautiful and as yet undivorced wife in Catherine Deneuve, and a waifly, warm-hearted companion in 20-year-old Penelope Tree.

Not everybody, of course, likes Bailey. Or the book. One British reviewer called it "a lugubrious epitaph for our waning decade." Muggeridge called the whole effort commercial bananas. Even Bailey doesn't exactly promote it when he says: "I've done a superficial book about a superficial period." Maybe. But perhaps a more apt summing-up of Goodbye is its last-line appraisal of the decade itself--"It was great fun. Sure."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.