The Age of Aquarius: A 1970s Revolution in Fashion

Do you remember the fadeless fabulousness of polyester? Bell-bottom flares and denim dungarees? If you’re too young, old or embarrassed to remember what you were wearing in this decadent fashion decade, The Age of Aquarius will send you on a sentimental journey or journey of fashion discovery!

The Age of Aquarius exhibition curated and toured by the New Zealand Fashion Museum provides a platform to see and experience New Zealand in the 1970s through the wardrobes and stories of six individuals, and through examples of six different modes of fashion making. They represent the diversity that existed and the trends that were prevalent.

In popular culture, The Age of Aquarius refers to the advent of the New Age movement in the 1960s and 1970s and also shares a reference with the song Aquarius from the hit musical Hair. The New Age movement was a time of personal liberation and awakening social consciousness. It was also a time that represented a freedom of expression, most memorably reflected through fashion. Peace symbols, love beads, psychedelic prints, bell bottoms and kaftans have all become iconic symbols of this dynamic time in fashion history and typified an openness that was not present in the decades before.

Curated and toured by the New Zealand Fashion Museum.