Swinging London
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Swinging London is a catchall term applied to a variety of dynamic cultural trends in Britain (centred in London, as the primate city) in the 1960s. Much of the phenomenon was youth oriented and emphasized the new and modern, and amounted to a cultural revolution in Britain. It was a period of optimism as well as hedonism, as was the sixties in much of the Western world.
It notably includes the famous popular music of the period, when Britain dominated the international industry, but also fashion, photography, film, and the arts (pop art, etc.). Its most prominent symbols were perhaps the Beatles and mod fashions such as the miniskirt.
One of the catalysts was the recovery of the British economy and consumerism from the post World War II period of austerity and rationing which lasted through much of the 1950s.
See also
The 1966 film Blow-Up, by Michelangelo Antonioni, illustrates the flavour of the period.