1971 – The Giant Alien Amoebae Are Coming To Get Us

Ah, 1971, what a year! Even though it was technically well inside a new decade, the spirit of the previous ten year was unwilling to die. In some ways, the early seventies were the culmination of the Sixties, in music, fashion and culture. And in good taste, of course.

Take this advertisement for Rit dye. There’s so much to love here! Look at the astonishing colour combination she’s wearing. Look at her belt, which looks as if it’s made of macrame pasta. Look at the empty-eyed doll on the table, pre-flattened so it can slip under your bedroom door at night and haunt your dreams. Look at the wallpaper – can you imagine a whole room done up with that pattern? Black Ops teams are probably studying it right now to see if it can be used in psychological warfare.

And then there’s the art that’s on the wall, the art she’s so proud of. Yes, that’s tie dye. Everyone was doing it in 1971. Tie dyed jeans, tie dyed shirts, tie dyed sheets. But tie dyed art? I can imagine being at a dinner party in 1971, tucking into my French Onion soup and getting ready for a main course of Steak Diane, then glancing up at the wall to see that art in all its hideous power. All thought of polishing off that Ben Ean Moselle would fly out the window, confronted by this majestic capturing of the giant alien amoebae coming to get us.

Not many people would be game enough to hang this wonder on the wall, but the early seventies made heroes of us all.