The beat generation were the rebels of 1950’s suburban conformity, rejecting conventional lifestyles of middle-America for smoky jazz clubs and urban hipness. They represented rebellion in a darker way than rock and roll, and they talked and looked different from anything that came before.

 

Beat founders Allen Ginsberg, William S. Bourroughs and Jack Kerouac were all writers who chose to submerge themselves in philosophy, poetry, art, music, and politics. Kerouac, the “godfather” of the beats, wrote about his wandering lifestyle in the quintessential beat book On the Road. In music, Dizzy Gillespie and other jazz musicians created bebop slang, and sported the beat look of dark shades and a beret.

 

Beat fashion rejected the mainstream tee shirts and jeans, and poodle skirts and saddle shoes. Boys wore sloppy joe sweaters and baggy chinos with leather huarache sandals. Girls wore black leotards with straight skirts and sandals or ballet flats. Men grew their hair long; women cut it short in the gamine or urchin cut. Accessories included berets on everyone’s head. Native American silver jewelry represented their affinity for social causes. Angst was their calling card, and black was their way of expressing it.

 

Initially a fringe movement, the beat look became a popular trend. TV and movies picked up the look, from Maynard G. Krebs' beatnik style in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, featuring the worn-in sweatshirt and sloppy chinos, and Audry Hepburn’s hipness in Funny Face featured the ubiquitous gamine haircut, black leotard and capri leggings with ballerina flats.

These post-WWII loners of the beat generation foreshadowed the hippie movement of the ‘60’s, with their  shared philosophy of universal acceptance and brotherly love. And that’s no jive, dig?