This nearly pocket-sized mini-book doesn’t hold the appeal of extensive text or impressive knowledge to share, but it sure offers up some amazing photographs and quirky advertising that’s almost guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

A member of the Taschen Icon series, the hot pink paperback is miniature version of the much pricier coffee-table edition. Not much writing sits between the front and back cover, only a short prologue by Laura Schooling of Style.com that outlines the era and delves into a short description of what it was like to live during the 60’s, handily including translations in English, German and French.

The majority of pages are bursting with bright photos that tell aged tales of Pink Shampoo “made just for girls” or Wrangler jeans that stress, “You have to look for the W because it’s silent!” Reading each small-print product description brings a strange feeling of nostalgia to me, even though I wasn’t actually alive in the 60’s.

My favorite page has to be the hair dye advertisement where the reader is told to cover the man’s half head of grey hair and see how much younger he looks with brown hair only, perhaps a first attempt at the interactive advertising that seems to be storming today’s market? To be fair, he really does look much younger with only the brown…

60’s Fashion, Vintage Fashion and Beauty ads by Jim Heimann,
Tashcen, 2007
review by Alyssa Garrison
photography by Erika Neilly

I grew up listening to Bob Dylan, watching documentaries about the chain-smoking, smart-talking folk singer, and sitting in corners of bookstores, rifling through an ever-growing pile of Dylan-focused books. I don’t mean “I got into Dylan two years ago, experienced all the hipster-hype, and I’m ‘growing up’ now.” No. I mean that Bob Dylan was a part of my childhood, just like he was a part of my teenage years, just like he will be a part of my adult years.

A couple of Christmases ago I bought my dad the Bob Dylan Scrapbook because I (secretly) wanted to read it first. Then, last summer, I was at an antiques warehouse and bought a 95-cent book from the 1960s for fifteen dollars. It wasn’t even in good shape and I had to glue the cover back on. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a 20-something Dylan in a blazer and dress-shirt, grinning and hiding from the camera.

Daniel Kramer’s Bob Dylan (1967), along with documentaries like Don’t Look Back and No Direction Home, have convinced me that if I were a man, I would do whatever it took to look like Dylan. I’d cut my hair like his, messy and uneven, and I’d wear slim-fitting slacks, blazers, polka-dot shirts, and high-heeled Cuban boots every day of my life. Yes, every day of my life. Oh, and Wayfarers, of course.

Not only would I be a shameless Bob Dylan impersonator, but I’d tell people the real Bob was my grandpa. I’d make up a story about how my grandma met him in Greenwich Village in the sixties, and “it was all very secretive” because I think he was with Suze then.

Everyone would believe me.

Love the button-down, drainpipes, and over-sized blazer combination.
Yellow is definitely Bob’s colour.

This suit suits Mr. Dylan perfectly. I especially like the checked shirt peeking out from under it.

This must be Bob’s favourite suede jacket that Kramer talks about in his book.

- Stephanie Fereiro