Crochet clothing for the counterculture
Birgitta Bjerke Crochet clothing | At the Pheasantry, London, 1968
Hippie Royalty on the Rocks, Ibiza, 1969. Photographer: Karl Ferris. Brigitta Bjerke and others are pictured wearing her crocheted clothing and swim wear.
Birgitta Bjerke is a clothing designer noted for her crochet clothing and rugs which catered to members of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture. Her brightly coloured, knitted clothing included swim wear, skirts, dresses, tops such as jumpers and suits for men, along with blankets, hats and associated works of art. Birgitta was born in Sweden and travelled to England and throughout Europe during her youth. She moved to the United States in the late 1970s and became a costume designer in the film industry, working on numerous films from 1982 through to 2015 (IMDb 2019). Below are images of some of her work, focusing on items from the earlier period when the counterculture was booming. Over recent years, and with the 50th anniversary of the Sixties being celebrated throughout the 2010s, her work has featured in a number of exhibitions highlighting art and fashion of that era. The first of these was 100% Birgitta: The Fine Art of Revolutionary Crochet, held at the Centre of Southwest Studies in Durango, Colorado during 2009 (Miller 2009). Birgitta also featured in the Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture exhibition of 2017 and Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion and Rock & Roll travelling show 2017-2019.
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| Hands dress, circa 1967. Collection: de Young Museum, San Francisco. |
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| Brigitta Bjerke, Crocheted hat and shawl, Ibiza, 1969. Photograph: Karl Ferris. |
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| Going Back to Sweden outfit, 1970. Source: MAD exhibition 2017. |
Exhibitions
100% Birgitta: The Fine Art of Revolutionary Crochet - costume design and painting spanning 1967-2008, Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado, 8 February - 2 August 2009.
Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture, MAD Museum of Arts & Design, New York, 2 March - 20 August 2017; Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, MA, 2017. A room in this exhibition was dedicated to the work of Birgitta Bjerke.
References
Butchart, Amber, The Fashion of Film: How Cinema has Inspired Fashion, Hachette UK, 2016, 224p.
Seattle Recap, Communing With Fabric [blog], 16 January 2016. Available URL: http://communingwithfabric.blogspot.com/2016/01/seattle-recap.html.
D'Allessandro, Jill, Terry, Colleen, Binder, Victoria, McNally, Dennis and Selvin, Joel, Summer of Love: Art, Fashion and Rock and Roll, University of California Press, 2017, 344p.
Marks, Ben, Meet the Swedish Artist Who Hooked British Rock Royalty on Her Revolutionary Crochet, Collectors Weekly, 15 Mark 2021.
Miller, Patricia, Hooked - Rock royals were crochet artist's customer, Durango Herald, 13 February 2009. Available URL: https://www.jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=3179.
Sillman, Marcie, Feathers, Fringe and Bright Shiny Beads: Hippie Fashion is Art, KUOW - Sound stories, sound voices [blog], 17 September 2015. Available URL: http://archive.kuow.org/post/feathers-fringe-and-bright-shiny-beads-hippie-fashion-art.
The Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum, Soul Documentary [website / videos], 2017. Available URL: https://souldocumentary.love/summeroflove/de-young-sol-experience/.
Wright, Andy, Tracking down the lost fashions from the Summer of Love, San Francisco Magazine, 31 May 2017. Available URL: https://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/tracking-down-the-lost-fashions-the-summer-of-love.
Last updated: 17 July 2023
Michael Organ, Australia
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