How Anna Wintour Changed Fashion: Celebrities, Blue Jeans and Couture

American Vogue editor Anna Wintour at the Met Gala she oversees in New York. Photograph: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP. Cover picture of Stephane Rolland Haute Couture AW25/26 by Jay Zoo for DAM.

By Jye Marshall and Rachel Lamarche-Beauchesne

Queen Elizabeth II and Anna Wintour 

at British designer Richard Quinn's

2018 runway show. 

AFTER 37 years at the helm, fashion industry heavyweight Anna Wintour is stepping down from her position as editor-in-chief of American Vogue. 

It’s not a retirement, though, as Wintour will maintain a leadership position at global fashion and lifestyle publisher Condé Nast (the owner of Vogue and other publications, such as Vanity Fair and Glamour). 

Nonetheless, Wintour’s departure from the US edition of the magazine is a big moment for the fashion industry – one which she has single-handedly changed forever.

Fashion Magazine Fever

Fashion magazines as we know them today were first formalised in the 19th century. They helped establish the “trickle down theory” of fashion, wherein trends were traditionally dictated by certain industry elites, including major magazine editors.

In Australia, getting your hands on a monthly issue meant rare exposure to the latest European or American fashion trends.

Vogue itself was established in New York in 1892 by businessman Arthur Baldwin Turnure. The magazine targeted the city’s elite class, initially covering various aspects of high-society life. In 1909, Vogue was acquired by Condé Nast. From then, the magazine increasingly cemented itself as a cornerstone of the fashion publishing.

Cover of a 1921 edition of Vogue. 

Wikimedia, CC BY

The period following the second world war particularly opened the doors to mass fashion consumerism and an expanding fashion magazine culture.

Wintour came on as editor of Vogue in 1988, at which point the magazine became less conservative, and more culturally significant.

Not Afraid to Break the Mould

Fashion publishing changed as a result of Wintour’s bold editorial choices – especially when it came to the magazine’s covers. Her choices both reflected, and dictated, shifts in fashion culture.

Wintour’s first cover at Vogue, published in 1988, mixed couture garments (Christian Lacroix) with mainstream brands (stonewashed Guess jeans) – something which had never been done before. It was also the first time a Vogue cover had featured jeans at all – perfectly setting the scene for a long career spent pushing the magazine into new domains.

Anna Wintour's first Vogue cover in November 1988 featuring a revolutionary mix of what we call today hi/o: a Christian Lacroix heavily bejewelled top and a pair of Guess Jeans.  

Wintour also pioneered the centring of celebrities (rather than just models) within fashion discourse. And while she leveraged big names such as Beyonce, Madonna, Nicole Kidman, Kate Moss, Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, she also featured rising stars as cover models – often helping propel their careers in the process

Wintour’s legacy at Vogue involved elevating fashion from a frivolous runway to a powerful industry, which is not scared to make a statement. Nowhere is this truer than at the Met Gala, which is held each year to celebrate the opening of a new fashion exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

The event started as a simple fundraiser for the Met in 1948, before being linked to a fashion exhibit for the first time in 1974.

Wintour took over its organisation in 1995. Her focus on securing exclusive celebrity guests helped propel it to the prestigious event it is today.

This year’s theme for the event was Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. In a time where the US faces great political instability, Wintour was celebrated for her role in helping elevate Black history through the event.

Not Without Controversy

However, while her cultural influence can’t be doubted, Wintour’s legacy at American Vogue is not without fault.

Notably, her ongoing feud with animal rights organisation PETA – due to the her unwavering support for fur – has bubbled in the background since the heydays of the anti-fur movement.

Wintour has been targeted directly by anti-fur activists, both physically (she was hit with a tofu cream pie in 2005 while leaving a Chloe show) and through numerous protests.

This issue was never resolved. Vogue has continued to showcase and feature fur clothing, even as the social license for using animal materials starts to run out.

Fashion continues to grow increasingly political. How magazines such as Vogue will engage with this shift remains to be seen.

A Changing Media Landscape

The rise of fashion blogging in recent decades has led to a wave of fashion influencers, with throngs of followers, who are challenging the unidirectional “trickle-down” structure of the fashion industry.

Today, social media platforms have overtaken traditional media influence both within and outside of fashion. And with this, the power of fashion editors such as Wintour is diminishing significantly.

Many words will flow regarding Wintour’s departure as editor-in-chief, but nowhere near as many as what she oversaw at the helm of the world’s biggest fashion magazine.

Jye Marshall, Lecturer, Fashion Design, School of Design and Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology and Rachel Lamarche-Beauchesne, Senior Lecturer in Fashion Enterprise, Torrens University Australia

Ultrafast Fashion Brand Princess Polly has been Certified as ‘Sustainable.’ Is that an Oxymoron?

The question of whether fast fashion can ever be sustainable has become increasingly heated since the advent of ultrafast fashion, where brands produce on demand and sell directly online. 

By Harriette Richards, RMIT University and Jon Hewitt, RMIT University

Last week, the ultrafast fashion brand Princess Polly received B Corp certification. This certification is designed to accredit for-profit businesses that provide social impact and environmental benefit.

Established on the Gold Coast in 2010, a 50% stake in Princess Polly was acquired by United States-based A.K.A. Brands in 2018.Since then, it has grown its global reach as a low-cost, high-turnover online retailer.

So can ultrafast fashion ever be sustainable?

Who is Princess Polly?

Princess Polly distinguishes itself from other fast fashion retailers through a mission to “make on-trend, sustainable fashion accessible to everyone”.

As part of this mission, Princess Polly is a participant of the United Nations Global Compact, which commits them to sustainable procurement. The 2024 Baptist World Aid Ethical Fashion Report placed them in the top 20% of 460 global brands assessed.

Yet, on the sustainability rating website Good On You, Princess Polly receives a “Not Good Enough” grade, due to their lack of action on reducing plastic and textile waste or protecting biodiversity in their supply chains, and the absence of evidence that they pay their workers a living wage.

Regardless of how they make their clothes, Princess Polly produces a lot. At the time of writing, the brand has 3,920 different styles available on their website (excluding shoes and accessories).

Of those, 34% (1,355 styles) are listed as “lower impact,” which means items are made using materials such as organic cotton and linen, recycled polyester and cellulose fabrics. There are also 720 items on the website currently listed as “new”: their daily new arrivals means they are constantly adding fresh items for sale.

Overproduction, no matter what the garments are made from, is inherently wasteful. Even when clothes are purchased (and 10–40% of the clothing produced each year is not sold), the poor quality of fast fashion items means that they end up in landfill faster and stay there for longer, contributing to the ongoing environmental disaster.

Sustainability communication

In Australia, 1,096 companies are accredited with B Corp status, including 152 fashion businesses.

B Corp assesses the practices of a company as a whole, rather than focusing on one single social or environmental issue. Businesses must score at least 80 out of a possible 250+ points in the B Impact Assessment to achieve accreditation.

Organisations are assessed in five key areas – community, customers, environment, governance and workers – and must meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.

Third-party accreditations such as B Corp, Fairtrade and Global Organic Textile Standard are often used by brands as a marketing tool.

These certifications can enhance consumer trust without the need for detailed explanations. For fashion brands, accreditation can help them stand out in a crowded market. They can provide legitimacy, attract ethical fashion consumers and reduce consumer scepticism.

While B Corp aims to provide assurance to consumers, activists have accused it of greenwashing. In 2022, the organisation came under fire for accrediting Nespresso, a brand owned by Nestlé, which has a reputation for poor worker rights and sourcing policies.

B Corp is now facing renewed condemnation for issuing certification to Princess Polly.

Who needs certification?

Other B Corp certified Australian fashion brands such as Clothing the Gaps and Outland Denim have built their reputations on their ethical credentials. For values-driven fashion-based social enterprises such as these, accreditations can provide valuable guarantees regarding ethical processes.

According to our research, however, there are several barriers fashion-based social enterprises face when pursuing ethical accreditation.

The cost of accreditation, both financial and in terms of time, skills and resourcing, is a significant challenge. And there is no certification that covers all aspects of environmental sustainability and ethical production. As a result, fashion-based social enterprises often require multiple accreditations to fully communicate the breadth of their ethical commitments.

Despite the costs involved, if fashion-based social enterprises don’t acquire certain certifications they risk being ineligible for government grants and tenders, such as social procurement contracts.

Differences between fashion-based social enterprises and fast fashion brands are stark. While Clothing the Gaps, Outland Denim and Princess Polly now all hold B Corp certification, the former score much more highly on the B Impact Assessment. The value and credibility of the certification is diminished when it extends to unsustainable ultrafast fashion.

Is it possible for fast fashion to ever be sustainable?

The question of whether fast fashion can ever be sustainable has become increasingly heated since the advent of ultrafast fashion, where brands produce on demand and sell directly online.

Fast fashion took seasonal trends from high fashion runways and made them available to consumers at low costs within weeks. Ultrafast fashion takes trends from social media and reproduces them extremely cheaply for mass consumption within days.

Both fast and ultrafast fashion’s low-cost, high-volume models encourage consumers to value quantity over quality. Using permanent sales and discounts, these brands incentivise multiple purchases of items that may never actually be worn. Online “micro trends” and “haul” videos further spur this overconsumption.

The overconsumption of fast fashion means lots of it ends up in landfill. Dipanjan Pal/Unsplash

Princess Polly may be using more sustainable textiles and engaging in more ethical forms of production than some of its ultrafast fashion counterparts. But this is not enough when the business model itself is unsustainable. Accreditations such as B Corp are unable to account for this nuance.

Princess Polly claims to make sustainable fashion, yet it is also proudly trend driven. As an ultrafast fashion brand, it relies on overproduction and overconsumption. The idea that this can ever be “sustainable” is simply an oxymoron.

Harriette Richards, Senior Lecturer, School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University and Jon Hewitt, Lecturer, Fashion and Textile Design, RMIT University

'A Philosopher Looks at Clothes' by Kate Moran is Engaging and Unpretentious: We Need More Books Like This

Clothes communicate a great deal of information about us, including our social position and the causes we espouse. 

By Sarah Richmond

With a few exceptions, philosophers have had little to say about clothes. Maybe this is because the topic seems frivolous, or feminine, unworthy of the attention of a predominantly male collection of thinkers.

Perhaps, too, the transience of fashion, and the fact that clothes belong – quite literally – to the domain of mere appearance, also has something to do with it. In A Philosopher Looks at Clothes, an engaging and informative book, Kate Moran, philosophy professor at Brandeis University in the US, urges us to think again.

As Moran points out, clothing looms large in life. Every day we dress, deciding how many layers to wear and whether we need a coat – or might a cardigan suffice? We gaze critically at other people’s choices (“OMG, those shoes!”). We wonder how to rise to the challenge of an imminent Eurovision-themed party.

From a historical point of view, also, our species-specific recourse to clothes stretches back to the earliest human society. In mythical time, it begins with Adam’s and Eve’s discovery, in shame, that they were naked. If fashion is transient, clothes, per se, are not.

Clothes, Moran tells us, serve three basic purposes: protection, modesty and decoration. At once, these introduce questions of deep philosophical interest. Are the purposes equally important? Why, throughout human history, have we refused to settle merely for protection, desiring for example that a hat should be of some favoured colour or shape? To what extent do our decorative choices express our personal identity? Do clothes ever qualify as works of art? Why is modesty an abiding concern, given that we all know the contours of the unclothed body?

In many contexts, and especially today, clothes invite ethical and political assessment. Clothes communicate a great deal of information about us, including our social position and the causes we espouse.

We may knowingly exploit this, choosing to flaunt an obviously expensive garment or to wear our football team’s scarf. In other cases the meanings are imposed. The uniforms forced on prisoners, for example, emphasise subordination and erase their individuality.

Poignantly, research into textile history has uncovered a streak of resistance in even the most ill-treated captives. In concentration camps during the second world war some prisoners altered their uniforms, or mended them, or added pockets. As Moran remarks, these actions were not just practical; their aim, too, was to “recover some sense of identity and dignity”.

Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche by Edvard Munch (1906). Thiel Gallery, Stockholm

In the brilliantly conceived series by Cambridge University Press to which this title belongs, each author discusses some general topic from a perspective that is philosophically informed and at the same time personal.

We need more books like these, to counteract the entrenched pretence of disinterestedness in philosophy. (Nietzsche, exceptionally, saw through it, denouncing philosophers as “advocates who do not want to be seen as such … sly spokesmen for prejudices that they christen as ‘truths’”.)

Knowledge of the significance, in an author’s life, of her subject-matter enriches the reader’s imaginative experience of a book. Describing herself as an “ardent hobbyist” who sews her own clothes, Moran provides an additional facet to her account of today’s fashion industry and its scandalous environmental costs.

The reader knows that Moran herself has found an alternative. This lends a certain authority to her judgement that, however futile it may seem for any one person to step off the fast-fashion bus: “There is an important moral difference between being inefficacious and being innocent.”

Moran shows how many areas of philosophy can illuminate the phenomenon of clothes: not only ethics and political thought, but also aesthetics, theories of communication, of personal identity, of gender and cultural appropriation.

For readers unfamiliar with academic philosophy, these forays offer a path into a rich conceptual landscape. Along the way, we are offered a multitude of riveting facts. Who would have guessed that pink has not always been for girls, and blue for boys? And there are pictures, too. My highlight was the “revenge dress” that Princess Diana wore to a gala dinner in the midst of hostilities with Charles, in a successful bid to divert press attention from his appearance on TV.

Sarah Richmond, Honorary Associate Professor of Philosophy, University College London (UCL).

Inside Yuima Nakazato’s Paris Haute Couture Show: Before the Wintry Rites of the Glacier Collection

Backstage before the Yuima Nakazato show as model Akuol Deng Atem is dressed in a sleek gown of silvery porcelain plates. Photograph (above) by Jay Zoo for DAM

Yuima Nakazato prepared to unveil his new haute couture collection Glacier at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. From the rehearsal led by the Japanese designer and Communications and Creative Officer Bradly Dunn Klerks to the quiet rituals of dressing, sewing, and transformation backstage, this intimate photo reportage captures the moments where concept meets craft revealing a collection shaped as much by deep thought and emotion as skill and design. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Andrea Heinsohn and Jay Zoo

Yuima Nakazato and Bradly Dunn Klerks 

at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris after 

the well-received 'Glacier' show. 

Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

IN the cavernous halls of the Palais de Tokyo, in the Passy neighborhood of Paris opposite the Trocadéro, the final rehearsal for Glacier is underway. 

Below the stark light of the storied art centre's industrial spaces, Yuima Nakazato and Bradly Dunn Klerks move with quiet focus through the unfolding sequence. Together, they oversee the details, the alignment of silhouettes, the pace of the walk, the emotional rhythm of the finale. 

At the centre of it all, stands Nakazato, rehearsing his role in the performative piece at the heart of the show: the slow, deliberate pouring of black ink onto the white-shrouded body of dancer Evgeny Ganeev. Even in rehearsal, the moment carried gravity. Around them, models trace their steps across the concrete floor in silence, garments moving and clinking, porcelain masks glinting under the lights. The show is hours away, but already, the world of Glacier has begun to take shape ~ fragile, meditative, and charged with meaning.

Nakazato moves through the rehearsal and the pre-show planning with composure and intent, guiding his team with a steady presence.

Backstage in Paris as a hand-made 

ceramic mask is fitted pre-show. 

Photograph: Jay Zoo

Just beyond the echo of footsteps in the main space, backstage tells a quieter story, one of hands and touch, of seams and stillness. In the fluorescent-lit dressing area, models stand patiently as final fittings are completed and delicate garments are layered onto bodies like a second skin. 

Seamstresses crouch low with needles and thread, adjusting lengths, checking fastenings and the ceramic armour, as fragile as eggshell. Each look requires time and care. Nothing here is rushed.

Hair is sculpted into glacial coils or swept back from the forehead while make-up artists shade eyes with a dash of silver or blue and lips are muted to a pale shade. Ceramic masks are slipped on gently, each one a protective shield as much as an artistic statement. 

Some conceal the face entirely; others leave only a single feature exposed. These coverings, like the garments themselves, carry meaning far beyond aesthetics, they ask questions about identity, anonymity, and resistance in a hyper-visible world.

The show was hours away, but already, the world of Glacier backstage has begun to take shape ~ fragile, meditative, and charged with meaning

Bradly Dunn Klerks looks on as

Yuima Nakazato runs through the 

rehearsal before the show. 

Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Nakazato and Dunn Klerks rehearse and plan the pre-show with composure and intent, adjusting silhouettes, smoothing fluttering textiles, guiding their team with a steady presence. 

His designs ~ long coats bearing giant photographs of bare skin, gowns constructed from translucent layered mesh, mohair-crocheted chainmail threaded with metal ~ are not just garments. They are designed as emotional statements, fragile armours that speak of survival and memory.

These backstage moments are more than preparation, they are the quiet heartbeat of a collection that speaks in gestures, and touch. Here, the spectacle is not performance, but process. The world of Glacier emerges not only in the spotlight, but behind the scenes: in the bowed head of a model being dressed, in the quiet before the ink falls, in the silence of a seam being sewn by hand. 

This is couture not as embellishment, but as an invocation to change. Not as show, but as ceremony. And before a single guest enters the room, Yuima Nakazato has already created his story.

Scroll down to see more behind the scenes before the Yuima Nakazato AW25/26 show in Paris. 

Dancer Evgeny Ganeev, Yuima Nakazato and Bradly Dunn Klerks rehearsing the performance before the Glacier show, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn. 

Backstage models try on the ceramic masks. Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph; Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage as Evgeny Ganeev is in make-up at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph; Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph; Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Evgeny Ganeev rehearsing before his performance at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture.Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph; Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Bradly Dunn Klerks and Yuima Nakazato before the show, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Backstage at Yuima Nakazato, Glacier, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Yuima Nakazato and Bradly Dunn Klerks walk out of the runway space at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Will the Oasis Reunion Usher in a Britpop Summer ~ or is it just a Marketing Ploy?

Liam and Noel Gallagher have reunited Oasis and are touring Europe this summer with shows in the UK and Ireland, part of their 'Oasis Live 25' world tour. 

By Glenn Fosbraey

The trend for naming summers has become something of a cultural phenomenon. Think for example of 2019, which was branded a “hot girl summer”, inspired by rapper Megan Thee Stallion’s song.

In 2021 there was the much-ridiculed “white boy summer” (named after a song of the same name by Tom Hanks’s son, Chet). Then 2022 was “feral girl summer” and 2024, of course, was a “brat summer”, after Charli XCX’s cultural phenomenon album Brat.

And this summer? Well, with the likes of Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass, Suede, Shed Seven and Cast all playing UK dates between June and August, it’s “Britpop summer”, of course. The question is, though, whether these names are actually (and accurately) representing the zeitgeist, or if they are just the result of savvy marketing strategies.

Such things may now be occurring more frequently, but they’re nothing new. The year 1967 was famously coined “the summer of love”, a moniker supposedly invented by the Californian local government to put a positive spin on the druggy, hairy, hippy gatherings taking place across the state.

Then, just over two decades later, there came the imaginatively titled “second summer of love” in 1988 which, like its predecessor was drug-inspired, but this time involved British ravers taking ecstasy in London warehouses instead of hippies “dropping acid” in San Franciscan parks.

The “summer of love” has largely been presented to us as a psychedelic utopia, wherein London was the “swinging, cool and hip” epicentre of a new cultural movement. Everyone was blissfully stoned, with messages of peace and love on their lips, kaftans and floral blouses on their bodies and flowers in their hair.

In reality, though, in the UK at least only 8% of adults had actually tried cannabis and fewer than 1% had taken LSD or acid, and the fashion of the day (for men, anyway) involved sensible slacks and short-back-and-sides.

Such un-psychedelic appetites also spilled over into mainstream music. Although it’s now the UK’s bestselling album ever, in 1967, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was only the sixth-biggest album of the year in terms of sales. It was bested by the very suitably non-flower-power Herb Alpert, The Monkees and The Sound of Music soundtrack.

Pink Floyd’s debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn – “the founding masterpiece in psychedelic music” – sold 275,000 copies in 1967 in the UK (compared to The Sound of Music’s 2.4 million) and was number 34 on the list of big-selling albums in the UK that year.

The same year, 1967, also saw the “best double-A side ever released”, The Beatles’ Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever. It was kept off the number one spot by Engelbert Humperdinck’s Please Release Me.

Inside the so-called ‘second summer of love’.

It seems, then, that for most of the British public, it was less a “summer of love” and more a “summer of Humperdinck”. Fast-forward five decades, and we see the same kinds of things happening. The year 2019 was a “hot girl summer”, Megan Thee Stallion’s song only peaked at 40 in the UK singles charts and her gigs sold poorly.

Like our “summer of Humperdinck”, were such things based on popularity, we may have expected a “Sheeran summer”, with Ed Sheeran’s duet with Justin Bieber, I Don’t Care, dominating the charts and airwaves.

Similarly, although 2024 was a “brat summer”, Charli XCX’s album was actually only the UK’s eighth-biggest selling album of the year, with Taylor Swift’s very un-Brat-like The Tortured Poets Department achieving 783,820 sales – almost double Brat’s.

Britpop summer

Britpop itself may have peaked in 1995, but in the summer of 1996, with Oasis and Blur still omnipresent, Tony Blair talking about the prospect of freedom, aspiration and ambition, England progressing through the Euros on home soil, and sunny day after sunny day, it was (according to The Guardian, at least) the most optimistic period in recent British history where anything seemed possible.

Pulp performed a secret set at Glastonbury 2025 to huge crowds.

We may all have become more cynical in the intervening years, but in the midst of another heatwave, with Pulp at Glastonbury, and the Gallaghers reunited, it does feel like there’s something in the air again.

Indeed, standing among tens of thousands of fellow music fans in the sweltering heat watching Jarvis Cocker strutting his gangly stuff, if I ignored the grey in his beard, the iPhones in the crowd, and the aching in my legs, it could have been the nineties all over again.

Britpop summer? I’m all for it. And maybe this will be one time that the name really does represent the nation’s mood.

Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester