The 1960s are usually remembered through their blondes, but the women with dark hair gave the decade most of its texture, from Hollywood veterans and European art house stars to models, singers and television faces who quietly changed what glamour looked like. These photographs catch them mid career, before the nostalgia industry decided what each of them meant. What follows is a look at sixty women who defined the era on their own terms.
Elizabeth Taylor Turned the Decade Into Her Own Spectacle
By the time the sixties arrived, Elizabeth Taylor was already a name that needed no introduction, and the decade somehow made her larger still. Cleopatra put her at the centre of the most talked about production of the era, while Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? proved she could carry heavy dramatic material without a trace of vanity. Her private life ran alongside all of it, followed by newspapers on several continents.
Nothing about her read as understated. The violet eyes, the dark hair, the glamour worn without apology. She never asked a room for its attention, she simply took it. Photographs from those years still carry that charge, the sense of a woman who understood exactly how much power she was holding and had no intention of putting it down.