Peace, Love, and Bell Bottoms

I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, when love always seemed to be part of the conversation.

The Vietnam War helped spark the peace movement, and before long Peace & Love seemed to be everywhere. Peace signs, flowers, music, clothing - they all became part of the culture around us.

And I loved it.

I wore bell-bottom pants with enormous bells at the bottom, often decorated with flowers and big, prominent peace symbols. I wore my hair in the shag that was popular at the time, and like so many other young people, I was always flashing the peace sign.

We weren't dressing up to represent an era.

We were simply living in it.

Music was a huge part of those years too. There always seemed to be a song playing somewhere, and the music became as much a part of our memories as the clothes we wore and the way we styled our hair.

Looking back, I understand that the world around us wasn't particularly peaceful. There was war, protest, social change, and plenty of division.

Maybe that's part of the reason the message of Peace & Love meant so much.

For young people growing up during those years, those words represented hope. They represented the idea that perhaps people could accept one another, live a little more freely, and treat each other with a little more kindness.

Decades have passed, fashions have changed, and those enormous bell-bottoms eventually disappeared from my closet.

But I've never lost my affection for what they represented.

A flower, an old song, or a simple peace sign can still take me back to those years - to the music, the clothes, the freedom of being young, and a time when Peace & Love seemed like a pretty good answer to almost everything.

That's why I created the Peace & Love Collection.

It's not about politics.

It's a celebration of the culture I grew up in, the memories that stayed with me, and two ideas that I still believe never go out of style:

Peace & Love.

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