1960s paint colours

Pop art, op art and Carnaby Street: the 1960s blew colour wide open. Lolly Pop, created during the decade, captures its optimism in a blazing orange; around it, shocking pink, magenta, violet, lime, chrome yellow and turquoise took to the walls, often against graphic black and white. Interiors opened up, furniture went low and modular, and colour became a material in its own right.

Think in flat blocks: a bold wall in Marble Matt Emulsion behind a low sofa, shelving or doors in Multi-Surface Gloss Paint for a lacquered look, and pure white everywhere else to let the brights breathe.

A little history · 1960 – 1969

The 1960s

Swinging London, Carnaby Street, pop art and the space race: a decade that blew colour wide open, on walls as on dresses.

Lolly Pop, created in the 1960s, with Pure White and Sinner.

The society

Youth takes over

For the first time the young set the fashion. The Beatles, Mary Quant, the miniskirt, the boutiques of Carnaby Street and the King's Road; Warhol's pop art and Bridget Riley's op art passed from the galleries into furnishing fabrics.

Full employment, credit and the first Habitat store, opened in 1964, put design within reach of young households. People bought flat-pack furniture and plastic lamps, and painted their own living rooms orange.

Shocking Pink and Pure White: the pop kitchen of 1966.

The interior

Moulded plastic, open plan and op art

Furniture dropped to floor level: modular sofas, beanbags, low tables. Moulded plastic, smoked glass and chrome replaced wood; the egg chair and the tulip table filled the magazines. Walls came down and the kitchen opened onto the dining room.

On the walls, one flat block of bright colour behind the sofa, or a painted 'supergraphic'; on the fabrics, circles, targets and giant flowers. The black and white of op art was the foil to everything that vibrated.

New Lime and Ultra Violet: a 1968 bedroom.

The colours

Orange, shocking pink, violet and lime

The sixties palette was that of posters and record sleeves: orange, shocking pink, magenta, violet, lime, chrome yellow and turquoise, laid on in flat, frank blocks. Around 1967 psychedelia swirled them together; pure white and black were the breathing space.

Lolly Pop, our blazing orange, was created during the decade. Shocking Pink, Magenta, Vermillion, Mid Chrome, Ultra Violet and Midnight, from our film and theatre range, carry its energy; New Lime and Circle Line, the acid note.

Midnight on one wall, Pure White everywhere else: the sixties in 2026.

The legacy

And today?

The 1973 oil crisis would dim the pop colours in favour of earths and browns. But the sixties gesture, one wall, one colour, very frank, became the 'feature wall' we all know, and coloured plastic never left design.

For the sixties spirit: a block of Lolly Pop, Shocking Pink or Midnight behind a low sofa, everything else in Pure White, and one piece of furniture in Multi-Surface Gloss Paint for the lacquered look. The secret: one bright colour per room.