
1970s · 1960s · British
Designer
Veronica Papworth
Production
ready-to-wear
Material
wool knit
Culture
British
Movement
Op Art · Hippie / Counterculture
Influences
Op Art movement · 1960s geometric fashion
A fashion illustration depicts a figure wearing a fitted black sweater featuring bold white geometric diamond or chevron patterns across the torso. The sweater has long sleeves and a high neckline, paired with slim-fitting light-colored trousers and dark shoes. The figure wears what appears to be a close-fitting cap or head covering. The geometric patterning on the sweater reflects the Op Art influence prevalent in 1960s fashion, with sharp contrasting black and white motifs creating visual movement. The overall silhouette is streamlined and modern, characteristic of mid-1960s youth fashion that emphasized clean lines and graphic elements over traditional feminine curves.
The graphic geometry pulsing across that '70s British sweater and the bold color-blocking of the Italian poncho both spring from Op Art's visual tricks, but they deploy the movement's language in completely different ways.


The zigzag lightning bolt that cuts across the 1970s sweater's chest finds its electric echo in the sequined dress's swirling geometric patterns—both garments drunk on Op Art's visual tricks, one rendering them in stark black and white wool, the other in molten orange sequins that catch light like a disco ball.


Follow this garment wherever the graph leads
The geometric diamond lattice cascading down this 1970s sweater and the radiating petals of these 1960s earrings both pulse with Op Art's hypnotic energy, proving the movement's reach extended far beyond gallery walls into everyday wardrobes.
These two pieces capture the moment when Op Art escaped the gallery and colonized the closet, turning bodies into walking geometric puzzles. The sketch shows a precise interlocking diamond pattern that creates visual vibration through black-and-white contrast, while the blazer translates similar angular energy into a softer, more wearable vocabulary of intersecting lines in burgundy and cream.
That orange mini dress pulses with the same optical fever dream as the black-and-white sweater sketch, both drunk on the zigzag geometries that made Op Art the defining visual language of the mid-1960s. The dress pushes those chevrons into acidic, psychedelic territory — pure Carnaby Street energy — while the sweater domesticates the same retinal burn into something you could actually wear to work without causing seizures.