Remember the expression ‘Free Love’?  If you’re under forty, you won’t; it was something our mums and dads probably didn’t practise, although they would certainly have discussed it, after-dinner conversation over glasses of creme de menthe eventually arriving at the topic of ‘Free Love’.  “Do you think they really do it?” your mum would whisper, thinking herself risqué.  “Nah,” your dad would answer. “Too cold.”

Well it wasn’t too cold in Southern California, and ‘Free Love’ truly did have its moment – a moment captured with time-capsule precision in Taschen’s latest offering, Naked as a Jaybird by Dian Hanson.

Jaybird magazine was a short-lived, but incredibly hip publication which set out to both chronicle and celebrate the sexual revolution.  Closely linked to turn-of-the-century Germanic nudism (Wandervögel), the Jaybird generation set out to explore the relationship between nature and eroticism, the ‘let-it-all-hang-out’ (literally!) ethos of the hippy movement at the heart of the magazine’s joyful embrace of all things groovy.

Published four times a year, Jaybird magazine was part social commentary, part titillation – and all seasoned with a liberal dose of shock-value.  In Naked as a Jaybird, editor Dian Hanson (herself an original Jaybirder) has compiled an extensive collection of original photographs and Jaybird covers, her accompanying text tracing the socio-political history of nudism from its German roots to its Summer of Love explosion – and all with no excuses.

Was Jaybird a pornographic publication?  Looking through the hundreds of wonderfully nostalgic pictures in Hanson’s book, I found myself repeatedly pondering this question. Ultimately, I decided that it was not.   At least, it’s not anymore.  Whilst we find photographs of naked, long-haired boys enjoying themselves in all manner of interesting ways with naked, long-haired girls, the pictures are strangely devoid of pornographic intent.  How can this be?  I would argue that the answer is three-fold. Firstly,  the characters we find kinkily cavorting are not ‘professionals’ – there are no waxed bikini lines, no hammed-up glances of artificial pleasure.  Secondly, there is an innocence about Jaybird which strips it (no pun intended) of the seediness inherent in even the classiest of porn.  And thirdly – and perhaps most importantly – everyone is smiling.  Think about it.  Nobody smiles in porn, yet the residents of Jaybird truly seem to be having a good time, thus imbuing the book with a tremendous sense of fun and positivity.

Naked as a Jaybird may not have ‘worked’ had anyone but our wonderful friends at Taschen taken the helm.  The original magazine – as well as the ethos behind it – were a product of their time, and it is therefore essential that the photographs are situated in the right period.  Taschen have done just that, the book’s design a joyful, tongue-in-cheek tribute to Flower Power graphics.  236 glossy pages explode with colour, the photographs of naked revellers offset with flowers and peace signs, placing the action – not only in the right period – but in the right spirit. These aren’t orgies we’re looking at. These are Love-Ins, man – ‘happenings’ in the truest sense of the word. The book even comes with a page of psychedelic stickers proclaiming the joy of Jaybirding, the entire package a mini time machine transporting us back to an epoch when underarm hair was de rigour and AIDS non-existent.

You can almost hear the Mamas and the Papas in the background.

All in all, Naked as a Jaybird is incredibly fun, a sweetly nostalgic voyage to a time when to be cool meant being young, and being young meant being naked.

Serving Suggestion: Best read naked.

• Click here to learn more about “Naked as a Jaybird”.