If the 1960s were the decade of protest and civil rights, in the 1970s the counterculture generation entered the mainstream. Much of fashion and design reflected wholesome, back-to-nature values. Educated on radical campuses, young office workers wore their hair long. The stuffed-shirt image of the professional classes was lightened with brightly colored ties, wide lapels, and flared trousers. But in the 1980s came a backlash. Many of the middle-class young who came out of college in the late 1970s and early 1980s went into well-paid jobs in finance, the media, law, and property development. In the economic turmoil of the early Reagan presidency (1981–89), anyone who was young and ambitious could make a lot of money and make it fast. They became known as yuppies, which stood for young urban professionals. Their motto for life was "Whoever dies with the most toys wins."

Obsessed with their careers and their...