Mod to Suedehead

Originally Posted by Man-of-Mystery

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Well, pork pie hats were very much the "Blue Beat" era. I never saw a single one in S E London or elsewhere during skinhead or suedehead era. The picture in the article you showed appears to be a spoof,

The hat in the illustration there appears to be the trilby I described.
I would say the last time Blue Beat Hats were worn,would be in `67.Used to buy mine from a little Jamaican Hat Shop in Brixton.The Trilby I wore was about `69,my Mate bought it off me and carried on wearing it-through the early `70s.

Originally Posted by browniecj

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.The Trilby I wore was about `69,my Mate bought it off me and carried on wearing it-through the early `70s.

That's about the right era.

Thanks MoM and Browniecj, I was sure I'd seen pics & read (Skinhead, Soul Stylists) of PP/blue beat hats in that era but the lack of pictorial evidence and your first hand recollections puts the kibosh on that I suppose.

MoM, when you refer to a spoof I take it you mean that tabloid article. Yeah, there's something that doesn't quite sit right with that picture, I think its the barnet. There's another Daily Mirror article with a suedehead character and a bird, I'm sure he's got a pork pie on though could be a trilby, this could be posed as well - it's in 'Spirit of '69' I think but I don't have the book to hand at the moment.

This is the sort of hat I was thinking of....

'Gent, I know that type of hat of course, but never saw it worn in '69. By the way, much as I like the drawings above, I have another caveat to add. The three guys at the front are not really wearing specific fashion items, but rather they are representative of a trend away from wearing identifiable skinhead clothes and towards individualism. In that period we were all moving towards a more "arty" or even hippyish look; we didn't think "Oh great, Rupert Bear trousers are 'in', so I must go and buy some" - no, we started wearing whatever we wanted to wear. The fact that two of the guys are wearing either two-tone strides or jeans with turnups is more to do with the fact that that is what they still had in their wardrobes at home. The fact that one guy is wearing a penny collar means nothing more than he saw the shirt in a shop and liked it. Do you get what I'm saying? It occurs to me that the "Rupert Bear" strides may in fact have been PoW check with a red chalk-stripe in window-pane configuration. PoW check clothes in the late skinhead era did sometimes have such a chalk-stripe, and again the guy in the picture may simply be wearing what he had in his wardrobe. The Fair Isle yoked sweater worries me a bit - there was a vogue for them amongst Casuals in the early 1980s... Just a few thoughts.

Originally Posted by Man-of-Mystery

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'Gent, I know that type of hat of course, but never saw it worn in '69.

By the way, much as I like the drawings above, I have another caveat to add. The three guys at the front are not really wearing specific fashion items, but rather they are representative of a trend away from wearing identifiable skinhead clothes and towards individualism. In that period we were all moving towards a more "arty" or even hippyish look; we didn't think "Oh great, Rupert Bear trousers are 'in', so I must go and buy some" - no, we started wearing whatever we wanted to wear. The fact that two of the guys are wearing either two-tone strides or jeans with turnups is more to do with the fact that that is what they still had in their wardrobes at home. The fact that one guy is wearing a penny collar means nothing more than he saw the shirt in a shop and liked it. Do you get what I'm saying?

It occurs to me that the "Rupert Bear" strides may in fact have been PoW check with a red chalk-stripe in window-pane configuration. PoW check clothes in the late skinhead era did sometimes have such a chalk-stripe, and again the guy in the picture may simply be wearing what he had in his wardrobe.

The Fair Isle yoked sweater worries me a bit - there was a vogue for them amongst Casuals in the early 1980s...

Just a few thoughts.

Thanks MoM, I know what you're saying, styles were moving from a tightly defined style to a looser interperation. The 'Ruperts' could be tartan (?), there was a fad in the early '90's for tartan & louder checked trews on the revival scene. Also very Specials c1980...





To me some of the suedehead styles seemed to hark back to the more dandy mod look for example the guy in the polo neck looks a lot like Reg King of the Action. Also at the end of 'Bronco Bullfrog' Bronco turns up in a paisley shirt/tie combo with correspondent shoes which could be straight outta the Small Faces in '67...

Originally Posted by Southlondongent

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Thanks MoM, I know what you're saying, styles were moving from a tightly defined style to a looser interperation. The 'Ruperts' could be tartan (?)

I didn't see any tartan until the days of the Bay City Rollers and Roy Wood.

Seriously, I have given this a lot of thought. I can't recall seeing anyone in tartan strides in the suedehead transition. The first time I bought windowpane check strides was in late 1971, way beyond the era we're talking about.

Originally Posted by Southlondongent

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To me some of the suedehead styles seemed to hark back to the more dandy mod look for example the guy in the polo neck looks a lot like Reg King of the Action. Also at the end of 'Bronco Bullfrog' Bronco turns up in a paisley shirt/tie combo with correspondent shoes which could be straight outta the Small Faces in '67...

Well yes, but you have to remember that BB is a film. I'll not say anything more than that.

Originally Posted by Southlondongent

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Weren't straw trilbies also worn or was that just a late mod thing?

Don't think it's a straw trilby here's some more from this fella: Someone's wearing a Trilby here at least:

Originally Posted by Southlondongent

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This is the sort of hat I was thinking of....
Yeah that's supposedly John's hat he originally wore from skinhead till the early 70s including the Player no.6 voucher (but I wonder hwo he kept it so neat and clean through all those years). We could ask him, but I think he was just really fond of his bluebeat hat.

Originally Posted by Southlondongent

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There's another Daily Mirror article with a suedehead character and a bird, I'm sure he's got a pork pie on though could be a trilby, this could be posed as well
This one?

Originally Posted by loempiavreter

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Don't think it's a straw trilby here's some more from this fella:

Someone's wearing a Trilby here at least:

Yeah that's supposedly John's hat he originally wore from skinhead till the early 70s including the Player no.6 voucher (but I wonder hwo he kept it so neat and clean through all those years). We could ask him, but I think he was just really fond of his bluebeat hat.



This one?

Nice one, Loempiavreter, I don't recall seeing those top photo's before. Yeah, that's the Mirror pic. Is John on here, or just Modculture? His input would be interesting.

That could even be the same guy from the pic I said was a spoof. There is just something about this pic which doesn't ring true for me. It's as though they said, to a certain extent, "Here, wear this, and this... good, now pose like that..."

And the whole "suedehead/smooth" thing - you have to remember it was a very short phase altogether, and people didn't really "call" themselves anything. There wasn't another "movement". I just have the impression that media people were looking for another tag, another story, "What do you call yourselves now?"

"Oh great," somebody thought. "I'll write a book called 'Suedehead'!"

"Oh great," somebody thought. "I'll make a film called 'Bronco Bullfrog'!"

I know I sound pretty cynical about this, but I was around at the time, saw the tabloid articles, saw the episode of "Softly Softly" about the "skinhead gang" (it was crap - a total parody), read the short stories in magazines where the skinheads were the villians (they were crap), heard and saw the interviews where the reporters asked stupid questions (they were crap)... the whole thing. I was even interviewed a couple of times myself for national papers. I guess all this was one reason I tried to start "Yell", but that was a bit of a flop too.

In the 60s there had been mods and rockers, skinheads and greasers. The media were just looking for the next "big thing". "Suedehead" wasn't it!

P S. The girl is really cute, though!

I know what you mean, MoM. It seems the term 'suedehead' has taken on more importance retrospectively than it had at the time, a bit like 'hard mod' or 'northern soul' if you know what I mean.

Yeah, I thought that lad in the Mirror could be the same one as in the other clipping too.

Originally Posted by Southlondongent

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I know what you mean, MoM. It seems the term 'suedehead' has taken on more importance retrospectively than it had at the time, a bit like 'hard mod' or 'northern soul' if you know what I mean.

I do recall thinking that something of the ethos of the Northern mods actually carried over into the "Northern Soul" scene, and a few elements of the look too, and that maybe if I had stayed up north I would have found myself there too. Certainly by '68 in the Twisted Wheel we were already doing some of the dance moves that became associated with NS, and when the Wheel chucked out we would go to a club in Oldham (called "The Top Twenty" or some such) which opened on Friday night and didn't close until Monday morning - so we already had the "All-Nighter".

When I left Blackpool in '68, one of the "mini-mods" there was a guy called Jon Le Saint, who went on to become a well-known Northern Soul DJ. I wonder what happened to him?

Anyhow, just found a pic of three skins and a hairy bloke. The latter is a guy called Ady Croasdell from Market Harborough. Given that he is now "over half a century old" (only a bit younger than me) I would guess that the pic here of the "Harboro Soul Skins" is early 1970s at the latest, maybe even 1969. They do not look like revival skinheads, and fashions changed at different rates away from the capital.


Anyhow, I didn't stay up north, I moved to London, and the rest - as they say - is history.

Just googling through again, and I have come up with quite a lot of pre-1971 pictures of the Twisted Wheel club in Manchester. Precise dates are not given and some of the pics are indistinct. But quite a lot of these are likely to be late 60s.



Given that the one below is of a gig by Ben E King I feel I might have been there! It's difficult to say - depends on the actual date (which of course I don't know).


The next one shows some interesting Northern fashion items (which makes me think that maybe it was shot some time after I left the North). There's a guy with a jean-jacket and one with a monkey jacket - okay we had those in Blackpool in '68 - and there's a guy with a Fair Isle sweater and check pants, the like of which I have never seen on anyone before.




Those jean-jackets are just SO Northern!




I certainly remember the columns holding the ceiling up.


This guy appears to have a leather zipper on.


Now this picture is dated - 1967.


This picture was from a Northern Soul site, but carried no details of date. Early '70s?


It's amazing what's out there.

Some interesting pics there, MoM. Imagine, seeing Ben E King at the Wheel!

The last photo (colour) to me is almost reminiscent of the Undertones - the kinda bootboy look that didn't really die out in some areas in the '70's.

Now, this has prompted me to mention something I've been thought for a long time. Even though Reggae is synomynous with the original Skinheads, it seems that in the North soul was of equal importance, even maybe more so, than Reggae with the Northern Skins. Were there many Reggae clubs in the North and was it as popular as down South?

Originally Posted by Southlondongent

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Were there many Reggae clubs in the North and was it as popular as down South?

Now, that I can't say, as I wasn't there. I was down South! However, given the strength that Soul still had up there, and given that there was a more cohesive West Indian community in London, I would doubt it.