Mod to Suedehead - Page 709

 

 

Now under a ton in Stuarts in the Bush .. good value considering.

Interesting that your mom didn't want to be seen wit you in Jeans M.O.M.Looks like Mr.Vaughn is wearing a suede jacket.Problem I have with Hawii 5 0 (always loved it)Is there is alot of synthetic materials,not appealing unless it's a Royal Robbins for warmth or my Nylon US Military Parka.Windproof and waterproof and traps heat(gots vents under the arms and i've used them)Slade I love and the Monkees too.

In 68 / 69 very few working class families could afford to buy there boys Levi's / Ben Sherman and certainly Royals . One family in my area had 2 lads who wore all the clobber and the head of the family was a market inspector . Only the better off working class kids wore all the gear most of us just looked on in admiration and made do with 'the look ' which usually meant market snides or wearing your ONE decent shirt to death . A decade later there was more money about . Fred Perry , Slazenger , Pods etc were in Every high st and worn by kids all over the country pre ' Casual ' . I do totally agree that Mod - Skin - soul boy - casual are linked ( many of the same clothes but mainly its the same ethos and kids from the same demographic / families .

I apologise if this has been touched on before, but were there skinheads for want of a better word who completely shied away from the boots and braces ('68-70 era)? Some of the clothes, especially the American Ivy-stylings, are so smart and the working-class element of boots and braces could tarnish an otherwise clean-cut look...I realise it was a particularly UK twist, as we like to do, but perhaps some purists really disapproved ?

In my area of East London/Essex borders, 1968/69 was not a bad time to be white working class. There was full employment, We didn't know anyone on the dole. Plenty of overtime. Time and a half for Saturdays and double time on Sundays. Working a Bank Holiday was sometimes triple time. My dad worked 7 days a week. My mum worked in the city for a bank. All my mates either had full time jobs, having left school at 15/16 or Saturday jobs. I worked on building sites in my school holidays earning nearly the same as my dad. I would not like to grow up in the same area today. The opportunities are practically non existent. Unemployment is rife and there is an underclass relying on state benefits. The neighbours no longer speak English. The schools are rubbish.

We had money in our pockets and we spent it. I had a made to measure mohair suit, Prince of Wales jacket and a real crombie. Shoes/shirts/socks from the Squire shop, Levis from 'The Lane'. And a lot more. We were 'flash' and we knew it.

 

I fully agree with your comments. i am from SE London / Kent borders and I left school in 69 and during that period work was the last issue you were concerned about as you could jack one job in if you had had enough and walk down the road and literally walk into another job.  I was never short of money back in those days.  Clothes and girls were your top priorities.

 

After more than 40 years in the construction industry and a Freelance Chartered Surveyor I now struggle to acquire new contracts due too being 'too old'.  I have become very bitter with this as I expected to be comfortable off at this time off life and not having to live off my savings that I had intended to use to pay for holidays etc when we retired.

 

Sorry - getting a bit political here - but sometimes I think we were better off back in our day

I agree with the Mod to casual branch of the family tree, though I'd probably put the Teds as the pioneers. (I've read of a London based late 1940s 'spiv' street style being adopted by certain kids, still looking for more info. on them though, maybe they were the first?)

I'm glad I'm not the only one having sexual thoughts* about Roy's shoes Gramps


M-o-M
All my brother's Mod/Skin wear was worn to death for work in the early 70s. I had a few bits (mainly jackets) still going by about '82 but they were so bodged up and had really had it by then. Isn't this the way of all clothes, relegated to work wear/for fixing the car in?





* There's a thread on the Styleforum called 'Watch Porn' Don't bother, It's full of photos of bleedin' timepieces! You all know that already though........

 

My last piece of original clothing was my 3/4 length sheepskin.  It was on the big side when I bought it back on 69/70 and it lasted through till around 87 when I wore it to watch a firms football match and my wife said it was embarrassing as it had patches on where necessary repairs had been made (professionally and in my shed) and she reckoned it needed to go in the bin.

 

I thought she was being over the top but when I caught sight of myself in the pavilion windows reflection I knew she was right and back home I cut it up and it went out for the dustman.

 

On refection I should have put in in a bin liner and kept it in the loft. But how far do we go with memories - photos and letters are one thing but if we store every bit of clothing we liked where would it end - keeping every car that we liked??

 

Shirts, suits, shoes etc were all grown out of and discarded after being used for work.  I did keep made to measure suits and trousers for some time just hanging in the wardrobe that had not fitted for some years but when I had to move they were cut up and binned.  Not realizing that I would be here now talking about them

 

Its an unpredictable life

As a new boy on this site I didn't want to get too political myself but I felt it had to be said. I know some of my mates have experienced the ageism thing where you are considered to be too old at 50. Lots of experience going to waste. I am also bitter because I imagined a bright future for the following generations and it hasn't happened.

Back to the clothes, some nice shoes pictured in the previous posts. I used to wear a black pair of American import tassled loafers for school !

Ive seen pics of the first Teddy Boys and they look well smart ( read they had copied the posh lads / officers in the coldstream guards who had all dressed in that style ) but the later long drape look is laughable ( maybe its the Teds version of the shit Mod parka ) .

in the original era of 'Skin' you was to old at 20 . In the mid 70's i had a cousin who had been a really top draw Mod 10 years earlier and he was telling me how he wanted to come up west to a Soul / Funk night but at 28 felt far to old - the age back then was 16 - 20 and he was probably right .

You've all seen these before but in the spirit of the current theme these AE Kenwood in dark brown grain are probably my favourite Ivy / skin shoes at the moment. A friend of mine had some Royal Gibsons in 1970 in this type of leather. I never saw another pair.

I lived in W10 and we were all on our arse . Outdoor carzis , coal fires n tin baths .

lived in Red Wings for the last 10 years - great boots .

Edited by flyfronted - 2/14/13 at 4:33am

Bob the Badger,
We are the same age, I am also bitter, The White working class have been destroyed in this Country and the main cause is mass Immigration, also back in the 50s60s The unskilled was put to work in the Factories..and earned a decent wage, they closed the factories and these people never worked again creating what it now called the underclass, Now they are destroying the Skilled Working class by mass immigration from Eastern Europe, driving down wages, working conditions,and skill levels.

My Mum and Dad could not afford Skinhead cloths for me..so I had a Evening and Saturday job working in Mr Patels Supermarket, We all had jobs back then, and once we left School we could afford Bespoke Suits, Crombies etc..it was a glorious time.

The Skinheads was really the last White Working class Cult/Fashion..it will never happen again, because our Culture has been destroyed.

Last people have wrote in books that the Original skinheads was anti fashion well it may have been, but we was not conscious of this at the time..to us we dressed like our mates and the clobber looked smart, Yes my Mum would say we looked like little old men, i mean 4 or 5 mates knocking at me door in Crombies, Suits and highly polished shoes ,

Some beautiful footwear of late and especially these!

Going back to flyfronted's point, I have heard it argued that Modernists were the first truly 'modern' youth movement as they looked forward rather than back - as Teds did. Their tag (Teddy Boy) was indeed a reference to the fact that their attire (if not their attitude!) harked back to the Glory Days of the Edwardian period.

In her excellent book ‘Fashion for Men’, Diana de Marly argues that in the early post-War years, British society was lacking a male fashion lead with no Prince of Wales and a Duke of Edinburgh that had no interest in clothes. The vacuum was unexpectedly filled by working-class young men in south London who adopted in 1953 the ‘Edwardian look’. As the look rapidly spread across the country it exaggerated the original model with a lengthening of the jacket to mid-thigh and the introduction of the DA hairstyle. Familiar story eh?

What shocked society and especially the upper classes who had, until then, set fashion in England was the speed with which this working-class movement gathered pace....