Mod to Suedehead

[Inks]

One mans meat ...I was chuckling yesterday about those non brogue DM shoes,spastic shoes in my book..and before anyone kicks off about the word spastic it wasn't an insult back then.

Apparently Kickers had a red dot on one sole, and a green dot on one sole as some sort of deaf-code, and the soles were made of a certain rubber, so deaf kids could feel vibrations. Absolute BS, but funny as F for those of us that hated them.
.

 

[Bob the Badger]

The Kickers look like something you would buy for a five year old. Many 'adult' clothes today seem to be an extension of what childrens' wear is. Men dress like overgrown babies and children.

Going back to boots I vaguely remember rubber-soled commando boots. In the late '60s you were never far away from an Army and Navy store that supplied cheap clothing and footwear. I bought officer boots and jungle greens from an A&N near Fords motor works.They generally sold to Ford factory workers but we bought our street wear there. I quickly moved on to the 'softer' end of the skinhead 'outfits' when we stopped hanging about on street corners and started to go to pubs and clubs that had a strict clothes policy. Gangs that stayed local kept to the hard look but my mob travelled over London, going back to our roots in East London, occasionally visiting the Lyceum West End and even venturing to the Old Kent Road and Borough when we felt really brave.We were open to new changing ideas in clothes as worn by other mobs. None of my mates wore hobnail or steel toe capped boots. We would have laughed at anyone wearing them. I don't remember many shops selling DM's (we called them 'Martens', with a soft T) in 1968 but we bought ours from Blackmans in Brick Lane.I don't remember them being that expensive but anyway you only needed one pair. When mine became old I wore them on building site summer jobs. We kept them clean, polished and shiny when new but never bothered to clean them when used as workwear.
Nails through the sole was a problem and we repaired them over mums gas stove with a hot flat knife. Repairs were a bit hit and miss and that's when the boots usually became workwear.

 

[Bob the Badger]

My Mob bought their first Harringtons (Baracutas) from the Squire shop (He did sell them then) in late 1969. I remember that I was a bit dissapointed because I thought Harringtons were American (after watching Peyton Place) and mine had 'Made in England' on the label. Mine was bottle green and we all tried to have different colours but not black . I seem to remember that black became the main colour for knock-off Harringtons as sold in Millets and in the market. What puzzles me is when Millets started to sell them because I don't remember any knock off Harringtons in my area before 1970. Did Millets sell them earlier? Because we paid a premium for our Harringtons we looked down on copies but by the time everyone was wearing them we had moved on anyway.

 

[Bob the Badger]

Regarding jeans, everyone in my area wanted Red Tab 501's in the mid late '60s. The type you sat in the bath in and waited for them to shrink 4 inches in length and 1 inch in the waist. In 1970 I bought a pair of ready shrunk Orange tab Levi's (from Millets?) but I always regarded them as inferior. I then went on to wear Lee Rider jeans and I wear Lee to this day. Like many of us I still bought Levi cords and Sta Prest in 68/69/70.
Jeans sold today bare no comparison to what was once sold. This comment goes for many other items of clothing including footwear and shirts.
If you lived in or around London in 1969 it was possible to buy good quality clothes at reasonable prices. Today I find it almost impossible to buy on the high street. What is on offer is cheap and shite or expensive and shite. Take your pick.

 

[Kingstonian]



Regarding jeans, everyone in my area wanted Red Tab 501's in the mid late '60s. The type you sat in the bath in and waited for them to shrink 4 inches in length and 1 inch in the waist. In 1970 I bought a pair of ready shrunk Orange tab Levi's (from Millets?) but I always regarded them as inferior. I then went on to wear Lee Rider jeans and I wear Lee to this day. Like many of us I still bought Levi cords and Sta Prest in 68/69/70.
Jeans sold today bare no comparison to what was once sold. This comment goes for many other items of clothing including footwear and shirts.
If you lived in or around London in 1969 it was possible to buy good quality clothes at reasonable prices. Today I find it almost impossible to buy on the high street. What is on offer is cheap and shite or expensive and shite. Take your pick.

Marks stuff was 90% British in those days. When that policy stopped many suppliers folded so imported tat is often all that is available now..

Regarding jeans, there is a good thread on Wrangler MWZ13 http://forums.filmnoirbuff.com/viewtopic.php?id=15044

 

[Mr Knightley]

Regarding Harringtons, yes Millets sold them from about 1969 in my area (Chelmsford) and I had a navy one. Friends that had the Baracuta could not really detect much of an improvement over the Millets version, I recall. We all tried to have different colours too! In pursuit of that objective some ended up with some odd colours including I think a two-tone beige!

By late 1970 we had all sold them to the 'next level' of kids to fund the next project - whatever that was.....

 

[Pressure_Drop]



Thats a shame,I can remember your sheepskin very well, you sometimes wore a badge in the sheepskin lapel,I had a slightly darker one with brown sheepskin collar/lapels.
On e bay sheepskins seem quite reasonably priced,I am guessing that they are not too popular at the moment,I said that I wouldnt have another one but I did think that one would look good with jeans and a pair of brown Paraboot Michael.
They are a great coat for a dry cold day  IMO.
BTW,I hope that you have restricted  your mrs access to the loft now or your Monkey boots will be going missing next !

Bloody hell, you got a good memory! I used to wear a Union Jack button badge in the lapel, in fact it was almost welded to it (this was during my dark 'dalliance with the far right' days). Monkey boots safe and sound and under lock and key under the stairs.

 

[Mr Knightley]

Fashions and styles in the 1960s moved at a tremendous rate. You can date what year a photo was taken, by the amount of shirt-cuff protruding from a gents suit sleeve, or the trouser length, the type of finish on the polish of a shoe, or turn-up on jeans. A woman could identify the month of the year, and the day of the week the photo was taken by the un-subtle way that ladies fashion changed back then (and has changed since). This may be a misogynistic hypothesis, but women have been a lot more concerned with, 'fashion' than they have been with 'style'. I have a lot less embarrassing 'what the F was I wearing then' photos than Mrs. Inks has. Another fast moving fashion decade for both male and female was the 1980s (which I opted out of in it's entirety) A bloke might be concerned with the 5mm difference in tie-clip length, or collar-roll on a BD shirt over a 1 year period. A ladies skirt length may have dropped 20 inches, changed fabric, colour and overall style in half of that time-frame.
I only say this, because my first wife would pay twice as much as myself on a shoddy pair of 'designer' hoofs, as I would on a pair of hand-made heels. She'd wear them maybe twice and chuck 'em in the back of the closet. I'm still rocking my onesans 15 years later. Primark aside, women really do get F'd-over when it comes to cloth.

I think it is an Englishwoman's disease. Italian girls are far more interested in style, buy fewer but much better clothes, keep them much longer and generally look chicer for it. French too, but I think that is changing fast.

Returning to the Englishwoman, thankfully they are not all alike and Original Modernist, Gill Evans who coined the term 'Continentalist' in the very early 60s does like to look back and has, she told me yesterday, joined Style Forum. So we may soon be able to do what cerneabbas was wanting.

 

[Bob the Badger]

Regarding Harringtons, yes Millets sold them from about 1969 in my area (Chelmsford) and I had a navy one. Friends that had the Baracuta could not really detect much of an improvement over the Millets version, I recall. We all tried to have different colours too! In pursuit of that objective some ended up with some odd colours including I think a two-tone beige!

By late 1970 we had all sold them to the 'next level' of kids to fund the next project - whatever that was.....

A mate of mine ended up with a lime green one that at the time we all thought was great. Another friend had a almost brilliant white one. We never went down the two-tone route though. I can't remember what casual jacket if any I bought after that (in the 90s I had a Ralph Lauren) but I did have a Levi jean jacket for a while when it all started to go wrong in the 1970s

 

[Clouseau]

That's great, and hope to see some more pictures.

I had some spare time today at lunchtime. So i took an "autolib" (electric car you can rent easily and for cheap in the town) and drove to the other side of Paris, to the Rue de la Pompe, where stands the "Whitehouse", the shop Renoma opened fifty years ago, in 1963.
There is a small exhibition in the shop for the "jubilee" of Renoma. In the 60s, this shop soon became famous. You could meet there the "Minets", the notorious ones from the Drugstore gang as the others, and celebrities from all over the world : Dali, Gainsbourg, Catherine Deneuve, Warhol, Dylan, Picasso, Jean Seberg, Lagerfeld, YSL, Lennon, Jagger, BB... etc.
Renoma clothes were used in movies at the time. Maurice Renoma was a photographer too, and the main part of the exhibition consists in pictures he took of his friends, his models, and his clothes. They are the bulk of the exhibition, retracing fifty years of fashion. There is a lot of press-cuts too, and of course clothes, shoes, and accessories.
i couldn't take too many pictures, because of the salesmen and the customers, the exhibition is in the shop. I tried to shoot different things that the ones you could see in my last post on the subject.


This is a window outside the shop. you can see the famous Renoma blazer with a patch (ignore the jacket on the right). In the back, an ad from the sixties. At the time, you bought the Renoma Blazer (all the Minets wanted one) and choose a patch you had to saw yourself. Renoma did SB and DB.



This is a press-cut from the Herald Tribune dated 1963, mentioning Renoma, and the beginning of the fashion followed by those who'd be later called "Minets".



This is the famous "Vasarely" jacket by Renoma, made from 1964 to 1968. There is a reedition today in a capsule collection for the 50th birthday, called "Flashback".
Vasarely was an artist, leader of the Op-art movement, who was a great inspiration for M.Renoma. He did various patterns for his jackets inspired by Vasarely. Very mod i think.



This one is from the "Bonnie & Clyde" collection, 1968-1969.



This is the Renoma jacket wore by John lennon for "Imagine".





Various shoes and accessories :

 

[cerneabbas]

Regarding jeans, everyone in my area wanted Red Tab 501's in the mid late '60s. The type you sat in the bath in and waited for them to shrink 4 inches in length and 1 inch in the waist. In 1970 I bought a pair of ready shrunk Orange tab Levi's (from Millets?) but I always regarded them as inferior. I then went on to wear Lee Rider jeans and I wear Lee to this day. Like many of us I still bought Levi cords and Sta Prest in 68/69/70.
Jeans sold today bare no comparison to what was once sold. This comment goes for many other items of clothing including footwear and shirts.
If you lived in or around London in 1969 it was possible to buy good quality clothes at reasonable prices. Today I find it almost impossible to buy on the high street. What is on offer is cheap and shite or expensive and shite. Take your pick.

Bob the Badger,I agree with you about the Levis after my first pair I thought that they went downhill quality wise,I tried Wranglers and then wore Lee for a long time,I thought that they had a better shape.
I went into Reiss yesterday,I had noticed a 3 button blazer in the window and a grey Crombie style coat,up close I was not impressed with the material and for the quality on offer I think their stuff comes under your category "expensive and shite"....I would rather pay more and get good quality,but where ?

 

[cerneabbas]

Bloody hell, you got a good memory! I used to wear a Union Jack button badge in the lapel, in fact it was almost welded to it (this was during my dark 'dalliance with the far right' days). Monkey boots safe and sound and under lock and key under the stairs.

I couldn't remember what badge it was,only that I copied you by wearing an enamel badge in the sheepskin lapel ( Rovers or West Ham).
I think that quite a lot of people wore enamel badges ( not button ones ) back then ( mainly football ),I was talking to the GF about it today and she agreed that its something else that you don't see now,I wonder if people think that it will give someone an opportunity to start trouble?...I have looked some of my collection out, as usual the GF thinks that I should sell them,they just don't understand sometimes !.
Are you tempted to buy another sheepskin ?,plenty on e bay,the GF says that they would probably stink and be full of moths that would destroy my clothes,oh and if I do buy one I cant wear it when I am out with her.!.....I almost think that she dosent want me to have one.

 

[roytonboy]

Some good post over the last couple of days, nicely 'on topic'

Harringtons, I believe, really underline the difference between the north and the south, particularly London. Whilst you were not only wearing them a good twelve months earlier than us, you wore a range of colours. I didn't see my first one until late 1970, outside Maine Road. It was a black one. For 18 months previously we had all been wearing denim jackets by Levi or Wrangler. I use the term 'all' thoughtfully as it virtually was a uniform, the vast majority of us dressed pretty much the same. (by the same token - those colour photos of that mob from London that caused so much discussion would have raised a few laughs by us at the time - a couple of the lads look like they had been dressed by their Mum .- not 'skinhead' attire to us at all). The first person that I knew who had a Harrington was Steve Howe, who turned up at the school Christmas disco (1970) in one. It was Prince of Wales check. I believe it was only the second one I had seen, certainly the first one I had seen close up. Steve Howe was one of these lads who had wealthy parents and always had the smartest, most up to date clothes. By January 1971 I was starting to see them at Maine Road and lads I knew were talking about getting one, by March the Kippax was awash with them and they were nearly all black - I don't recall seeing other colours at all, except on girls (and they mostly wore black too). It was that 'uniform' thing again. Maybe some united fans wore red later on. Later still there was a brief fad for turning them inside out so they were like a tartan jacket. Of, course, you couldn't do this with the really cheap ones as they had nylon inner sleeves.

 

[Aces and Eights]

Bloody hell, you got a good memory! I used to wear a Union Jack button badge in the lapel, in fact it was almost welded to it (this was during my dark 'dalliance with the far right' days). Monkey boots safe and sound and under lock and key under the stairs.

My that's brought back a memory I had forgotten all about. I had a black badge about 3/4 inch diameter with a white skull and the letters 'THINK' in gold. I recall putting it in after a short while after purchase and it stayed until the coat disintegrated and was thrown out.

The coats fleece seemed to 'grow' around and over the badge - spooky!!

 

[cerneabbas]

Some good post over the last couple of days, nicely 'on topic'

Harringtons, I believe, really underline the difference between the north and the south, particularly London. Whilst you were not only wearing them a good twelve months earlier than us, you wore a range of colours. I didn't see my first one until late 1970, outside Maine Road. It was a black one. For 18 months previously we had all been wearing denim jackets by Levi or Wrangler. I use the term 'all' thoughtfully as it virtually was a uniform, the vast majority of us dressed pretty much the same. (by the same token - those colour photos of that mob from London that caused so much discussion would have raised a few laughs by us at the time - a couple of the lads look like they had been dressed by their Mum .- not 'skinhead' attire to us at all). The first person that I knew who had a Harrington was Steve Howe, who turned up at the school Christmas disco (1970) in one. It was Prince of Wales check. I believe it was only the second one I had seen, certainly the first one I had seen close up. Steve Howe was one of these lads who had wealthy parents and always had the smartest, most up to date clothes. By January 1971 I was starting to see them at Maine Road and lads I knew were talking about getting one, by March the Kippax was awash with them and they were nearly all black - I don't recall seeing other colours at all, except on girls (and they mostly wore black too). It was that 'uniform' thing again. Maybe some united fans wore red later on. Later still there was a brief fad for turning them inside out so they were like a tartan jacket. Of, course, you couldn't do this with the really cheap ones as they had nylon inner sleeves.

roytonboy.The only colours that I remember seeing then in Bristol were black,navy, royal blue and green ( and one in red/black two tone ).
When you mention the wearing of them inside out to show the tartan reminds me that in 71 I saw lads wearing crombies with tartan on the pocket flaps and sometimes on the lapels,did you ever see that in your area ?