it's odd i've never been in a mental hospital

shamrockmonkey wrote:

because there arent any in Chinatown.

There was that Urinary Hospital (St. John's?) on the Leicester Square / Chinatown boarders. Lisle Street?

Can't be bothered to check any of these details now, including my spelling.

I'm 16 again!

Turns out St. Johns was for diseases of the skin. Isn't it a pub now? Hogshead or somesuch.

The piss hospital was St Pauls, up across from Angels on Shaftsbury Ave., more or less.

^ I only Googled this - I have absolutely no intention of checking or really trying to remember what's what.

I'm 16.!

shamrockmonkey wrote:

damnit. i was looking forward to telling my friends about english urinary mental hospitals.

If I wasn't 16 I'd Google all the old Clap establishments for you...

Aged 8. Sta-prest for school, orange tab Levi's for outside. Cheap harrington from a stall at the cattle show or Scotland 1978 world cup anorak. Monkey boots or Clarks Polyveldts. Quite long hair (mum wouldn't let me get a crew cut!) Music - Two Tone, Jam, Adam Ant.

sunra wrote:

I was 14. I saw my beloved Tottenham lift the FA Cup. I had recently moved on from a Rude Boy/ Dexy's Soul rebel look to the new style of  inner London youth circa 1981- The Casual. My favourite items of clothing in 1981 were Lacoste Polo shirts/ Farah trousers/Stan Smith trainers.

A sad year for football indeed. Amazing looking back how fluid one's style choices can be at that age and how susceptible one can be to the caprices of fashion. Only twelve months earlier I had been desperate to own Ben Sherman shirts and 'tonik' trousers from the likes of Mr. By-rite. I had experimented with what, in my eyes, is still one of the great lost looks: the Fair Isle jumper and Tartan trews look which had seen skinhead move to smooth a decade earlier. You tended to fall hard for what pop musicians wore in those days.

In the space of a few months I remember coveting a zoot suit (!), the dress shirts of the American Air Force, vintage hand-printed ties bought at suburban jumble sales for 5p, cycling shirts from the Londsdale shop on Beak Street, Jam shoes, bowling shoes, DMs, Chelsea boots from Shelly's, adidas gazelles and so on and so on.

Moving back from the suburbs to inner London and discovering Flip was the moment where everything came together for me. Snapshots from favourite films were suddenly made real and the stuff was, even for a teenager, really cheap. I remember my brother coming back from Flip with a binliner full of clothes which included a charcoal herringbone Chesterfield from Brooks. I started wearing Towncraft, Arrow etc. dress shirts to school. High quality vintage clothing seemed to be everywhere in London in those days: Carnaby Street indoor market, Cuba in New Oxford Street, Chelsea Antique Market, Camden Market and on and on.

The transition to a more defined and thoroughly coherent Ivy look would probably come some eighteen months later with the first visit to J. Simons, but I remember 1981 as a revelatory year.

The success of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" had prompted Inferno to re-issue Gloria Jones's original version on a see-through vinyl twelve with a dozen Northern Soul classics on the reverse. I'm sure I wasn't alone in having my wellington boots blown off by Frankie Beverley & The Butlers. A couple of hundred miles away Wigan Casino was closing its doors for the last time but for a generation of kids too young to have ever visited there the seeds were being sown of the next wave.

Natural Sole Brother wrote:

The transition to a more defined and thoroughly coherent Ivy look would probably come some eighteen months later with the first visit to J. Simons, but I remember 1981 as a revelatory year.

I'm definitely interested in people's Ivy awareness during that period ( and at that age ). Obviously it is very likely that certain individuals became more focused in that respect via J. Simons ( both the man and the shop ), but I was wondering about what people knew about the style before they found JS and just exactly how did they gather that information ?

I had no Ivy awareness at all although certainly by the early/mid 80s I was influenced by Americana one element of which I now know was Ivy.

Alex Roest wrote:

Natural Sole Brother wrote:

The transition to a more defined and thoroughly coherent Ivy look would probably come some eighteen months later with the first visit to J. Simons, but I remember 1981 as a revelatory year.

I'm definitely interested in people's Ivy awareness during that period ( and at that age ). Obviously it is very likely that certain individuals became more focused in that respect via J. Simons ( both the man and the shop ), but I was wondering about what people knew about the style before they found JS and just exactly how did they gather that information ?

Yes. That's a particular thing to define isn't it. I became aware of Richard Barnes' Mods! book in 1980. Thumbing through it one of the things that struck me personally was how much of the stuff was not English and how the one-dimensional view of Mod as something quintessentially British, at least in terms of clothing choices, could be blown out of the water. Seersucker, the button-down, Levi's etc. all hit me really hard. The continental influence was strong too but the biggest shapes and most striking details for me were painted by pictures where the subjects were clearly influenced by American collegiate life: the suede Harrington, the striped t-shirt, baggy Levi's, simple white sneakers all resonated. Also, the idea that the music was not from four-piece, white guitar bands, but the real rhythm and blues, soul and jazz of black America was a revelation too.

Obviously the things one takes from that book are different for each person, these are just personal reminiscences. The way things fitted together with the films and TV shows that had already made a big impression on me was striking: Paul Newman in anything, Hoffman in The Graduate, Steve McQueen in various pictures, Cassavetes in Rosemary's Baby and Johnny Staccato, Pacino in The Godfather, even Tony Randall in various RH/DD vehicles all had a look that I drew much from. The Man From Uncle re-runs were required viewing. Woody Allen suddenly became extravagantly well dressed when I came to think about it.

Before I even knew John's existed I was wearing button-down shirts, khakis, a blazer, penny loafers, surcingle belts and so on. That influence was strong in a certain strand of menswear at the time: shops like Blazer, Cecil Gee, Woodhouse, Reiss etc. all featured a watered-down version of the style. Quincy in the King's Road was a major thing for me. I remember having wonderful khaki gabardine pants from there and true cordovan handsewn loafers from the shop, which was the 'posh-conservative' wing of the Jones fashion empire. All these were mixed with great vintage stuff form the sources mentioned above. Silk suits, London Fog raincoats, dozens of ties, rails of Pendleton board shirts, manifold plaid button-downs and so on.

It was the guys in Quincy who sent me to J. Simons and it was there that I came to have an appreciation of a more rootsy and relaxed American look. It's important to remember that at that time, the early-mid 80s, the real stuff was still being churned out in the mother-country. The garments I had owned before seemed flashy and inconsequential compared to the more stripped-down, muted stuff at John's. Theirs was a more rounded, more mature appreciation of things. For a few years afterwards I dressed as I imagined a middle-aged New Englander would. It was the character actors I looked for more and more in American cinema rather than the flashier leads.

Last edited by Natural Sole Brother (2010-02-09 09:02:02)

Natural Sole Brother wrote:

Prof Kelp wrote:

Natural Sole Brother wrote:

The success of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" had prompted Inferno to re-issue Gloria Jones's original version on a see-through vinyl twelve with a dozen Northern Soul classics on the reverse.

Yeh Neil Rushton was never one to be slow when there was a buck to be made!

He still isn't Prof. Have you seen his new book? He remains one of the scene's nice guys though.

Natural Sole Brother wrote:

I'm sure I wasn't alone in having my wellington boots blown off by Frankie Beverley & The Butlers. A couple of hundred miles away Wigan Casino was closing its doors for the last time but for a generation of kids too young to have ever visited there the seeds were being sown of the next wave.

Clifton Hall, Stafford.....100 club.

I will be going to the Stafford revival. Am growing a moustache in avid anticipation.

And just how did your wellies fit with your fair isle and tartan trew's?

Don't forget the mullet too!

No I haven't read the Soulvation book.......I take it you have, any good?

Natural Sole Brother wrote:

I became aware of Richard Barnes' Mods! book in 1980. Thumbing through it one of the things that struck me personally was how much of the stuff was not English and how the one-dimensional view of Mod as something quintessentially British, at least in terms of clothing choices, could be blown out of the water. Seersucker, the button-down, Levi's etc. all hit me really hard. The continental influence was strong too but the biggest shapes and most striking details for me were painted by pictures where the subjects were clearly influenced by American collegiate life: the suede Harrington, the striped t-shirt, baggy Levi's, simple white sneakers all resonated. Also, the idea that the music was not from four-piece, white guitar bands, but the real rhythm and blues, soul and jazz of black America was a revelation too.

The way things fitted together with the films and TV shows that had already made a big impression on me was striking: Paul Newman in anything, Hoffman in The Graduate, Steve McQueen in various pictures, Cassavetes in Rosemary's Baby and Johnny Staccato, Pacino in The Godfather, even Tony Randall in various RH/DD vehicles all had a look that I drew much from. The Man From Uncle re-runs were required viewing. Woody Allen suddenly became extravagantly well dressed when I came to think about it.

Before I even knew John's existed I was wearing button-down shirts, khakis, a blazer, penny loafers, surcingle belts and so on. That influence was strong in a certain strand of menswear at the time: shops like Blazer, Cecil Gee, Woodhouse, Reiss etc. all featured a watered-down version of the style. Quincy in the King's Road was a major thing for me. I remember having wonderful khaki gabardine pants from there and true cordovan handsewn loafers from the shop, which was the 'posh-conservative' wing of the Jones fashion empire. All these were mixed with great vintage stuff form the sources mentioned above. Silk suits, London Fog raincoats, dozens of ties, rails of Pendleton board shirts, manifold plaid button-downs and so on.

It was the guys in Quincy who sent me to J. Simons and it was there that I came to have an appreciation of a more rootsy and relaxed American look. It's important to remember that at that time, the early-mid 80s, the real stuff was still being churned out in the mother-country. The garments I had owned before seemed flashy and inconsequential compared to the more stripped-down, muted stuff at John's. Theirs was a more rounded, more mature appreciation of things. For a few years afterwards I dressed as I imagined a middle-aged New Englander would. It was the character actors I looked for more and more in American cinema rather than the flashier leads.

Exellent post, truly insightful !

Last edited by Alex Roest (2010-02-09 10:09:35)

Alex Roest wrote:

Natural Sole Brother wrote:

The transition to a more defined and thoroughly coherent Ivy look would probably come some eighteen months later with the first visit to J. Simons, but I remember 1981 as a revelatory year.

I'm definitely interested in people's Ivy awareness during that period ( and at that age ). Obviously it is very likely that certain individuals became more focused in that respect via J. Simons ( both the man and the shop ), but I was wondering about what people knew about the style before they found JS and just exactly how did they gather that information ?

'Brideshead' will know the quote about how at last Charles Ryder realised that he had found 'that low door in the wall' which he knew others had found before him at Oxford.   THAT was my JS 'moment'.

Being guided by the older generation to JS in '85 marked the change in my Ivy obsession from it being a youthful 'solitary vice' to it being a part of a pre-existing community in London.

During those 'solitary' years films were very imortant to me - I would check the Radio Times each week for anything American from the 'right' years - Often Saturday afternoons on BBC2 had double bills of old films.

What else?

The public libraries around wherever I was at the time - Warwickshire, London or Oxford -  I would just wander around and pick up random books about anything American with pictures from those 'right' years of mine.


More to follow...

Last edited by Just Jim (2010-02-09 09:57:47)

... and all we both ever wanted to be was just ourselves...

The hip, dangerous assasins that we knew ourselves to be -