i can feel the love

Rowland's essay in "The Look" is the best thing I've read on Skinheads. I love all the details and references about Ivy League too......

Jim Ferguson's Fashion Notebook in "Skinhead" by Nick Knight is also worth reading as for all the fanatical attention to detail ( forget about most of the rest of the contents though ). Funny thing is he never mentions IL, but one gets a very good insight into the development of the Skinhead movement alright, from Peanuts to Smoothies so to speak.

Interesting fact within this notebook is that he mentions the Suit Mod or Mod Cons(ervative) who branched out of Mod and stayed staid as it were, he wore Levis with turn-ups, surfer jackets and Incontinence pants trainers in the streets and suits to dancehalls. He wore his hair short anyway so when this 'new' youth style became apparent ( they were only called Peanuts or Baldheads etc at first ) he had it just a tad shorter. The new mood suited him....

When Skinhead had gained momentum the smarter, ( and perhaps ) older Skins were still called 'suits'..... they never saw themselves as Skins mind you, yet by today's standards they definitely were just that, but distinctions were finer then. A lot of those people later became Suedeheads. Some Skins had always dressed in what later became known as a Suedehead way though.

The style was very precise, what you might have against it is that it soon became a uniform during the early seventies : e.g. oxblood or black brogues, sta prest trousers, gingham check BD shirt ( by then belts were more commonly worn than braces btw ) and perhaps a V-neck jumper, topped off with either a Harrington jacket or a crombie w/a hanky stickpinned into the breast pocket.

The Suedehead look was a lot more colourful and daring as compared to the somewhat dull colours most Skins would have opted for ( especially when we're talking suits ), almost Mod-like if you will. So the whole thing had come full circle again..... of course a Suedehead haircut would resemble the French Crew for that matter. On that note one should also be aware of the fact that the early Skins wore their hair in a short college boy rather than a crop, the number two and three came in later.....

^ Tis true. Proper Skinheads would not be recognisable as Skinheads these days...

And I rate J. Fergusson too.

All this reminds me of our Brother Horace's surprise that an Englishman (me) knew Press in '85. My chums who took me there had known the place for much longer too...

Kevin Rowland in his essay in 'The Look' talks about seeing kids with short side-parted hair & thinking what a bold look it was becasue the uninformed would think that they were really square and never realise that they were in fact on the cutting edge of a new imported street style.

SO Funny.

Press is 'Trad'?

... To me and me Anglo mates it has  always been this cool & slightly subversive place. More obscure than Brooks (Any nebbish knows Brooks!), but Press was really old-school cool - Check the flap-pocket BD!

Only the Uber-Hip ever knew about this stuff miles away in London!

j. 


(And then there was The Andover & The Crimson Shop!)

... ... ... ...

AR: I think it would be good if you could do an essay on each of those styles.

*****

Jack, good quotes from that book. Unfortunately it is out of print, or very expensive for me.

TV

For those interested,

The Look is still available from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Look-Adventures-Rock-Pop-Fashion/dp/0955201705/ref=sr_1_1/026-0887609-2503652?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176752223&sr=8-1


Stan

I've been noticing Weller in old pics from the 80's wearing those 'Preppy' striped watch bands lately!

Here's to the big mix up!

j.

Thanks alot Alex. It sounds BRILLIANT. Really enjoying all of this...

Thanks a lot for posting that Stan, the two young men on the right represent the Suedehead look nicely. The drawings are actually taken from Jim Ferguson's Fashion Notebook I mentioned before. There's also a good one of two young men in Royals, Sta-Prest, BD, V-neck, polo, Harrington and a crombie.... those guys on the far left :

http://members.aol.com/skamelet/style4.html

Last edited by Alex Roest (2007-11-14 10:27:28)

What of, TARP Trads , those who fight against the, right(long)wing Nationalist  Trads . Does the color of laces, or width of braces,  show the political idea ?