Thanks for posting, ordered the book strait away. 8)

http://youtu.be/4vtQqjR4VSM seen this?

I get what your saying, but skins and sharpies are linked. Don't forget that original skinheads and particularly suedeheads were very well dressed -themselves an offshoot of mod. I sure the 10 pound poms were a huge influence on the original and 70's type.

http://youtu.be/Z6WUWxtcUgY see this 

http://youtu.be/HpeHX4Rqpmg.

a lot of the styles are similar (maybe an australian version of it?)

Last edited by Eathad (2012-03-21 21:40:00)

Agreed 8)

Bankstown now that would be syd den eee wouldn't it?

,Not exactly the height of sophistication in  old oz here.

Sydney is known as Tinsel Town, Star City, Silver City, etc etc. think Las Vegas crossed with Brighton uk without the veneer of fun and sophistication.

Sydney folks like to think they are sophisticated and important because they have all the head offices up there (it goes to their heads), but us Melbournians know what sophistication and being an important city is really about. We are the kings of crap like good shopping, world class sporting events, top restaurants and coolness. Sydney are more unpolished unsophisticated yobo types who think they are much better than they really are. Sator would be much better off in Melbourne, + the weather is cooler so he can wear top hats, overcoats and balmoral boots everyday to work.

Adelaide is best forgotten about, the capital of everything shitty. No shopping, no sophistication...just the capital of nothing. M@T was brought up there, which explains his unsophisticated dirt-boy dime-a-dozen personality.

Hi FXH and others!

The wikipedia entry that FXH is quoting above is authentic and I thank him for getting it onto another site. My book, "Out With The Boys" is my attempt to document all the unique dress, language, body and moral codes of a subculture that existed in Sydney in the 60's. I grew into the Sharpie culture in the early sixties and grew out of it again by the end of that decade. It is different to the 60's Melbourne Sharpie subculture, mainly due to the colder climate, as I have repeated over and over to those who think Melbourne was the only place 'Sharpies' existed. Anybody would think Thorpie and Lobby Lloyd started their careers off in Melbourne...hate to say it, but if the Sydney Sharpies hadn't turned up at the dance places these bands  played at, they wouldn't have had a career, let alone travel south to Melbourne later in their lives. Whatever people want to imagine these days, the Sydney Sharpies were not some pigeonholed group of yobbos...they were serious young working-class men, who wanted to look like real men, for themselves and the girls they wanted to impress at the dances and elsewhere. Clothing was a very serious part of the kit...so much that we paid tailors to make clothes to our individual designs and spent a lot of our money on the other clothing items that signified us as Sharpies. If you want to know more, I'll answer any questions you have, or just buy the book and read it...it's got tons more detail than in the Wikipedia entry.

Glad to connect with you all

The Seagull

Hi again FXH

You’re not the first person I’ve had to disappoint regarding the look of the Sydney Sharpies of the 1960’s. When Rebecca Mclean visited Sydney to interview me re the Sydney Sharpies I could only dig up one photo. That picture of me in Sharpie clobber now sits on the front cover of my book, ‘Out With The Boys: The Sharpie Days’.

What I can say about this picture is that it’s very typical of the clothing every sharpie wore, day in day out, possibly plus a light Californian jacket or a cardigan in cable stitch for the colder winter weather. On this occasion, to mark my grandparents’ 45th wedding anniversary celebration I wore a fully buttoned-up maroon Ban-Lon, a grey pair of tailored trousers in Prince-of-Wales check and shiny black shoes from Edward Mellor. I was originally going to sport a pair of green-grey pants in herring bone with a white Ban-Lon top, but my Oxford Street tailor could not finish the trousers in time, he was so flooded with orders from other sharpies at the time. 

The main reason for the shortage of photos is that we were working class boys, and cameras were so expensive and therefore not a factor when deciding what to spend our money on. If we’d been richer, we probably would have spent all our money on clothes anyway. Even while I was still an apprentice I had up to 22 pairs of tailor-made pants and 16 Ban-Lons (polo shirts as they are called now) and still wanted more. But let me say something here about the significance of the sharpie clobber…in a nutshell, it’s a style that speaks of a young man rapidly on his way to manhood. Within our social milieus we were expected to grow up quickly, or perish. Sydney’s inner-city working-class neighbourhoods, like Redfern, Zetland and Waterloo in particular, were sites of perpetual struggle and conflict, where one had to prove oneself to one’s peers, older brothers and parents. To avoid the constant threat of social castration you were expected to be tough, i.e. to ‘be like a man’, so you had to act like a man and look like a man, and the ‘model’ men in our neighbourhood were wearing polo shirts and trousers…to pubs, to betting shops, to clubs and restaurants. Fifty years later, most grown men still wear polo shirts, smart casual pants and boating shoes, while the plaited leather types we wore in the 60’s are still sold around the world. Unlike the rockers, the surfies, the mods, the beatle look-alikes etc. the Sydney sharpies were already dressing like grown men, and most of them continued in that fashion when they exited from their teenage years. They were the only youth culture of the 60’s which didn’t kit up in any way that challenged their parents’ dress codes. For a bunch of toughs, they were curiously conservative.

As far as tailors are concerned, ‘Out With The Boys: The Sharpie Days’ mentions Syd Green of Glebe, a Jewish guy who got hooked on the sharpie obsession for fashion and milked it for all he could. Sharp as a tack he was on selling a piece of cloth to be made up for a pair of trousers (daks) Syd sent the orders to Oxford Street, City, to Bob Bartons Menswear or Zincs & Sons (which was still there a few years ago). Some of the sharpies went directly to these tailors to save Syd’s mark up on the pants. And of course, there was the odd tailor, usually Greek, around Redfern who could do a job cheaper, but not always better than the Oxford Street boys. 

Buy your copy today. Hard copy
http://www.coop-bookshop.com.au/bookshop/show/9781921775796
OR E-book
http://www.amazon.com/Out-With-The-Boys-ebook/dp/B0078C23IU

Here is an excerpt from my book which describes a typical morning at the tailor.

“To be in fashion, every Sharpie had to have in his collection a variety of designer label shirts with long and short-sleeves, plenty of Banlon polo shirts and long sleeved Suaves, hand-knitted Alpaca and cotton cardigans and cable-stitched jumpers, handmade plaited casual shoes, boating shoes, dress shoes from Italy, cotton Californian jackets, and Lee, or Levi Strauss jeans in blue, beige and white. Nobody bought trousers off the rack because Sharpies preferred to choose their favourite fabric and create their own designs before handing them on to Syd’s tailor. Normally, they were straight-legged, but not too tight, ending at cuffless thirteen-inch bottoms, with a slit and a button or two sewn on above it. Nobody wore belts, and the standard waistband width was one and a half inches and secured by two buttons. Below the waistband at the back, a bow-tie buckle had to be attached, fob pockets had to have button-down flaps and side pockets were rejected so that the trousers more closely hugged the hips and legs. Most of the boys started with the basic design and then made changes, such as three-inch waistbands with four buttons, two buckles at the back, four buttons above the trouser slits, square or sloping flaps over fobs. For the beach in summer, shorts were also tailored, and the odd shirt might have been made up in paisley, which was a favourite pattern amongst the Sharpies. 
As far as Syd was concerned the sky was the limit, and so was his credit if he trusted you. You could have anything you wanted and pay for it in cash or on account. Fish, Banga and Winger took the plunge and were measured up for trousers, but I soon found out my fiver was not going to get me into a pair. I would have to save a bit of money before I came again. And I was coming again. I wanted so much to look the part.”