<<What we have here, I think, is something York and Elms cannot understand, which is a style for life - we can wear Ivy into our seventies without looking like the oldest swinger in town: suits, repp ties, OCBDs, brogues etc. sharp 842 haircuts.  We grow, we evolve, we adapt, share and inform - Elms huffs and puffs and Pablo - poor duffer - attempts to prove impossible theories connecting Eddie Harvey, Ian Levine and the average Stone Island nutter.>>


Word! I also didn't buy into this continuum theory... too simplifying...

You also mentioned the late 50s Absolute Beginners era in another thread and the kind of crossover from teddy boys to mods...

This is rarely mentioned, but I heard about this before.

As far as I know, the early teds were not into Rock'n'Roll... They were listening to singers like Frankie Layne, Johnny Ray, Guy Mitchell and Julie London and American big band jazz. The association with Bill Haley and Rock music came later on. They first made the news in 1952 or 53 as "Cosh Boys" and they were always known for their violence. The name " Teddy boys" was used, because they had adopted a neo-Edwardian style of dress: Fingerlength Drape coats with velvet collars, brocade waistcoats, narrow trousers,  this was worn with western style bolo ties (like bootlaces) or slim jim ties, and Billy Eckstine shirts were also popular. They would have creepers or pop boys on their feet, and the hair in the latest fashion, which was long, slicked back, either cut off square as a Boston or modeled to a D.A. and usually a quiff or quaff in the front... The style was very loud and outlandish, whereas the original modernist style was rather subtle.

There were still Teds in the sixties, but the style was already dated by 1958, according to Richard Barnes. This was the year when the Italian look caught on with teenagers. So I guess, by that time some of them settled down and got a family, others became rockers (or ton-up-boys as they were called back then). And some of them also got into the Italian style with bumfreezers and winklepickers...

Then again, there were the racist mobs involved in the Notting Hill riots that year...

From what I read, there are some more things pointing to a crossover:

- some of the teds also wore brogues and loafers.

- the Terry Rawlings book mentions that the early mods had Tony Curtis- style haircuts before the Perry Como and the college boy styles were in fashion. A Tony Curtis could be similar to a quiff, I reckon. Barnes also mentions that the Italian haircuts didn't come into fashion before 1960.

-there was also a craze for Edwardian patterns/ dessins among the mods ca. 1962...


... soundwise:

Chris Farlowe or someone else mentioned in an interview in one of those New Breed fanzines that the R&B sound was the new thing in the early sixties, but to him it was just something in between rock'n'roll and jazz. So music wise, I suppose, the step from rock'n'roll to the R&B sound of the 60s mod clubs couldn't have been so hard. The original rock'n'roll (think Alan Freed) was almost exclusively R&B, anyway...

OK, long post... off topic... gotta go the pub...

Don't get me wrong i'm for a bit of purtist (the crap people make as mod clothing is short as shit)

I agree with you there up to a point, Alex, in the sense that 'mod' circa 60-62 had contradictory strands.  They are said to have been 'discreet', 'blending in', 'going about their business', yes? - but wearing make-up, riding a Vespa slowly in order to show off the gear, that was exhibitionism, surely?  They wanted people to notice them, as did the skinheads and those that followed.  I'll go to work in the morning, however, and I will 'blend in' because - as some lad once said about Casual - 'no one knows what you're doing' - so it's a bit subversive.  I always did like that line from 'Quadrophenia':
"Be so nice on the outside, but inside keep ambition". 
I walk down the street and I'm a chameleon: blues, greys and greens.  Only I know.  Nothing tribal about this: the 'mods' and scooter boys don't notice me.  There are no labels, nothing obvious, just top of the range wool, cotton and leather, some crumpled, some ironed, depending on weather and circumstance.  Ivy has become the only way for this working class 49 year old bloke to still feel the way he did as a 17 year old punk.