STREET WEAR HISTORY
The guard of culture 'Roger K. Burton' talks about
the history of British Youth fashions
08 11/5 UP
Text:Andrew Bunney Translation:Mayumi Horiguchi
- A :
- How were you exposed to the Mod scene?
- R :
- Leicester was the richest city in Europe at the time, so there was a lot of style in the town anyway. I used to go to a youth club where kids would dress up, and hear all these sounds you hade never heard before. Bit by bit, I just kept spotting kids that were dressed interestingly, people mentioned various magazines and there was this buzz in the air.
- A :
- Was it a big scene?
- R :
- It felt like it at the time, but it wasn’t. It started off quite small – you would see pockets of people. Gradually as it became more popular it went into the hundreds, but I don’t think it was ever anything more than that. It was always a small crowd.
- A :
- Was it London-centric?
- R :
- As Leicester was very affluent, all the bands came there, but the Midlands generally - Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield, Leeds - was very well catered for and as the scene progressed various all-nighters(n.2) would spring-up. Enterprising kids would want to put on all night events that would tour around the North of England. But then we would make a pilgrimage down to London once a month or so to go to the latest shops to buy clothes.
- A :
- Where did the Mods go?
- R :
- It was a spirit that certainly went on in people’s minds and hearts and heads, and to say that I’m not a Mod anymore is nonsense – It had a massive effect on me. I may not listen to soul music so much as I used to, and I certainly don’t wear mohair suits, but it’s still in there. What was great to me about it was learning and understanding about subtleties in clothing. How important those subtleties are. Once you can understand the subtleties you can understand the most outrageous designs and see where they are coming from and the subtleties in that as well.
harder to see now.
n.2: an all-nighter;
A person who goes out in the evening for having fun. People who belong to Northern Soul music scene use the term often. Northern Soul is the term used in the UK for a type of mid-tempo and uptempo heavy-beat soul music (of mainly African American origin) that was popularized in northern England in the mid 1960s.
- A :
- We often read about Mods turning getting shorter haircuts and turning into Suedeheads, then Skins. Do you remember it like that?
- R :
- Not at all. The Mods I knew that continued their “ethos” grew their hair more and got into the whole Dandy side of it. More of an interest in Mr Freedom, Granny Takes a Trip(n.3). That’s what my peer group were into. I think Suedeheads and Skinheads were the younger brothers of Mods if anything. It was a few years on… from my point of view they were people that I observed.
- A :
- Where did Hippie come from?
- R :
- I guess it came out of Beat. My first recollection was at an all-nighter, playing all-night, soul, R+B, bit of Beach Boys. The DJ finished the set off with “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher. And that was like ‘Oh My God – it’s all over.’ It was this new sound. And nobody knew what they looked like. That was my recollection of seeing a hippie, that pair. You look at an early picture of them now, and they look like Beats.
All that Flower Power shit just came in waves from America. It became mainstream so quickly, and I suppose because it was mainstream, I didn’t like it.
In retrospect the first time it appeared in London was at the Royal Albert Hall, there was a poetry festival and Allen Ginsberg came and gave flowers to everybody around 1965-1966. Those guys selling it in their stall in Chelsea Antique Market and people queuing up round the block for ethnic stuff from Morocco, Tibet, those sorts of places.
The demand for ‘ethnic’ clothes outgrew the supply – so people who had the important shops on the Kings Road started to introduce English Frock Coats and Top Hats, that kind of thing, and then eventually 1920s and 30s suits. One began to see people wearing period clothes authentically.
n.3: " Mr Freedom" + "Granny Takes a Trip";
Legendary fashion shops in London in the hippie era.
