My chosen subculture - Mods

First none as Modernists, small individual groups, in the late 50's because of their love of everything modern, then shortened to Mods came to the attention of the public in 1964. Being a Mod was a life style choice, unlike sloans who were born into their subculture. Mods were working class teenagers who didn't have any responsibilities and money to spend on themselves therefore being about to afford the style they wanted to portray.

Mods came from a reaction after the Beatnik scene with their baggy clothes scruffy beards and yob like behaviour. Mods clothing was heavily influenced by the Italians and French tailoring with a smart but still young, they wore mainly mohair suits, that were two tone, the jackets would have slim lapels and the style of the vents would be a particular importance. These box like jackets were later updated to waisted jackets influenced from the traditional city gent look. They often had made to measure suits from places like, Harry Fenton, John Michael and John Stephen. With the jacket they would pair it with slim fit trousers that narrowed at the bottom and a buttoned down collared checked shirt, mainly from Ben Sherman (sold in John Stephen and Lord John on Carnaby Street). I interviewed my uncle on what he wore as a mod as well as the suits they also teamed their jackets with jeans from Levis. Some of the original Mods thought that it was becoming to commercialized so they called themselves "indervidualists" or "stylists".   

Bands started to adopt this style such as The Who, which my uncle informed me that 

dressed like mods but mods didn't like their music because it was more pop rather than, earlier mods liked, Modern Jazz then it turned to American soul then that was replaced by Rythm and Blues.

My uncle lived in derby when he was a Mod and listened to music from american soul such as Motown. I asked him what clubs he went to in derby, "the usual clubs i went to were; Clouds, The Hippo, Salk Club and The Penny Farthing. The mod clubs outside central London though were; "The Scene" and "Marquee" this is where original mods went, other clubs for newer mods were seen as trashy.

Mods often had lambrettas if they couldn't afford a mini and if you were really unfortunate you would ride a vesper! With the lambretta as you can see in the picture above they used to add loads of additional mirrors all for show! And to compete with the Rockers motor bikes. However, my uncle said that his group didn't do this.