Inscription & COA verso


The pier at Brighton stretches in a dark bar between sea and sky, separating the rippling lilac and pewter tide from the vast silvery perspective of the sky. This fabulous work takes one back decades to the pivotal drama at Brighton, Easter weekend 1964, when residents and holiday-makers in the seaside towns of Brighton, Bournemouth and Margate, were rocked by a sudden influx of young, cool gangs. They were Mods and Rockers, and the culture clash that occurred that weekend, has become iconic in the history of youth culture in the UK.

Mods and Rockers were easily identifiable by their distinctive clothing styles: the Mods wore Fred Perry and Ben Sherman designer suits, covered by a Parka jacket; while the Rockers wore leather biker jackets and jeans. Mods also rode European scooters like Lambrettas and Vespas and listened to a mix of Motown, ska and bands such as The Who. The Rockers favoured motorbikes and listened to American rock and roll such as Eddie Cochrane and Elvis.

Although the movements were short-lived, violent clashes between the two gangs were seized on by the media and used by moralists to exemplify the outrageous liberties enjoyed by Britain’s youths. The seafront vandalism and violence described in the newspaper article was later made into the 1979 film Quadrophenia.

Of course, the big Mod and Rocker confrontations were at Bank Holidays. The coastal towns were the favourite destinations and there was much posturing and ‘drive pasts’. There was relatively little confrontational violence however in spite of what the press would have us believe! Rockers very rarely left the comparative safety of their bikes which enabled them to pass along the front at leisure but with the advantage of being able to escape at speed if desired! They were more of a threat outside the towns where they could harass and confront smaller groups of Mods on scooters.

Mods and ex-mods were also part of the early northern soul scene, a subculture based on 1960s and 1970s American soul records.

A mod revival started in the late 1970s in the UK, with thousands of mods attending scooter rallies in places like Scarborough and the Isle of Wight. This revival was partly inspired by the 1979 film Quadrophenia and by mod-influenced bands such as The Jam, Secret Affair, Purple Hearts and The Chords. Many of the mod revival bands were influenced by the energy of British punk rock and New Wave music.

The 1990s Britpop scene featured noticeable mod influences on bands such as Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene and The Verve.

Jobling and Crowley called the mod subculture a "fashion-obsessed and hedonistic cult of the hyper-cool" who lived in metropolitan London or the new towns of the south. Due to the increasing affluence of post-war Britain, the youths of the early 1960s were one of the first generations that did not have to contribute their money from after-school jobs to the family finances. As mod teens began using their disposable income to buy stylish clothes, the first youth targeted boutique clothing stores opened in London in Carnaby Street and the Kings Road districts. Maverick fashion designers emerged, such as Mary Quant, and John Stephen who sold a line named "His Clothes", and whose clients included bands such as The Small Faces.

Two youth subcultures helped pave the way for mod fashion by breaking new ground; the beatniks, with their bohemian image of berets and black turtlenecks, and the Teddy Boys, from which mod fashion inherited its "narcissitic and fastidious [fashion] tendencies" and the immaculate dandy look.

The Teddy Boys paved the way for making male interest in fashion socially acceptable, because prior to the Teddy Boys, male interest in fashion in Britain was mostly associated with the underground homosexual subculture s flamboyant dressing style.

The Royal Air Force roundel, was a mod symbol. Newspaper accounts from the mid-1960s focused on the mod obsession with clothes, often detailing the prices of the expensive suits worn by young mods, Jobling and Crowley argue that for working class mods, the subculture s focus on fashion and music was a release from the "humdrum of daily existence" at their jobs. Jobling and Crowley noted that while the subculture had strong elements of consumerism and shopping, mods were not passive consumers; instead they were very self-conscious and critical, customising "existing styles, symbols and artefacts" such as the Union flag and the Royal Air Force roundel symbol, and putting them on their jackets in a pop art-style, and putting their personal signatures on their style.

The song "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" by The Kinks from 1966 jokes about the fashion obsession of the mod community. Mod fashion adopted new Italian and French styles in part as a reaction to the rural and small-town rockers, who were seen as trapped in the 1950s, with their leather motorcycle clothes and American greaser look. Male mods adopted a smooth, sophisticated look that emphasised tailor-made Italian suits (sometimes white) with narrow lapels, mohair clothes, thin ties, button-down collar shirts, wool or cashmere jumpers (crewneck or V-neck), pointed-toe leather shoes that were nicknamed winklepickers, as well as Chelsea or "Beatle" boots, Tassel Loafers, Clarks Desert Boots even Bowling shoes, and hairstyles that imitated the look of the French Nouvelle Vague cinema actors of the era, such as Jean-Paul Belmondo. A few male mods went against gender norms of the era by enhancing their appearance with eye shadow, eyepencil or even lipstick.

Female mods dressed androgynously, with short haircuts, men s trousers or shirts (sometimes their boyfriend s), flat shoes, and little makeup — often just pale foundation, brown eye shadow, white or pale lipstick and false eyelashes. Female mods pushed the boundaries of parental tolerance with their miniskirts, which got progressively shorter between the early and mid-1960s.
As female mod fashion went from an underground style to a more commercialised fashion, slender models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy began to exemplify the high-fashion mod look. The television programme Ready Steady Go!, presented by Cathy McGowan, helped to spread awareness of mod fashions and music to a larger audience.

The Fishtail Parka was first used by the United States Army in 1951 to help protect soldiers from the elements in the Korean War. There are two main styles of fishtail parkas; the M-51 fishtail parka; and the M-65. The M stands for military, and the number is the year it was standardized. The name fishtail comes from the fact that the coat is longer at the back than it is at the front. This was so the coat could be tied around the upper legs, much like a Knochensack for added wind proofing as they are not, as some think, waterproof. The hood of the M-51 Fishtail Parka is integral to the jacket and folds down inside the jacket collar when not in use. The M-65 Fishtail parka has a detachable hood. Both types feature a removable liner. Designed primarily for combat arms forces such as infantry, they are to be worn over other layers of clothing; alone, the fishtail parka is insufficient to protect against "dry cold" (as used in the US military; see FM 31-70, Cold Weather Field Manual) conditions (i.e., below 14 deg. F.). On the other hand, the N-3B parka has more integral insulation and can be worn alone in colder temperatures than the fishtail parka. Because it has less insulation but is designed to fit loosely, it allows infantry more latitude to add or subtract layers underneath to adapt to changing weather or situational conditions than that allowed by the N-3B parka, which was designed for aircrews who typically worked under more static weather and geographic conditions. In the 1960s UK, the fishtail parka became a symbol of the mod subculture. Due to their practicality, cheapness and availability from army surplus shops, the parka was seen as the ideal garment for fending off the elements when on the mod s vehicle of choice, the scooter. Its place in popular culture was assured by newspaper pictures of parka-clad mods during the Bank Holiday riots of the 1960s.

Brutus Jeans is a British clothing company founded in 1966 by brothers Keith and Alan Freedman, who were 18 and 17 years old at the time, respectively. The company started with one style of sweater and kept adding to the range, which eventually included shirts and jeans (for both men and women). The brand was very popular in the 1960 s and 1970s with skinheads, Mods and the football crowds. They won awards for their TV advertising, and had a hit record with one of the jingles called "Jeans On" (performed by David Dundas).

Ben Sherman is a British based clothing company, designing shirts, suits, shoes, accessories and other items that are, in common with many British brands, now made overseas, largely in the Far East. Their designs sometimes feature the Royal Air Force roundel which is often called the mod target. Some of the recent Ben Sherman shirts have unusual and complex designs, and have a Carnaby-style fit. The company makes clothing predominantly for men.

A Crombie coat is a three-quarter length, usually wool, overcoat. It is named after the company Crombie (also known as J&J Crombie), although not all coats known as Crombies are made by that company. Starting in the late 1960s or early 1970s, Crombie-style coats were popular within the skinhead and suedehead subcultures, although very few skinheads would have been able to afford a new Crombie brand coat. Crombies were also fashionable among some mods, who saw them as a stylish item of clothing that enhanced their clean-cut image. It was an alternative to the popular fishtail parka or trenchcoat.

Scooters were chosen over motorbikes because scooters use of bodypanelling and concealed moving parts made them cleaner and less likely to stain an expensive suit with grease. Scootering led to the wearing of military parkas to protect costly suits and trousers from mud and rain. Many mods used motorscooters for transportation, usually Vespas or Lambrettas. Scooters had provided inexpensive transportation for decades before the development of the mod subculture, but the mods stood out in the way that they treated the vehicle as a fashion accessory. Italian scooters were preferred due to their cleanlined, curving shapes and gleaming chrome. For young mods, Italian scooters were the "embodiment of continental style and a way to escape the working-class row houses of their upbringing". They customised their scooters by painting them in "two-tone and candyflake and overaccessorized them with luggage racks, crash bars, and scores of mirrors and fog lights", and they often put their names on the small windscreen. Engine side panels and front bumpers were taken to local electroplating workshops and recovered in highly reflective chrome. Scooters were also a practical and accessible form of transportation for 1960s teens. In the early 1960s, public transport stopped relatively early in the night, and so having scooters allowed mods to stay out all night at dance clubs. For teens with low-end jobs, scooters were cheaper than cars, and they could be bought on a payment plan through newly-available Hire purchase plans. After a law was passed requiring at least one mirror be attached to every motorcycle, mods were known to add four, ten, or as many as 30 mirrors to their scooters. The cover of The Who s album Quadrophenia, (which includes themes related to mods and rockers), depicts a young man on a Vespa GS with four mirrors attached.

After the seaside resort brawls, the media began to associate Italian scooters with the image of violent mods. When groups of mods rode their scooters together, the media began to view it as a "menacing symbol of group solidarity" that was "converted into a weapon". With events like the November 6, 1966, "scooter charge" on Buckingham Palace, the scooter, along with the mods short hair and suits, began to be seen as a symbol of subversion.

After the 1964 beach riots, hard mods (who later evolved into the skinheads) began riding scooters more for practical reasons. Their scooters were either unmodified or cut down, which was nicknamed a "skelly". Lambrettas were cutdown to the bare frame, and the unibody (monocoque)-design Vespas had their body panels slimmed down or reshaped.

Mod or Rocker - You had to be one or the other