JAMES MOFFAT

So some kind soul finally uploaded the BBC's 1996 documentary on Richard Allen (and thankyou to my friend John for showing me so). About time too, if you've never heard of him, you've certainly heard of Joe Hawkins, the protagonist of Mr Allen's debut novel on youth cultures, Skinhead. A Canadian born writer who moved to Britain, Allen's real name was James Moffat, Richard Allen was the pen name he chose when writing his cult novels about the youth cultures that surrounded him, and he covered all manner of subcultures and related storylines of the time, even cashing in the Skinhead's love of Martial Arts movies, the downright ridiculous Dragon Skins was written, where a skinhead called Boots Welling (I know, I know) takes on a mob of Kung Fu based criminals... Moving on very swiftly, Allen's novels should be appreciated for being all that they are, cult classics, just like anything they should be enjoyed best with a pinch or two of salt, and the obscurity that surrounds James Moffat's life should add to the wonder of it all, now enjoy this documentary, and if you should choose to bid for some original Allen novels on ebay, well I wish you good luck.

ALMOST GROWN

After scouring youtube one evening I discovered a nifty little documentary from the 90s about British music and culture of the last 40 years, many months later I remembered it was about time I shared it with others.

The opening credits are a little cheesy (I mean, it was the 90s) but don't let that discourage you, there is some great archive footage and interviews with people such as Don Letts and Rhoda Dakar who are icons of the British Reggae and Two Tone scenes, and it literally covers a little bit of everything, crammed into this 1 hour long doc, featuring of course our beloved Skinheads, Northern Soul, Glam Rock, also of the later Punk, New Romantics, Hip Hop and Acid House scene if you're into that sort of thing. There's also some slightly more questionable and bizarre, if not pretty amusing features on solo artists or single bands who had cult followings, such as David Bowie, The Bay City Rollers, and if you're into bad 90s pop... Bros.

All round though it's pretty interesting, so enjoy!

PRESSURE

"So what's wrong with bacon and eggs, fish n'chips and Gary Glitter?!"

Er, well Tony...

So my friend Nathan (Check out his blog You're A Disease on my links below, full of great early punk zines) suggested the movie Pressure to me, and I enjoyed it so much I thought sharing it was only appropriate. Pressure was made in 1975 and was the first feature film in Britain about Black people. Set in Ladbroke Grove in west London, an area with a large Caribbean community.

 Tony, the protagonist of this tale is a teenage boy born in England to parents from Trinidad, he faces all kinds of pressures, those of a typical teen, and those of living in a turbulent time in British social history, the 1970s was albeit a very progressive decade, but was also rampant with bigoted attitudes, which as a result the people who suffer the most are people like Tony.

Tony is a naive but intelligent young man, who progressively through the film becomes more fed up and angry. His parents are humble and working class, his mother believes it right to 'know their place' and is constantly howling at him with religious rants, his radical black power activist brother gives him a hard time for identifying more with his White surroundings rather than a land he's never been to, and despite his qualifications, Tony is jobless for months as the employers

instantly judge him on the colour of his skin.

Tony eventually follows the path of his older brother and becomes politically conscious, encouraged by Louise, an american woman who was part of the Black Panther movement. It seems as though Tony might've actually found a sense of belonging to a group now, but hostility and envy between the first generation immigrants and the second, combined with Police brutality prove that Tony's struggles have merely just begun.

I think for the first of it's kind this is a really good film, and of course, you can never fully understand why cultures and youth movements occur unless you learn about the history of the political and social climate too, so this movie touches on many aspects of that. Enough subjects are raised to find something to relate to in the characters, whatever colour, age or background. Also, given recent events particularly in Britain, to do with recession, unemployment, racial tension and immigration issues, it's interesting to see where our society has changed and where it has not. Culturally speaking, the clothes in the movie are interesting of course, and the soundtrack is great with a few reggae classics in it such as Hard Life by Merlene Webber, Blood and Fire by Niney, and Witchcraft is Witchcraft by Sharon Forrester. My favourite character was definitely Louise, she is a 70s suave soul sister personified, and the speech she gives at the Black power meeting is quite powerful amidst some dodgier actors in other scenes. This film is definitely worth a watch if it's something you're interested in, and much to my gratitude to the Community channel the whole thing is uploaded to youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9TDekaIHBg

And seeing as that vid can't be embedded on here, here's one of the classic tracks from the movie.

CHECK PLEASE!

There are countless fabric patterns out there, with countless variations, but for shirts the window-check has to be my favourite kind. Any respectable young Skinhead will have at least one in his or her closet, there's a plethora of colourways, and endless combinations to be discovered.

Here's a beautiful example of a tartan window check, this I think is a Brutus Trimfit from 1971. Brutus seemed to really hit the nail on the head when it came to designing stylish patterns and colourways that'd stand the test of time, alongside being the go-to brand for shirts, next to Ben Sherman of course. Though, to me as a smaller business who's only recently been revived, Brutus seemed to have retained a level of integrity that Ben Sherman has now recently lost it's way with, the twisted tag label Ben Sherman's of the late 60's will always be renowned as a quality shirt though, you only have to look them up on Ebay to see the prices they fetch for being so highly sought after.

A classic and rare colour example on the far left of a great window-check design, the stripes really have to be about 2inches apart give or take, to get that square window box effect. It can be argued however that these shirts weren't an entirely original staple of Skinhead clothing, but slowly increased in popularity as time went on, Pastel colours, Plain oxford style shirts and even Candy Stripes were worn more frequently at the beginning at the tail end of the 'Hard Mod' era. Checks however I think became so popular because of their variation and injection of bright colour, a way in which to stand out and retain some individuality and yet be part of a crowd.

Suedehead perfection, complete with cravat.

Appropriate, no?

RETRO DUNDEE

I've a slight bias towards Scotland, it's the birthplace of my Mother and half of my family, this may be why I think that the styles there are particularly interesting for their time, and that there isn't anything much more attractive than a well dressed man with a hard as nails accent... But before I get too sidetracked, I stumbled across this blog focusing on the city of Dundee and it's cultural history.

http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/

Now the whole blog is interesting and I suggest everyone takes a look at it, but there's heck of a lot of posts and here are the few posts I've gone through that are most relevant to clothing and style if you want to just skip to those, there's some great history here, so enjoy!

http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2011/10/fashion-for-teenage-girls-1972.html
http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2010/04/prince-of-wales-gear-early-70s.html
http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2010/04/harrington-and-crombie-early-70s.html
http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2010/04/skinners-and-braces-early-70s.html
http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2010/04/black-white-footwear-early-70s.html
http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2010/04/clubbing-gear-1977.html
http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2010/04/steve-ellis-jumper.html
http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2010/04/wrong-t-shirt.html
http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2010/04/retro-fashion-time.html

PENNY COLLAR APPRECIATION



 Penny collars, spoon collars, beagle collars, peter pan collars... whatever you want to call them, I have a mild obsession with this type of collar and they are to me of the most 1970s defining garment aside the platform shoes. This type of collar really became popular in about 1971 and stayed that way til about 1976, it's something you'll see at least one of in every Smoothies' wardrobe. Just in case one or two of you are thinking "what the bleedin' 'eck is a Smoothie?" well...

These photos date from October 1971 and show the beginnings of Smoothie look. Smoothies were the next phase after Suedeheads (refer to earlier posts about Suedeheads). Smoothies further embraced the flamboyancy and colours of the 1970s but still somehow managed to retain the hard and smart philosophy of the Skinhead, or so, that's what I think. The girl is wearing flared shorts to compliment her platforms, which would've had heels about 2 inches high give or take, and of course with the square toed front, and probably large silver grommets (lace holes) and chunky laces. We also see that the early 1970s is when patterned tanktops became popular, the young man's being an argyle print, with a matching dagger collar lemon yellow shirt to compliment the mustard/pale yellows of his tanktop, all very popular colours for the era. Be it penny or dagger collars, the 70's was all about the bigger being the better, we can also this is an early rendition of the Smoothie look as his trousers are only slightly flared, no large turn-ups here!

Here we have a later more evolved Smoothie style, Purple penny collar shirt, slightly wider flared Prince of Wales check trousers, and most importantly longer hair. Further into the 70s scooter culture went through a revival which increased all throughout the 70s and into the 80s.

Below are some examples of penny collar styles popular for women, Smoothie girls particularly favoured the pinafore styles like 1 and 2 marked on the first picture with the bell bottom and puff sleeves.

To round things off, and to add some more sweet tunes to this blog, here's Owen Gray, the stylish penny collar clad man, covering cry me a river by Jackie Opel.

                   

THE SLADE PAPERS

"Oh my my my my

Wanna see everybody get your boots on,

Everybody everywhere.

I said stomp your feet,

Yeah yeah yeah!"

It's a common belief amongst Skinheads that Slade were the first Skinhead band, this isn't altogether true because they never started out as Skinheads and it's said thier manager made them dress that way as a clever marketing ploy to get kids interested, what is true however, is that Slade are probably the most famous and easily accessible source into seeing how original Skinheads dressed, and whatever your opinions are of them they are still a highly popular band and respected amongst most traditional Skinheads, especially those of course who are into Glam Rock, as they are one of the most obvious connections between Skinheads and the transitions some took into being involved in the Glam Rock scene.

My good friend and lifelong Suedehead Colin Marshall was kind enough to lend me a fan book that he's had since 1976, bought it when he was just a nipper bless him! Many of the photos in the book are rare and as the book says 'never-seen-before.' So i've scanned the ones that I think are the best and show the stylistic transitions the band went through over the course of five years, enjoy!

Part of the photoshoot for the front cover of Play it Loud, beginning of thier Skinhead era, 1970.

From the same photoshoot, outfits in glorious technicolour...

Dave Hill top left, Don Powell top right, Noddy Holder bottom left, Jim Lea bottom right.

1971, The band is rising to be a prominent staple of British Glam Rock.

Dave Hill grows his legendary bowl cut and dons the platform boots, becoming a 70s male fashion icon.

Spring 1973.

Winter 1973, despite leaving the Skinhead style, some small things were adopted, Noddy is never seen without one inch turnups in his jeans.

Spring 1974, the lads having a bevvy and platform boots galore. We still see you kept your turnups Noddy...

Early 1975, the Slade as we all know and love them. Kings of Glam Rock, and ridiculous over-the-top outfits.

A nice colour photo to finish from the back cover of the book,

thankyou to Colin for these great bits of Glam rock history.