MODS

ByChristopher Dacosta

MODS

Mod (from modernist) is a subculture that originated in London, England in the late 1950s and peaked in the early-to-mid 1960s.

Mods were scene riding scooters such as Vesper's, they wore parker jackets and listened to ska music typically.

Other things associated were pill popping with purple hearts and they tended to like beanies.

• Significant elements of the mod subculture include: fashion (often tailor-made suits); pop music, including African American soul, Jamaican ska, and British beat music and R&B; and Italian motor scooters.

• 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.

The conflict • The Mods and Rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early-mid 1960s. Gangs of

mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youths, and the two groups were seen as folk devils.

• The rockers adopted a macho biker gang image, wearing clothes such as black leather jackets. • The mods adopted a pose of scooter-driving sophistication, wearing suits and other cleancut outfits. By

late 1966, the two subcultures had faded from public view and media attention turned to two new emerging youth subcultures — the hippies and the skinheads.

• Rockers, who wore leather jackets and rode heavy motorcycles, poured scorn on the mods, who often wore suits and rode scooters. The rockers considered mods to be weedy, effeminate snobs, and mods saw rockers as out of touch, oafish and grubby.

• Mod or Rocker - 'You had to be one or the other '• The Mods had designer suits, Italian scooters and The Who. Rockers had leathers, motorbikes and Elvis. • For a few years in the early 1960s, the two groups represented a sharp division in British youth culture. • Their rivalry often spilled over into violence, and the 1964 holiday weekend clashes in resort towns on

the south coast terrorised local residents and outraged much of the nation. • But soon after the seaside riots of 1964, this volatile split in British teen life faded away. • Musically, there was not much common ground. Rockers listened to 1950s rock and roll, mostly by

white American artists such as Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran.

Media Portrayals

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn5vYOwCTak• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/forty-ye

ars-ago-pictures-of-mods-and-rockers-shocked-polite-society-but-were-they-staged-by-the-press-558818.html

• 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, and seeking out extreme cases such as a young mod who claimed that he would "go without food to buy clothes".

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/18/newsid_2511000/2511245.stm