In the 1950s there were two big cults you were likely to see if you walked in the towns and cities of the UK, particularly if you looked in the South of England.
Teddy Boys (Teds) in their drapes and drainpipes were a frequent sight on the streets while, on or around motorcycles, Rockers in leather coats and boots appeared on street corners or roared in convoy along the high street.
The virtually full employment of the time and (relatively) high wages meant that young unmarried men and girls, unlike the generation before them, had money in their pockets and were eager to find both excitement and others with which to share it.
However, away from the streets and particularly downstairs in smoky clubs in London, a different sort of teenager was starting to emerge.
It’s all about identity
Teds and Rockers were mostly working class boys who recruited others from their peers so that left a lot of middle-class boys as well as boys who thought differently feeling very left out. Unable to belong to either group they still wanted to be able to stand out and to stamp their identity on society.
Having little in common with Rockers or Teds and with little else to do and nowhere to gather, they began to gravitate to clubs. Many being below the legal age to drink alcohol, they often found themselves in jazz clubs and particularly in clubs that played modern jazz and later American R&B. At that time modern jazz was heavily American influenced and so they began to absorb the culture and, in a reaction to the scruffy and heavily uniformed image of both Teds and Rockers, they began to look closely at their own clothes and their own values.
Slowly groups of short-haired, clean, neat and impeccably dressed youngsters appeared fleetingly on the streets as they headed out for a club for the evening.
A dedicated follower of fashion
One way to show affiliation with those you admire is to dress as they do and do as they do. These small groups, as yet unorganised, began to dress smartly and to look outside of themselves to see what else was happening in the world. In doing so, they looked away from America and the jazz and R&B that had attracted them and fixed their eyes on the continent.
At that time, French and Italian youths were, compared to a British youth, smartly dressed and suddenly imitating them became an obsession.
Now men would take time to copy or improvise continental styles and then wear them for others to see and note. Some of these boys, being of middle class parents, worked in the fashion or clothing trade and they began to lead and to encourage others to follow. The way a man was dressed was now seen as everything and the Modernists, or Mods as they were increasingly called, prided themselves on being at the height of fashion.
It became a kind of game to see what others were wearing and then try to copy it and, in turn, encourage others to copy what you wore. The emphasis was on a smart, clean, up-to-the minute, continental styling.
And where the boys went there were girls, too, and they soon began to identify themselves as Mods and to cut their hair short, wearing simple but appealing styles that showed their femininity.
Now the 50s were moving on and the stage was set for the small groups of boys and girls up and down the country to unite. What was required to do that was a catalyst that would bind them into, at last, into their own social group. That catalyst was music and next time we look at the groups that were, and were created by, Mods themselves.
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