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Mod, from the word modernist, is a subculture that began in late 1950s London and spread throughout Great Britain, eventually influencing fashions and trends in other countries. It continues today on a smaller scale. Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of stylish London-based young men and women in the late 1950s who were termed modernists because they listened to modern jazz.
Elements of the mod subculture include fashion (often tailor-made suits), music (including soul music, rhythm and blues and ska, but mainly jazz). They rode motor scooters, usually or . In the mid-1960s, members of the subculture listened to rock music groups with rhythm and blues (R&B) influences, such as the Who and Small Faces. The original mod scene was associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night jazz dancing at clubs.
During the early to mid-1960s, as the mod movement grew and spread throughout Britain, certain elements of the mod scene became engaged in well-publicised riot with members of a rival subculture, the rockers. The conflict between mods and rockers led sociologist Stanley Cohen to use the term "moral panic" in his study about the two , in which he examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.
By 1965, conflicts between mods and rockers began to subside and mods increasingly gravitated towards pop art and psychedelic rock. London became synonymous with fashion, music, and pop culture in those years, a period often referred to as "Swinging Sixties". During that time, mod fashions spread to other countries. Mod was then viewed less as an isolated subculture, but as emblematic of the larger youth culture of the era. As mod became more cosmopolitan during the "Swinging London" period, some working-class "street mods" splintered off, forming other groups such as the .
By the early 1970s, mod and psychedelia had faded in popularity, with hard rock and glam rock styles taking over. In the late 1970s, there was a mod revival in Britain, which attempted to replicate the "scooter" period look and styles of the early to mid-1960s. It was followed by a similar mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in southern California.
Paul Jobling and David Crowley argued that the definition of mod could be difficult to pin down because, throughout the subculture's original era, it was "prone to continuous reinvention".Jobling, Paul and David Crowley, Graphic Design: Reproduction and Representation Since 1800 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996) , , p. 213 They claim that, since the mod scene was so pluralist, the word mod was an umbrella term that covered several distinct sub-scenes. Terry Rawlings argued that mods were difficult to define because the subculture started out as a "mysterious semi-secret world", which the Who's manager Peter Meaden summarised as "clean living under difficult circumstances".Rawlings, Terry, Mod: Clean Living Under Very Difficult Circumstances: a Very British Phenomenon (Omnibus Press, 2000)
Mary Anne Long argued that "first hand accounts and contemporary theorists point to the Jewish upper-working or middle-class of London's East End and suburbs."Long, Mary Anne, A Cultural History of the Italian Motorscooter, senior thesis presented To Prof. Anne Cook Saunders on 17 December 1998, online at: www.nh-scooters.com/filemanager/download/11/php1C.pdf Simon Frith asserted that the mod subculture had its roots in the 1950s beatnik coffee bar culture, which catered to art school students in the radical Bohemianism scene in London.Frith, Simon and Howard Horne, Art into Pop (1987), pp. 86–87 Steve Sparks, whose claim is to be one of the original mods, agrees that before mod became commercialised, it was essentially an extension of the beatnik culture: "It comes from 'modernist', it was to do with modern jazz and to do with Jean-Paul Sartre" and existentialism. Sparks argued that "Mod has been much misunderstood ... as this working-class, scooter-riding precursor of skinheads."
Coffee bars were attractive to British youth because, in contrast to typical public house, which closed at about 11 pm, they were open until the early hours of the morning. Coffee bars had which, in some cases, reserved space in the machines for the customers' own records. In the late 1950s, coffee bars were associated with jazz and blues but, in the early 1960s, they began playing more R&B music. Frith noted that although coffee bars were originally aimed at middle-class art school students, they began to facilitate an intermixing of youth from different backgrounds and classes.Frith, Simon and Howard Horne. Art into Pop (1987), pp. 87 At those venues, which Frith called the "first sign of the youth movement", young people met collectors of R&B and blues records.
As the mod subculture grew in London during the early-to-mid-1960s, tensions arose between the mods, often riding highly decorated motor scooters, and their main rivals, the rockers, a British subculture who favoured rockabilly, early rock'n'roll, motorcycles and leather jackets, and considered the mods effeminate because of their interest in fashion.Covach, John; Flory, Andrew (2012), "Chapter 4: 1964–1966 The Beatles and the british invasion | XII Other important British blues revival groups | E. The Who", in Covach, John; Flory, Andrew, What's that sound?: an introduction to rock and its history, New York: Norton, , "6. There were some violent clashes between the two groups. This period was later immortalised by songwriter Pete Townshend, in the Who's 1973 concept album, Quadrophenia. After 1964, clashes between the two groups largely subsided, as mod expanded and came to be accepted by the youth generation throughout the UK as a symbol of all that was new.Brown, Mick. Mods: A Very British Style provides definitive history of the 1960s movement, review. The Telegraph. 19 March 2013 During that time, London became a mecca for rock music, with popular bands such as the Who and Small Faces appealing to a largely mod audience,Unterberger, R., "Mod", in V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul, 3rd. ed. (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 2002), , pp. 1321–2. as well as the preponderance of hip fashions, in a period often referred to as Swinging Sixties.
This period, portrayed by Alberto Sordi's film in Thank you very much, and in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup, PDN Legends Online: David Bailey. Retrieved 28 July 2012. was typified by pop art, Carnaby Street boutiques, live music, and discothèques. Many associate this era with fashion model Twiggy, mini skirt, and bold geometrical patterns on brightly coloured clothes. During these years, it exerted a considerable influence on the worldwide spread of mod.
American musicians, in the wake of the British Invasion, adopted the look of mod clothes, longer hairstyles, and Beatle boots.Babiuk, A. The Beatles' Gear. Hal Leonard Corporation. 2001. pr. 136. The exploitation documentary Mondo film provides a glimpse of mod's influence on the Sunset Strip and West Hollywood scene of late 1966.Mondo Mod. Dir. E. Beatty and P. Perry, orig. 1967. DVD: something Weird Video, rel. 2002 w/ The Hippy Revolt Mod increasingly became associated with psychedelic rock and the early hippie movement and, by 1967, more exotic looks had come into vogue, such as and love beads.Lobenthal, J. "Psychedelic Fashion." Love to Know. Its trappings were reflected on popular American TV shows such as Laugh-In and Mod Squad. "Mod Squad: The Ladies of 1960s Fashion" . Need Supply Co. 3 March 2013. Photos of Goldie Hawn, who was member of original cast on Laugh-In.Oliver, Dana. Peggy Lipton Style Evolution: The 'Mod Squad' Star Turned Hip Hollywood Mom . The Huffington Post. 29 August 2012.
Many of the hard mods lived in the same economically depressed areas of South London as West Indian immigrants, so these mods favoured a different kind of attire, that emulated the rude boy look of Trilby hats and too-short trousers.Hebdige, Dick, "Reggae, Rasta and Rudies" in Writing Black Britain, 1948–1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, James Procter, ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) These Mods listened to Jamaican ska and mingled with black rude boys at West Indian nightclubs like Ram Jam, A-Train and Sloopy's.Old Skool Jim, Trojan Skinhead Reggae Box Set liner notes (London: Trojan Records) TJETD169Marshall, George, Spirit of '69 – A Skinhead Bible (Dunoon, Scotland: S.T. Publishing, 1991) Hebdige, Dick, "Reggae, Rasta and Rudies", p. 163 in Writing Black Britain, 1948–1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, James Procter, ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) Hebdige claimed that the hard mods were drawn to black culture and ska music in part because the educated, middle-class hippie movement's drug-orientated and intellectual music did not have any relevance for them.Hebdige, Dick, "Reggae, Rasta and Rudies", p. 162 in Writing Black Britain, 1948–1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, James Procter, ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) He argued that the hard mods were attracted to ska because it was a secret, underground, non-commercialised music that was disseminated through informal channels such as house parties and clubs.Hebdige, Dick, "Reggae, Rasta and Rudies", pp. 162–163 in Writing Black Britain, 1948–1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, James Procter, ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000)
By the end of the 1960s, the hard mods had become known as , who, in their early days, would be known for the same love of Soul music, rocksteady and early reggae. Because of their fascination with black culture, the early skinheads were, except in isolated situations, largely devoid of the overt racism and fascism that would later become associated with whole wings of the movement in the mid to late 1970s. The early skinheads retained basic elements of mod fashion—such as Fred Perry and Ben Sherman shirts, Sta-Prest trousers and Levi's jeans—but mixed them with working class-orientated accessories such as Suspenders and Dr. Martens work boots. Hebdige claimed that as early as the Margate and Brighton brawls between mods and rockers, some mods were seen wearing boots and braces and sporting close cropped haircuts (for practical reasons, as long hair was a liability in industrial jobs and street fights).
Mods and ex-mods were also part of the early northern soul scene, a subculture based on obscure 1960s and 1970s American soul records. Some mods evolved into, or merged with, subcultures such as individualists, stylists, and .
The British mod revival was followed by a revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in Southern California, led by bands such as the Untouchables. The mod scene in Los Angeles and Orange County was partly influenced by the 2 Tone ska revival in England, and was unique in its racial diversity, with black, white, Hispanic and Asian participants. The 1990s Britpop scene featured noticeable mod influences on bands such as Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene and the Bluetones. Popular 21st century musicians Miles Kane and Jake Bugg are also followers of the mod subculture.
The influence of British newspapers on creating the public perception of mods as having a leisure-filled club-going lifestyle can be seen in a 1964 article in The Sunday Times. The paper interviewed a 17-year-old mod who went out clubbing seven nights a week and spent Saturday afternoons shopping for clothes and records. However, few British teens and young adults would have had the time and money to spend this much time going to nightclubs. Paul Jobling and David Crowley argued that most young mods worked 9 to 5 at semi-skilled jobs, which meant that they had much less leisure time and only a modest income to spend during their time off.
Two youth subcultures helped pave the way for mod fashion by breaking new ground: the , with their Bohemianism image of berets and black turtlenecks, and the , from whom mod fashion inherited its "narcissistic and fastidious fashion tendencies" and the immaculate dandy look.Casburn, Melissa M., A Concise History of the British Mod Movement, p. 2. The Teddy Boys paved the way for making male interest in fashion socially acceptable. Prior to the Teddy Boys, male interest in fashion in Britain was often associated with underground homosexuals' subculture and dressing style.
Jobling and Crowley argued 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, and putting them on their jackets in a pop art-style, and putting their personal signatures on their style. Mods adopted new Italian and French styles in part as a reaction to the rural and small-town rockers, with their 1950s-style leather motorcycle clothes and American greaser look.
Male mods adopted a smooth, sophisticated look that included tailor-made suits with narrow lapels (sometimes made of mohair), skinny ties, button-down collar shirts, wool or cashmere jumpers (crewneck or V-neck), Chelsea boot or Beatle boots, loafers, Clarks desert boots, bowling shoes, and hairstyles that imitated the look of French Nouvelle Vague film actors.Casburn, Melissa M., A Concise History of the British Mod Movement A big part of the Mod look was borrowed from the Ivy League collegiate style from the United States. A few male mods went against gender norms by using eye shadow, eye-pencil or even lipstick. Mods chose scooters over motorbikes partly because they were a symbol of Italian style and because their body panels concealed moving parts and made them less likely to stain clothes with oil or road dust. Many mods wore ex-military parkas while driving scooters to keep their clothes clean.
Many female mods dressed androgynously, with short haircuts, men's trousers or shirts, flat shoes, and little makeup – often just pale foundation, brown eye shadow, white or pale lipstick and false eyelashes.Casburn, Melissa M, A Concise History of the British Mod Movement, p. 4. British fashion designer Mary Quant, who helped popularize the miniskirt, is credited for popularizing mod subculture. Miniskirts became progressively shorter between the early and mid-1960s. As female mod fashion became more mainstream, slender models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy began to exemplify the mod look. Maverick fashion designers emerged, such as Quant, who was known for her miniskirt designs, and John Stephen, who sold a line named "His Clothes" and whose clients included bands such as Small Faces. The television programme Ready Steady Go! helped spread awareness of mod fashions to a larger audience. Mod-culture continues to influence fashion, with the ongoing trend for mod-inspired styles such as 3-button suits, Chelsea boots and mini dresses. The Mod Revival of the 1980s and 1990s led to a new era of mod-inspired fashion, driven by bands such as Madness, the Specials and Oasis. The popularity of the This Is England film and TV series also kept mod fashion in the public eye. Today's mod icons include Miles Kane (frontman of the Last Shadow Puppets), cyclist Bradley Wiggins and Paul Weller, 'The ModFather'.
The original mods gathered at all-night clubs such as The Flamingo and Marquee Club in London to hear the latest records and show off their dance moves. As the mod subculture spread across the United Kingdom, other clubs became popular, including Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester.Inglis, I., Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), p. 95.
The British R&B/rock bands the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds and the Kinks all had mod followings, and other bands emerged that were specifically mod-oriented. These included The Who, Small Faces, the Creation, the Action, the Smoke and John's Children. The Who's early promotional material tagged them as playing "maximum rhythm and blues", and a name change in 1964 from The Who to The High Numbers was an attempt to cater even more to the mod market. After the commercial failure of the single "Zoot Suit/I'm the Face", the band changed its name back to The Who. Although the Beatles dressed like mods for a while (after dressing like rockers earlier), their beat music was not as popular as British R&B among mods.Inglis, I., The Beatles, Popular Music and Society: a Thousand Voices (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), p. 44.
Wilson argued that the significance of amphetamines to the mod culture was similar to that of LSD and cannabis within the subsequent hippie counterculture. Dick Hebdige argued that mods used amphetamines to extend their leisure time into the early hours of the morning and as a way of bridging the gap between their hostile and daunting everyday work lives and the "inner world" of dancing and dressing up in their off-hours.Hebdige, Dick, "The Meaning of Mod," in Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, eds., Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain (London: Routledge, 1993) p. 171
Mods also treated scooters as a fashion accessory. Italian scooters were preferred due to their clean-lined, curving shapes and gleaming chrome plating, with sales driven by close associations between dealerships and clubs, such as the Ace of Herts.
For young mods, Italian scooters were the "embodiment of continental style and a way to escape the working-class row houses of their upbringing".Sarti, Doug, "Vespa Scoots Sexily Back to Vancouver" , Straight.com. 3 June 2004 Mods 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". Some mods added four, ten, or as many as 30 mirrors to their scooters. They often put their names on the small windscreen. They sometimes took their engine side panels and front bumpers to electroplating shops to get them covered in highly reflective chrome.
Hard mods (who later evolved into the skinheads) began riding scooters more for practical reasons. Their scooters were either unmodified or cutdown, which was nicknamed a "skelly".Long, Mary Anne, A Cultural History of the Italian Motorscooter, senior thesis presented to Prof. Anne Cook Saunders, 17 December 1998, online at: www.nh-scooters.com/filemanager/download/11/php1C.pdf Lambrettas were cutdown to the bare frame, and the unibody (monocoque)-design Vespas had their body panels slimmed down or reshaped.
After the seaside resort brawls, the media began to associate Italian scooters with violent mods. Much later, writers described groups of mods riding scooters together as a "menacing symbol of group solidarity" that was "converted into a weapon".Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Methuen, 1979) p. 104Hebdige, Dick. "The Meaning of Mod" in Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, eds., Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain (London: Routledge, 1993) p. 172 With events like the 6 November 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.Hebdige, Dick, "The Meaning of Mod" in Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, eds., Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain (London: Routledge, 1993) pp. 173 and 166
Hall and Jefferson argued that the presentable image of female mod fashions meant it was easier for young mod women to integrate with the non-subculture aspects of their lives (home, school and work) than for members of other subcultures. The emphasis on clothing and a stylised look for women demonstrated the "same fussiness for detail in clothes" as their male mod counterparts.
Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss claimed that the emphasis in the mod subculture on consumerism and shopping was the "ultimate affront to male working-class traditions" in the United Kingdom, because in the working-class tradition, shopping was usually done by women. They argued that British mods were "worshipping leisure and money ... scorning the masculine world of hard work and honest labour" by spending their time listening to music, collecting records, socialising, and dancing at all-night clubs.
Scholars debate how much contact the two subcultures had during the 1960s. Hebdige argued that mods and rockers had little contact with each other because they tended to come from different regions of England (mods from London and rockers from rural areas), and because they had "totally disparate goals and lifestyles". Mark Gilman, however, claimed that both mods and rockers could be seen at football matches.Gilman, Mark, Football and Drugs: Two Cultures Clash, The International Journal of Drug Policy, vol. 5, no. 1, 1994
John Covach wrote that in the United Kingdom, rockers were often engaged in brawls with mods. BBC News stories from May 1964 stated that mods and rockers were jailed after riots in seaside resort towns on the south and east coasts of England, such as Margate, Brighton, Bournemouth and Clacton-on-Sea. The "mods and rockers" conflict was explored as an instance of "moral panic" by sociologist Stanley Cohen in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s. Although Cohen acknowledged that mods and rockers had some fights in the mid-1960s, he argued that they were no different from the evening brawls that occurred between non-mod and non-rocker youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, both at seaside resorts and after football games.Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. page 27
Newspapers of the time were eager to describe the mod and rocker clashes as being of "disastrous proportions", and labelled mods and rockers as "sawdust Caesars", "vermin" and "louts". Newspaper editorials fanned the flames of hysteria, such as a Birmingham Post editorial in May 1964 which warned that mods and rockers were "internal enemies" in the United Kingdom who would "bring about disintegration of a nation's character". The magazine Police Review argued that the mods and rockers' purported lack of respect for law and order could cause violence to "surge and flame like a forest fire". As a result of this media coverage, two British members of parliament travelled to the seaside areas to survey the damage, and MP Harold Gurden called for a resolution for intensified measures to control youth hooliganism. One of the prosecutors in the trial of some of the Clacton brawlers argued that mods and rockers were youths with no serious views, who lacked respect for law and order.
Amphetamines
A notable part of the mod subculture was recreational amphetamine use, which was used to fuel all-night dances at clubs. Newspaper reports described dancers emerging from clubs at 5 a.m. with dilated pupils. Some mods consumed a combined amphetamine/barbiturate called Dexamyl, nicknamed "purple hearts".Dave Haslam, Life After Dark: A History of British Nightclubs & Music Venues, London: Simon & Schuster, 2015, . Due to this association with amphetamines, Pete Meaden's "clean living" aphorism about the mod subculture may seem contradictory, but the drug was still legal in Britain in the early 1960s, and mods used the drug for stimulation and alertness, which they viewed as different from the intoxication caused by alcohol and other drugs. Andrew Wilson argued that for a significant minority, "amphetamines symbolised the smart, on-the-ball, cool image" and that they sought "stimulation not intoxication ... greater awareness, not escape" and "confidence and articulacy" rather than the "drunken rowdiness of previous generations".
Scooters
Many mods drove motor scooters, usually or Lambrettas. Scooters were a practical and affordable form of transportation for 1960s teens, since until the early 1970s, public transport stopped relatively early in the night. For teens with low-paying jobs, scooters were cheaper and easier to park than cars, and they could be bought through newly available hire purchase plans.
Gender roles
Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson argued in 1993 that compared to other youth subcultures, the mod scene gave young women high visibility and relative autonomy.Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain. By Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson. Published by Routledge, 1993. , , p. 217. They wrote that this status may have been related both to the attitudes of the mod young men, who accepted the idea that a young woman did not have to be attached to a man, and to the development of new occupations for young women, which gave them an income and made them more independent. Hall and Jefferson noted the increasing number of jobs in boutiques and women's clothing stores, which, while poorly paid and lacking opportunities for advancement, gave young women disposable income, status and a glamorous sense of dressing up and going into town to work.Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain. By Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson. Published by Routledge, 1993. ,
Conflicts with rockers
In early-1960s Britain, the two main were mods and rockers. Mods were described in 2012 as "effeminate, stuck-up, emulating the middle classes, aspiring to a competitive sophistication, snobbish, and phony", and rockers as "hopelessly naive, loutish, and scruffy", emulating the motorcycle gang members in the film The Wild One, by wearing leather jackets and riding motorcycles. Book preview. Outcasts, Dropouts, and Provocateurs: Nonconformists Prepare the Terrain, www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-927666-8.pdf Dick Hebdige claimed in 2006 that the "mods rejected the rocker's crude conception of masculinity, the transparency of his motivations, his clumsiness"; the rockers viewed the vanity and obsession with clothes of the mods as immasculine.
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Categories: 1960s Fads And Trends, 1960s Fashion, 1970s Fads And Trends, 1980s Fads And Trends, Fashion, Modernism, Motorcycling Subculture In The United Kingdom, Musical Subcultures, Working-class Culture In The United Kingdom, Youth Culture In The United Kingdom, British Subcultures, Counterculture Of The 1960s, Counterculture Of The 1970s
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