When I was younger, I used to dress in black with long white collarless shirts and pointy boots that I thought made me look great. The footwear ruined my toes and I switched to DMs and army boots pretty quick, but it was too late.
Any youth culture fashion choices that you made that you now regret, or even that remain a source of pride?
In retrospect, the spiderweb facial tattoo was perhaps ill-advised.
I believe that that look is ‘coming back.’
I honestly cannot see why anyone would get a tattoo on their face. Why would they do that to themselves? Do they not realise it’s permanent??
Neck tattoos as well. Ugh.
But maybe it’s just me.
It saves time, by instantly answering the question “I wonder if this person is a knobhead?”
It’s a social service, really.
I have a neck tattoo and a PHD and am not a knobhead. I’m also not judgemental.
I too have a PhD and am both judgemental and a knobhead. It takes all sorts and what we need is a great big melting pot etc
Tattoos are so much a part of the norm here in Germany, at least. Wander around an open air swimming pool and I’d say a majority have them somewhere on their body. What used to be taboo is less so now as the inkings on the shirt-covered parts of the body are acceptable. To stand out as ‘edgy’ neck and face tattoos are, I guess, de rigueur – no longer completely asocial.
In the UK now not having a tattoo is not normal. Even if we dig Burt Weedon.
Agree with that, Sal. An outing to the outdoor pool this summer was like a visit to a living art gallery.
Sometimes the result can be stunning. Sometimes I thought: that was not a good idea!
And as for the guys working on the local building site, they all look as though they are extras for a movie about the Vikings. Large beer belly, bush red beard and tats everywhere.
I’ve never seen a tattoo that I thought couldn’t be improved by not being there.
Yup.
Edinburgh would certainly be a quieter place.
As banks and all the properly useful shops disappear from British high streets, it is only tattoo parlours (though I believe the modern term is ‘tattoo studios’) that seem to be springing up everywhere. Surely we have reached peak tattoo?
Seriously though but – I have no photographs of me in my Alternative Underground Culture years, so I have to rely on memory for what I wore back then. So I’m fucked, basically. But I’m sure that Army Surplus gear figured in my wardrobe, after a brief fling with paisley shirts and hipster bags. Patched jeans with those extra bits sewn into the seams (thanks, Jane!) to make them bell-bottomous, and the cuffs fringed. Loon pants, loon shirt. Three-button vest. Accessorised with leather dope pouch on the belt (whither the dope pouch of yore? Fragrant with incense). Cowboy boots from Spain with real leather soles that came off in the rain. Waistcoat. Denim shirt with pearl buttons and twin cuff buttons. Converse-style pumps. Brief fling with clogs, Doc Martens greasies. Then the mid-seventies hit and everything went to shit and me with it. Whereas I could have passed for a bass player in any midlands technical college band up to about ’74, it was a disaster after. I remember taking an ad for Low into the barbers and saying “like this”. It wasn’t.
(Just for clarity, and in a forlorn hope of heading off wise-arsery, I didn’t wear all of this stuff at once)
I had a friend who also took the cover of Low into a hairdressers! Didn’t quite work…. You probably need to starve yourself to under 8 stone and have two eyes different colours….
Most ill-advised – the dryers could warp the vinyl.
On the other hand, David Bowie didn’t have different coloured eyes, he had one that was permanently dilated. This was as a result of a fight, which can be pretty easily obtained at most good hairdressers.
Mr Cowslip – it is my eccentric belief that the Low cover was the true tipping point of culture and persuaded many people – perhaps not David Crosby – that a visit to the barber’s was overdue. It sounds daft now but I had (girl)friends who actually, really, CRIED when I had my abundant tresses sheared. They sensed, perhaps, it was the end of an era. Or maybe they were laughing – hard to tell.
My mother once took a Barbra Streisand album cover into the hairdressers and said “Can you make look like that?” so the hairdresser hit her on the nose with a hair brush.
Army surplus seems to have been a staple of youth culture from beatniks through crusties and probably beyond. Hard-wearing and cheap, I guess would have been some of the reasons for their popularity.
I had to google loon pants – something I’d often heard about, but never really knew what they were – apart from being something associated with hippies – like cheesecloth, another inexplicable (though kaftan, I could understand – hairy waistcoat, I think).
Fashion was non-existent to me until about 13/14, when kids in my year laughed at my brown flared cords and Clarks porkpie shoes. Next shopping trip it was tapered trousers and Lacoste crocodile ankle boots. Paisley shirts and mullet were further steps on the route to full goth mode.
You’ve saved me a lot of typing.
When I was about 14 there was a trend for luminous green socks which I loved. Quite fancy a pair now actually.
Sainsburys sell multi-packs of socks in dayglow orange, yellow, pink, green, red and blue. I wear different colours on each foot.
You’re a rugged individualist, caring not a whit for the mores of society, you are.
Two legs bad. Six legs badder than bad.
My Dad asked me thirty years ago, “Are they jeans or cooling towers?”
What would they be cooling?
My feet, after I’d bopped all night in single-minded pursuit of The Groove.
UNSEE
Wait a sec. Thirty years ago – Madchester and baggy – so no risk of twisting your melons then, man?
No, plenty of room in a loose fit.
After returning from Morocco in 72, I went on an A Level biology field trip.
I walked down to the communal breakfast in my black bullfighters’ hat that had gone floppy after swimming in the sea with it on, orange kaftan, Indian printed scarf, probably bright yellow loons and sandals.
The whole room went silent.
Writing this reminded me of this post I did a few years ago.
Apart from taking the Low album in HP’s post rang very true.
Close this thread now! Hubert did it all before, and better – when the AW demographic was a touch more gender-neutral.
I didn’t know about your thread, @hubert-rawlinson, but I’m glad you brought it out of storage to show – there are some amazing costumes in there that deserve a repeat showing. Thanks!
Hubes once posted a picture of himself (it may have been in my Platinum Hamper selfies thread) sprawling arrogantly in the uni bar (or wherever) that looked exactly like me except for the handsomeness.
I trust the handsomeness was on my part.
Hubes was not the only one. I returned from Morocco in late 81/82 curly hair to my shoulders, beard, smock with loon sleeves, great coat type thing (with life in it I’m sure), jeans tucked into knee length Portuguese smooth haired brushed leather cowboy boots. Quite respectable in total.
What astonished me most was being ‘mistaken’ for or ‘assumed’ to be black due to a very deep tan. I’ve got blue eyes, ffs.
How long were you in Morocco for? Did you go out looking like Nick Heyward and get transformed like Mr Benn or did you already have a tendency towards exotic clothing?
Same question to Mr Rawlinson – though I’m guessing as an A-level student he strolled through the Jemaa el-Fnaa dressed as Will McKenzie.
I was there for a couple of weeks travelling around, visited Fes but didn’t buy one at the time.
Walking through the souk one day stopped at a shop to look and found myself suddenly wearing an afghan coat which the owner had slipped on me and thought I’d want to buy. I didn’t.
No Will McKenzie look for me, cheesecloth shirt and loons were the order of the day.
Think nothing of it @salwarpe after all I have just done the single word use thread which had been done before, (and got the hamper).
Would that there was photographic proof to see.
It’s all timing. My mirror mirror thread got some 190 comments, but posted on the last day of July, it just missed getting into the 30 day charts.
Am I bitter? I hardly give it a second thought.
I went through stages of early, mid, and late-hippie, post-punk, goth, new age traveller, hip rock n’roll type (kinda Ramonesy), and then decided … hair cut … take out earrings … dress conventionally (that Oxfam must have been the motherlode for a 17 year kid)… and it was great. Best thing I ever did. I stopped going out with hippie-type girls and that was great, too (other girls are also fun, and it was liberating to be away from all the rules in that scene). Glad I never got a tattoo as that would’ve held me back, and I bloody hate them now.
Like any reformed smoker or addict, when i now see people over 22 in teenage tribe schmutter , I always think how bad trying to look like a rock musician (though I’m all for entertainers looking fabulous – it’s part of their job). If you think I’m being judgemental, go to Brighton, Camden, or Glastonbury High Street and regard those past their youth still trying to look like whatever tribe gave them most meaning. I prefer to be squarecore.
Was there one pivotal moment, one experience that made you change?
OK one Proustian fashion item in particular: aged 16 I had a pair of ‘Rising Sun flag’ jeans – ie jeans with the Japanese WW2 flag as a pattern all over them. Now I recall – I may be wrong – that these were advertised in the back of the NME and were once worn by the Clash. I would have got mine from a stall in Piccadilly market in Manchester.
Can’t even find a photo or reference to the Clash wearing them
would love to find a pair, not to wear but to frame!
Framed Hirohito Jeans – TMFTL
Some denim disasters. Brutus Gold extra wide flares while trying to be JJ Burnel, denim jacket during NWOBHM with de-rigeur badges, mid 80’s ice washed jeans.
Time travel you to parts of modern Germany and I expect you would fit right in.
Japan meets The Bunnymen – big hair, long coat, make-up, suit & tie, white shoes – and that was my everyday look. If I was going out, well…
This was early eighties, council estate in Liverpool and I only got beat up once.
Were you the lead singer in that band that I was in?
Much as I also adhered to the saucepot of After the Goldrush patched jeans, when in Rome, or when off to catch the Stranglers at the Roundhouse……
Padlock AND bulldog clip – savage!
In my youth everyone in my peer group wore denim loons, cheesecloth shirts, platform shoes and long hair. They listened to Pink Floyd, Yes and Genesis. I, on the other hand, was socially isolated, quiet and unloved. I wore Fred Perry T shirts, narrow trousers, como shoes, stripy blazers, two tone suits with pin sharp creases, button down collared shirts, crombie coat, thin ties, black socks. To relax, I might wear Adidas trainers and a cardigan. I liked Soul music, The Beatles and The early Stones, some ska. I was inexplicably drawn to Glam. Both Bolan and Bowie were mods before they became famous. I first saw Bowie in 1973. I wore the comos, the socks, the narrow trousers, a white shirt, a thin tie and a cardigan. Most in the queue were dressed like me. Inside, Bowie dressed like someone from another planet.
Bowie and Bolan were both mods? Was this before Frazer Lewrie?
(Incidentally, I’m struggling with the “denim loons” – loons were made of thin cotton, and had no pockets. I don’t remember belt loops, either. Colours were what you couldn’t get in jeans – green, purple, plum red. But denim?)
Ah. Maybe they were coloured faded blue like denim. I never owned a pair.
Mark Feld was a famous ‘face’ in Stamford Hill, known for his sharp dress sense before he turned to hippy-dippy folk. David Jones was a mod before he, too, morphed into a hippy-dippy David Bowie singing folk. Bowie was one step behind Bolan until 1972.
Just looked up loon pants, it appears loon was short for balloon, all these years and I never knew that I thought they were for looning around in.
I’ve also seen a present day pair of denim loons (Bell bottoms) for £225. They were a couple of quid back in the day, seeing the reproduced adverts reminded me of the split knee loon, oh dear.
Cronkite in 1969: “There are pockets of Viet Cong resistance holding out in the province of Split Knee Loon”
Of course they were for looning about in, as were the shirts. Balloon? I think not. Makes no sense at all.
It possibly came from how they ‘ballooned’ out at the knee.
While ‘researching’ I read about these.
Elephant bells, popular in the mid-to-late 1970s, were similar to loon pants, but were typically made of denim.
Elephant bells, no me neither.
Trust you to have an Observer Book of Trousers to hand.
If you will, a Trouserpedia.
I used to have a copy but I seem to have lost it when we moved house.
I’m sure it’ll turn up.
Got to applaud you there, BC.
Nice of you to say, Tiggs. I was groaning as I wrote it.
Moose does a lot of that.
Groaning, generally
Small question: are Bowie and MC Hammer the only pop stars to have had trousers named after them?
P. J. Proby had a dessert named after his trousers.
“Any puddings for you guys?”
“Yes. Can I get the Hairy Old Nutsack please?”
“Coming right up!”
And so on.
Beki Bondage, heh!
I saw Vice Squad live in 1981. She looked utterly terrified of the audience. I was eight and I found them to be pussycats.
Jean Vincent
Sweet.
Bay City Rollers?
I’m thinking of bringing back the Ruff. I kinda like it.
Recently sporting my rough ruff look.
Thomas More rendered by Magritte. Like it.
You’ve got to take the ruff with the rough. I hadn’t thought of Magritte when strapping the fish to my neck.