{"id":3314,"date":"2016-10-11T10:13:31","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T09:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennywilson.org\/?p=3314"},"modified":"2016-10-11T10:13:31","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T09:13:31","slug":"the-teddy-boys-britains-first-youth-subculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/2016\/10\/11\/the-teddy-boys-britains-first-youth-subculture\/","title":{"rendered":"The Teddy Boys (Britain’s First Youth Subculture)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chris Steele-Perkins on why photographing teen subcultures is so much more than style over substance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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G.B. ENGLAND. Red Deer, Croydon. 1976.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The invention of the \u2018teenager\u2019 in the 1950s was a global, almost simultaneous phenomenon. Defined by groups of youths rebelling against the expectations of their parents and wider society in their behaviour, attitudes and clothing, movements sprang up in America, Australia, Japan and beyond. Identifiable by their clothes and the music they\u2019d play, these youths revelled in a post-war freedom not enjoyed by the previous generation.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the United Kingdom, one facet of this newly emerging youth culture was working class youngsters adopting the formal and flamboyant tailoring of Edwardian dress. Known as the \u2018Teds<\/a>\u2019 (nodding to the Edwardian era their look was borrowed from) their jackets \u2013 often sumptuous velvets \u2013 had wide notched lapels accessorized with a skinny tie or bootlace, and they wore brothel creeper shoes on their feet. \u201cThe Ted swaggered with it all out front, male sexuality overt,\u201d wrote journalist Richard Smith. As well as a way of dress and a style of music, owing to several high-profile incidents, the Teds were also associated with wayward and yobbish behaviour and public fights that led them to being banned from some venues.<\/p>\n

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The Castle. Old Kent Road, London, England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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Stan the Man. England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Trends die, music moves on and teenagers become adults. More youth culture movements would follow, but with them would come a surprising phenomenon of recycling. In a move that on the surface would seem somewhat at odds with the maverick trailblazer idea of youth in revolt, many youth movements have had subsequent second waves. For example, Brit Pop in the 90s borrowed many of its fashion cues from the music and social movement of Northern Soul in the 70s. Some twenty years after the arrival of the Teds, a second wave of young people, who were often not yet born when the original wave hit, began aping the style, music culture and attitudes of their Ted forebears.<\/p>\n

Chris Steele-Perkins, along with writer Richard Smith, were commissioned by the now-long defunct New Society<\/i> magazine to cover the second wave of the Teds for a story, which grew into a self-motivated study of the British youth movement over several years. Steele-Perkins, who at the time was donning a more relaxed style and long hair, remembers the first wave of Teds when he was a child in the 1950s: \u201cEach town had its own Teds who hung around on street corners smoking and sort of grunting at people. My father would rail against them and threaten to turn me over to them if I didn\u2019t behave myself. Maybe that helped to drive my curiosity when I was older.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Winchester. Elephant & Castle, London, England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span>The Castle. Old Kent Road, London, England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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To See and be Seen<\/b><\/h3>\n

\u201cThe gear: it\u2019s smart; it\u2019s great stuff; it\u2019s much smarter than flared gear. The hair: it\u2019s tidy; it\u2019s not long and straggly. You walk down the street and you get all the old people \u2013 the original people who was there in the fifties \u2013 looking at you and saying, \u2018Ah, look there\u2019s Teddy Boys\u2019.\u00a0You get great screws from people. You get people looking at you as if you were really brilliant like, as if you were really great,\u201d said a Ted who spoke to Richard Smith.<\/p>\n

Since the Teds put so much effort into crafting their look, they were expectedly keen to be photographed \u2013 \u201cWell, they weren\u2019t there to be ignored; that wasn\u2019t their vision of themselves in life,\u201d says Chris Steele-Perkins. However, this presented its own challenges as the photographer had to work around their propensity to peacock in order to capture genuinely candid shots. \u201cYou had to then get to the point where they didn\u2019t just pose for you,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

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Bank holiday. Southend, England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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“You\u2019re a somebody as opposed to the bricklayer or the butcher\u2019s boy” (\u00a0Chris Steele-Perkins)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Subculture Vs. Fashion<\/b><\/h3>\n

What Steele-Perkins\u2019s photography shows, corroborated by Richard Smith\u2019s writing from the time, is that the Teds second wave was more than just a way of dressing but a lifestyle. We see evidence of the characteristic Teds attitude filtering through to the way youths behave, socialize, interact with and even romance each other in his photographs. Chris Steele-Perkins muses on what separates a subcultural youth movement from a fashion trend:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the roundedness of it, it has a slang, a code, a dress code, a sort of knowledge of certain areas, esoteric areas that might be rockabilly music, for example. With (1970s UK music and culture movement) Northern Soul, it was obscure songwriters, for example. It could include a dance style, or a way to dress \u2013 all those little cultural tick boxes. It becomes part of their identity. You\u2019re a somebody as opposed to the bricklayer or the butcher\u2019s boy; you\u2019re this guy that people think look fancy and they might be frightened of you just because of the clothing you\u2019re wearing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0<\/span>Adam and Eve pub in Hackney. London, England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span>The Flying Saucers. England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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Southend, England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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The Importance of Documenting Youth Culture<\/b><\/h3>\n

One critique often lobbed at the study of fashion and teen culture is that it is frivolous, but, as Steele-Perkins explains, it, like an anthropological study of the teen species, reveals a significant amount about the society from which it emerges. \u201cWhat I tried to do was to document a subculture, and quite a major one in British society,\u201d says Steele-Perkins. \u201cI went into their homes and documented them in all kinds of contexts, and the clothes, in the end, become relatively peripheral to the whole thing. I\u2019m not interested in them per se, they\u2019re part of the package. And it\u2019s like most things, leather jackets, you know, it all fades away. It\u2019s much more about identity and who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

This attitude is emblematic of Steele-Perkin\u2019s lifelong photographic approach; it\u2019s what draws him to photograph the subjects he does: families, sports, cultural gatherings, microcosms. \u201cThat\u2019s why I photograph England, in particular,\u201d he says. \u201cAll my working life I\u2019ve been drawn to these small worlds which have the whole world in them. It could be the Teds, it could be Holkham estate (a private aristocratic estate in North Norfolk); it\u2019s pretty similar in terms of it being a world within a world with its own rules and its own codes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new edition of Chris Steele-Perkins\u2019s book \u2018Teds\u2019<\/a>, featuring written vignettes by Richard Smith is out now, published by Dewi Lewis Publishing. Images from the book, plus several not published before are on display at the Magnum Print Room<\/a> in London until October 28.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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GB. ENGLAND. ‘Sunglasses’ Ron Staples, self-aclaimed King of the Teds. London .1975.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Chris Steele-Perkins <\/span>‘Sunglasses’ Ron Staples, self-aclaimed King of the Teds. London, England, Great Britain. 1975. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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G.B. ENGLAND. London. Barry Ransome in The Castle, Old Kent Road 1976.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Chris Steele-Perkins <\/span>Barry Ransome in The Castle. Old Kent Road, London, England, Great Britain. 1976.\u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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Chris Steele-Perkins <\/span>Lyceum Ballroom. London, England, Great Britain. 1976. \u00a9 Chris Steele-Perkins | Magnum photos<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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Chris Steele-Perkins<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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1950s<\/span> <\/a>, 1970s<\/span> <\/a>, Chris Steele-Perkins<\/span> <\/a>, Fashion<\/span> <\/a>, London<\/span> <\/a>, Style<\/span> <\/a>, Subculture<\/span> <\/a>, Teds<\/span> <\/a>, Teenagers<\/span> <\/a>, Youth Culture<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Steele-Perkins on why photographing teen subcultures is so much more than style over substance. The invention of the \u2018teenager\u2019 in the 1950s was a global, almost simultaneous phenomenon. Defined by groups of youths rebelling against the expectations of their parents and wider society in their behaviour, attitudes and clothing, movements sprang up in America, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13,34,58],"tags":[75,77,446],"class_list":["post-3314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beatniks","category-counterculture","category-mods-and-hippies","category-subculture","tag-50s","tag-70s","tag-teds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}