First
of all: braces! It is a contentious issue, but the awesome among you will
understand how cool braces are.
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(Left) Reverse cover art for Ian Dury’s New Boots and Panties!! (Right) Skinheads in Piccadilly Circus
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Second
of all: a brief note on neo-fascism and the struggle for cultural tolerance… I
don’t mean to get political on a fashion blog, but the styles of ska music have
an important social history. I will give you an insight into this history as
well as a flavour of ska music and culture. In the early 70s, the white
working-class British youth shamelessly imitated the cool Kingston ‘rude-boy’
style of Desmond Decker and second generation Jamaicans and gave birth to
‘skinhead’ culture.
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Dekker’s suited and booted look pre-empts the image of bands like The Specials
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The staples of this style were checked button-down shirts and tailored tonic mohair suits, purchased at great expense, with short or turned up trousers, loafers, brogues, and the most enduring icons of the style: Doc Martins and braces. From this shared style emerged a brief moment of cultural harmony. But in one of recent history’s most hideous contradictions, skinheads aligned themselves with ultranationalist parties such as the National Front and violently turned on non-white cultures.
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Shane Meadow’s This Is England dramatically depicts the corruption of youth by far right politics
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It wasn’t until the end of the 70s that ska made a comeback from the most unlikely
of places: Coventry. 2-tone was born out of anger towards the vitriol and
racism on the streets of Britain. It united black and white musicians, in bands
such as The Specials and Madness, to create music everyone could
dance to, and the style that came with it was an attempt to rekindle the
cultural harmony of the early 70s. Pauline Black of The Selector remarks of
2-tone’s famous checked pattern:
“Black and white check is quite iconic and what we were trying
to portray is that black and white people could be in the same band and really
get along together and make music together … That was a very potent thing for
young people to see at that time.”*
Pauline
Black was at the forefront of piecing this style together using the power of
the thrift shop. Here lies the true beauty of this style. Aside from its
emphasis on cultural unity, a message that quite seriously needs voicing today,
2-tone style goes hand in hand with vintage culture; perhaps it even marks its
beginnings.
2-tone
introduced a number of other staples of the ska look: skinny black ties, the
still-popular Harrington jacket, overcoats, pork pie hats and trilbies, and Wayfarer
shades. You can see sly nods to this fashion on the highstreet today, but I
encourage you to venture off the highstreet and find something absolutely
skank-worthy.
In
conclusion: braces!
Adapting the 2-tone look: with skinny rather than straight-cut jeans, an old burton overcoat and brogue boots. DMs and similar will make a sizeable hole in your wallet; Blighty Bazaar for one have some awesome second hand boots on their ground floor. A nice jacket could give this look a more rude boy or even dandyish feel. The braces were my dad's.
Photography: Angela Gui
* See BBC4 documentary, Oh You Pretty Things: The Story of Music and Fashion, as part of the BBC’s Sound of Style season.
/ Frederick x
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