Mod Culture and Fashion - Research Paper Example

Full and Number Mod Culture and Fashion: A Product of the Times “We can not escape fashion once it has assumed the place of traditional dress....fashion represents the keenly aroused spirit of Modern culture” (Purdy 155). In researching any culture or its factors it is always wise to explore how it evolved within its social context. The Mod culture we analyze in this paper gave birth to Mod fashions, which even today have their impact on designs. These designs, however, did not spring from nowhere. They have a basis in semi-radical political and social movements stemming from 1950s London and its disenchanted youth, longing for the new and innovative, and to express those new views in its lifestyle, music and its fashion. Fashion in this era (Mod) threw out all the old social norms, lifted skirts well above the knees, put men in Edwardian suits and changed the face of society and fashion forever. “Emanating from London, these styles expressed dissatisfaction with the social structure and voiced a message of resistance to convention not found in other fashion capitals” (Quinn 7). The leaders of mid 1960s style were the British. As the Mods strongly influenced the fashion in London, 1960s fashion in general set the mode for the rest of the century as it became marketed to young people, who, at the time, were gaining tremendous influence in affecting everything from clothes to the media, particularly the lifestyle of Mods as popularly reflected in their music and fashions. British rock bands such as “The Who,” children of the working class, gave up their nine to five jobs to become icons in the rock music world. It was not until 1964 when the Modernists were truly recognized by the public that women really were accepted into the group. Girls had short, clean haircuts and often dressed in similar styles to the male Mods—a trend which initiated UniSex design. As opposed to the 50s grease look, Mod style was classy, mimicking the clothing and hairstyles of continental Europe with tight-fitting suits and a more suave dressed appearance. They were the working classes with a sophisticated city look-- the clothing of a new forward-thinking generation. Mod from the longer version of Modern developed as a subculture from the original beatnik culture born in the coffee houses of the 1950s, where disenchanted young intellectuals met to enjoy the new modern jazz, read poetry and share political views. The new Mod culture that eventually evolved from it, however, was less intellectual and political than more intent on creating a new social, musical and fashion order, the term Mod itself describing anything that was popular, fashionable and modern in the current context. It was all new—radically new. Though the movement’s significant elements were fashion and the new pop and R & B music scene, drugs and all night dance clubs were also part of its social world. Several theories conflict as to who actually started the movement, but most agree it had its genesis in the working class areas of London’s East End, where the children of blue collar families with little to look forward to in life grasped immediately onto their opportunity to be special and noticed. In a short time the movement had swept across eastern and western Europe and on to North America. By the mid-nineteen sixties the Mod lifestyle had swept over the globe, with England and the Beatles as the icons of its lifestyle. The American show, “Laugh In,” complete with girls in go go boots dancing in cages, was in full Mod swing, drawing into its viewership millions of avid U.S television watchers. Men formerly in business suits were showing a Mod flare; women in mini-skirts, tights and more makeup than they used to wear appeared everywhere. The following from White and Griffiths describes the scene: Soon the “Mod” style became an international phenomenon. “Even the peers are going “Mod’” declared Life International in a piece on the “Spread of the Swinging Revolution”, published in July 1966. It all began with the teenage ‘Mods’ who spent most of their pocket money on flamboyant clothes. Now the frills and flowers are being adopted in other strata of Britains society, and the male-fashions born in London have joined the theatre among the British exports that arent lagging. The way-out styles already have appeared in such disparate metropolises as Paris and Chicago and may eventually change the whole raison detre of male dress. (10) As a fashion center London took precedence over former cities that for years had dictated fashion. The trend had firmly established itself, pushing a bit to the background of fashion magazines the formerly dominant and dictatorial haute couture of French designers, causing famed French actress Brigit Bardot to exclaim, “‘Couture is for grannies” (Quinn 7). Hot pants, mini skirts and go-go boots were the order of the day, and no designer epitomized the movement and was more recognized or associated with Mod culture and fashion than famed British designer, Mary Quant. Quant is best known as creator of the mini-skirt. Although in fairness to the much maligned French designers as being caught without a clue to the Mod movement in fashion, designer Marc Bohan, who succeeded Yves Saint Laurent as head of the House of Dior, eventually brought the noted design house into the Sixties and the Mod movement.  Under his leadership Bohan created youthful lines of clothing such as Dior Sport, as well as bringing simpler more geometric construction indicative of Mod fashion to the regular line.  In the late sixties Bohan explored the ethnic styles of fashions that were becoming increasingly popular in the late sixties and seventies, with exotic East Indian prints and styles and more fluid shapes .  He continued to head Dior well into the Eighties. So while one might conclude, and rightly so, that the beginning of Mod came from London, its influence was not only felt in other countries but designers in those places could not resist or ignore its influence in fashion. Moving back to Quant, “By the early 1960s, Mary Quants ideas for a new teenage fashion culture for women, predicated on innovative high street retailing combined with the sensibility of mod” (Fawcett 1). With no formal business training, Quant started with a small boutique on the famous Carnaby Street (center of the Mod explosion) and built a fashion empire unheard of in modern fashion history. Designing and wholesaling such iconic items as small white plastic collars, skinny knee high rib sweaters and high white boots, known colloquially as “go go” boots, Quant took London by storm. Beginning work with an exclusive hat maker, Quant quickly adapted the working class styles of Mod with the goal of providing fashion at reasonable cost to the average young person. One might say that through Quant fashion had become accessible to everyone, in this sense making the designer, in a sense, a valid social reformer. By 1961 Quant opened her second Bazaar in Knightsbridge, continuing to keeping prices down for the mass market she hoped to reach. By 1963 Quant was exporting to the huge USA market. The model Twiggy became the epitome of the Quant look, displaying and making popular Quant’s exaggerated eye makeup style and sporting the official Mod look of white tights, lipstick and nail polish. Quant, by then a household name, was awarded the Sunday Times International Award for ‘Jolting England out of Its Conventional Attitude towards clothes--’ an understatement to say the least. In 1966 she received her Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her contribution to the fashion industry. To the ceremony she wore, true to her edict, "Good taste is death. Vulgarity is life" (Adburgham par 1), a mini skirt and cut away gloves. She later qualified her “vulgar” statement. “People call things vulgar when they are new to them...But the critical people, the people who understand fashion, they jump at the new thing, theyre excited" (Adburgham par 2). The truth of it was evident in the fact that many who at the beginning thought the Mod movement simply a trend were now convinced of its fashion legitimacy and understood it as a pathway in later years to expressions of social legitimacy. Least Quant receive all the credit for the Mod fashion movement, it must be said that other designers working at the time and into the 1970s and the 1980 including Bohan had much to do with its success and endurance. Despite the fact that the French get sparse credit for Mod fashion, some in the industry believe Andre Courrèges had more to do the development of the Mod fashion staple, the mini-skirt, than Quant. “The truth is (most likely) that Courreges invented the mini dress and Mary Quant popularized it” (Gregoire par 5) along with go-go boots (fig 1). While this may or may not be true, in fashion it is always the designer who takes new ideas to the public who is credited. While Courreges may have sketched a short skirt or two, it was Quant who made the item available to a wide segment of the population. The irrepressible Rudi Gernreich, like Quant, was a free spirit in the fashion world, and although a more high-priced designer like Quant, consistent with Mod design used simple lines and youthful styles in that mode. Gernreich, in fact, originated the Total Look movement, where the hose and shoes would match the outfit. Like many designers of the time he later turned to ethnic inspiration in design made famous by the Beatles in the 1970s with their East Indian styles. He also invented the bikini. Moving toward the Mod 70s, Thea Porter is best known for her flower power hippy design, also with an eastern influence, promoting gypsy styles worn by such rock singers such as Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. All of these grew decidedly out of the original Mod movement adjusting itself in the social context. Barbara Hulanicki like Quant also opened the legendary Biba boutique in London in 1964.  Biba stocked the "total look" in which shoes, tights, and other accessories coordinated with the clothes.  Biba’s Mod style clothing was also inexpensive, which fit perfectly the budgets of many young women of the working classes.  But perhaps the most serious challenge to Quant’s reputation as the queen of Mod design came from lesser known designer, John Bates, in retrospect considered one of the most influential British designers of the 1960s. “Ernestine Carter the fashion historian thought him the unsung inventor of the mini skirt” (Thomas par 9). As far back as 1959, under the Jean Varon label, Bates designed the shortest skirts, dressed celebrities and designed for some of the top stores in the U.K. “John Bates has never been given enough credit for his role in the rise of the mini skirt. The facts are that John Bates was making shorter skirts long before others. But Mary Quant was the facilitator of this novel idea who was really noticed” (Thomas par 9-10). Young women in favor of more hip look looked for example to the model Twiggy, the epitome of Mod style (fig 2). But other icons of the time had their own affect on style. The musical group, The Beatles, also set the international trend in Mod. “The Beatles, in their early Hamburg days, presented a leather-jacketed image that was closely associated with the hard image of the lower working-class rocker. Following their discovery by Brian Epstein the group achieved world fame, presenting a carefully defused version of a transitional working-class Mod culture” (Witkin 181). The Beatles then are a prime example of the traditional early sixties Mod look that caught on with the working classes and later evolved into the hippy look (also considered Mod) of the nineteen seventies. The more flamboyant fashions of the Mod culture in the early seventies evolved into the hippie style of dress along with marijuana use and philosophical ideas—a sharp contrast to the more superficial working class energy of the original movement. Young people who formerly emulated the Mod look now looked to make rebellious statement by imitating the look of the lower class Caribbean immigrants settling into the East End. By the summer of 1966, the Mod scene as originally conceived was in sharp decline. Even the Beatles were adopting the more esoteric East Indian look, and bands who formerly showed up for shows in Mod attire now arrived with headbands, jeans and eastern style shirts. Age also became a factor, as original Mods got married, had families and became more traditional. “The official decline of Mod is listed somewhere in the late 1960s. By that time the “movement subculture lost its vitality when it became commercialized, artificial and stylized to the point that new Mod clothing styles were being created "from above" by clothing companies... (Hebdige 174). A Mod revival came about in the U.K. in the 1970s, inspired by the film Quadrophenia, by the proliferation of many new Mod rock bands and one of the most-watched shows on television—Mod Squad. While the show came onto the scene at the end of the official British Mod era, it was a perfect example of the extension of the Mod lifestyle into the 1970s. The show’s wardrobe, language and attitude were reflections of rebellious youth, with the good guy intent of the earlier Mods in suits and dresses. The principles, three troubled kids turned cops, worked from the perspective of Mod as a working class movement. The background music was perfectly chosen to reflect the hip coffee house genre plus a generation forward into hip psychedelic music played on organ for affect. While the clothes reflected the evolving Mod style into hippie garb, the feeling was overridingly Modern (Mod), least we forget what the term in the social context is meant to convey. The 1970s movement caught on, spreading to Southern California in the form of a North American 1980s original Mod revival of some consequence, particularly in fashion. Shapeless shifts, the multi-colored flats, geometric prints, plastic bangles were to be seen everywhere from Venice Beach to the clubs of Sunset Strip. The Mod-inspired mini-shift had taken on an A-line shape, casting off the tight and bubble looks of the late 1970s and adapting the sculptural style popularized in the 1960s. Waist gathers became empire. “...waists are popping up under the bust line or loose at the hips, creating boxy or tent shapes that are just begging for a twirly dance-athon. Defined yokes and cinched collars give an otherwise shapeless shift a little definition and mock turtlenecks, bows, ruffles, rolled collars, pretty peter pans and bold boat necks are as prim and proper as the dresses beneath them” (Mod Fashion par 2-10). It was a far cry from kaftans and maxi skirts that had dominated the 1970s. Details were dropped, simplicity was once again in and the hemlines of skirts up, accompanied by ankle boots. In conclusion perhaps it is wise to remember what the Mod movement signified in terms of social, political and cultural progress, including fashion styles that undoubtedly stuck, reinventing themselves in other eras up to the present. The word "Mod" is derived from "Modern," so dont forget what that six-letter word is all about. Think minimal, streamlined and bold. Ditch the fussy details for simple, eye popping accents like a bold-colored boot or a simple coat topped off with a covered, oversized button. Round, turned-down collars care of Peter Pan and straight, geometric cuts care of 60s pop art are clean, unique and utterly Mod. Your color palette is anything but limited, diving from black-white contrast to the richest hues in the rainbow. The 21st century take Mod does skip over the pretty patterns of yester year, though, opting for daring solids in stiff fabrics that stand free of the body line. And the rockadelic metallic’s dominating this seasons evening wear have found their way onto the boxy styles, too, giving rise to the coveted silver mini-dress and luxurious fabrics with a hint of sheen. So march on down to the salon, demand a bob, and prepare yourself to go short, structured (Mod Fashion par 8-11). In the interests of “what goes around, comes around,” Jane Bryant, custom director of the new show “Mad Men,” puts the mod influence in perspective as she comments on the power of clothes to change societal attitudes—as was certainly the case for the original mod movement in the UK. “The appearance of modish short skirts in the premiere of the show’s fourth season immediately telegraphs a jump in time: the 1960s have begun to swing” (Heyman par 3). The costumes she has designed reflect, as they did in the Mod era, both the high and low end in terms of cost. Viewing Mod style as an evolving work in progress, it is important to remember its roots—where it came from and how, why it came to be, and what it achieved not only in the fashion sense but social terms as well. It is important to remember Quant’s idea to make this new fashion available to the working classes had a reverse affect on fashion that normally has a top down movement—from expensive designers to the “rack,” so to speak. The British Mod movement had just the opposite. Styles created for the working classes eventually found their way into high fashion magazines and into the closets of the wealthy and famous. ...” culture, were evident in up-market magazines and impacting an elegant and stylish young elite...” (Fawcett 1). Works Cited Adburgham, Alison. “The Shock of the New.” An interview with Mary Quant, Guardian, October 10 1967, published Saturday, 14 May 2006 on guardian.co.uk. Accessed November 28, 2010 at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/may/14/featuresreviews.guardianreview5 Fawcett, Hilary. “Fashioning the Second Wave: Issues across Generations.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 39.2. (2006). Accessed November 28, 2010 www.questia.com. Gregoire, Christina. “60s Fashion Style - 1964 Mod Dresses, Go Go Boots, Quant, Beatles,” September 4, 2010 on Suite 101.com. Accessed November 28, 2010 on http://www.suite101.com/content/60s-fashion-style---1964-Mod-dresses-go-go-boots-quant-beatles-a282273 Hebdige, Dick. "The Meaning of Mod". In Resistance Through Rituals:Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson (eds) London: Routledge, 1993. Heyman, Stephen. “That ‘Mad Men’ Look? It’s Vintage Janie Bryant,”November 8, 2010. Accessed November 28, 2010 at: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/that-mad-men-look-its-vintage-janie-bryant/#more-118941 “Mary Quant Biography 1955-1967.” Accessed November 29, 2010 at: http://www.clothes-junkie.com/mary-quant-biography-1955-1967/ “Lucy and Lolita on Mod Fashion (2010). Accessed November 28, 2010 on: http://www.lucyandlolita.com/content/Mod-fashion Purdy, Daniel Leonard. The Rise of Fashion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. www.questia.com Quinn, Bradley. Techno Fashion. New York: Berg, 2002. www.questia.com. Thomas, Pauline Weston. “The 60s Mini Skirt 1960s Fashion History” on Fashion- Era.com. Accessed November 29, 2010 at: http://www.fashion-era.com/the_1960s_mini.htm White, Nicola and Griffiths, Ian. The Fashion Business: Oxford: Berg, 2000. www.questia.com. Witkin, Robert W. Adorno on Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 2002. www.questia.com Figures Fig 1 http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/10/12/article-1076917-0216775B000005DC-802_233x282.jpg Fig 2 http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&expIds=17259,17291,17311,25756,25854,26339,26788,27615,27721,27744,27798,27868&sugexp=lcprodsca4&xhr=t&q=Mod+fashions&cp=11&qe=bW9kIGZhc2hpb25z&qesig=WivfhnDrY_WxzP64rbxasQ&pkc=AFgZ2tkO_0dHoZHfFtngEZjUuon5vGHPhw4eH03psWkY0IEA2z4kn9hFobP57mQ3NQhitv6UWeX_-3V6jNXOinsbrqWAuGZgpA&rlz=1R2RNTN_enUS337&wrapid=tljp1291126214350012&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=zAX1TOqQJoHGlQeJ-O3pBQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQsAQwAA&biw=1007&bih=430 Read More