Style As Substance

Popular culture has always been defined by its music, art, and fashion. In the mid-1950s the birth of “rock and roll” created a new music that combined elements of what was an inherently black art form, rhythm and blues, with a white southern “rockabilly” look and feel. With Elvis in the forefront, the “duck-tail” and pompadour haircuts, blue jeans and T shirts a la James Dean and Marion Brando, and the flamboyant attire of the likes of Little Richard and Screaming Jay Hawkins defined the look of rock and roll for a decade.

Around the year 1963,something unique in the history of popular culture occurred, Initiated by the emergence of the Beatles and the Liverpool “Mersey-beat” sound, working-class youth in London, England created a new and distinctive style of their own. Abandoning the duck-tails and pompadours, London’s new in –crowd took to short razor-cut hairstyles, trim fitting European style suits, and Edwardian style and clothing. The new look was labeled “mod”. Those who resisted the new style and refused to give up the old rock and roll styles were called “rockers” Each had its own style of Transportation, the “mods”favoring Italian motors scooters such as Vespas and Lambrettas, while the “rockers” rode Traditional Motors cycles, Nortons and Triunphs. The resulting tension between these two factions eventually culminated in the now infamous Brighton riots.

The new look brought with it new music. Groups like the Who, the kinks, Manfred Mann, the Troggs, the Herd ( with a young peter Frampton ). The small faces and the Move (which later evolved into the Electric Light Orchestra) Performed in small London clubs and created a soundtrack for the new youth culture. These artists and musicians both influenced, and were influenced by, the developing fashions. The new music was about style, not substance, or perhaps style as substance . it was neither overtly politically conscious nor intended to cause major social change, however there existed a certain underlying class consciousness and feeling of disenfranchisement in its context. It was pure attitude. The “look” and the sound were both the means and the end. Wile inspiration was drawn from American rock and roll, and particularly the sounds of Motown and Menphis soul music, the resulting sound was undeniably and distinctly British.

Scores of small innovative boutiques sprang up in the city of London. Carnaby
Street became a mecca for anyone whith the desire to be on fashion ‘s cutting edge. Names like Mary Quant, twiggy, and Jeanne Shrimpton became recognized around the word. Even extreme individualists such as the members of the Beatles and Rolling stones worshipped at the new altar of style . Actors, athletes, and other public figures also adopted the “mod” look. The pop art of Andy Warhol was assimilated in the look of the fashions and the style of its advertising and marketing , as was the photography of Richard Avedon . London was the center of the universe when it came to music and fashion .

What was particularly unique about the “mod” revolution was its brevity. Unlike the earlier style of Elvis and his contemporaries, which endured, although in a somewhat diluted sense, for nearly a decade, this revolution was short lived. By the end of 1966, the war in Vietnam, increasing social and political activism and protest, the emergence of the drug culture (specifically marijuana and LSD – the drugs of choice for the “mods” were amphetamines and alcohol) and the “hippie scene” in san Francisco brought the revolution to an abrupt end. Suits were exchanged for denim and Easter style garb, Hair grew longer and unkempt, beards and mustaches appeared, and the three minute songs fabored by the mods developed into concept albums of social and political relevance. The “attitude” which fueled the revolution did not resurface for more than a decade when “punk” in the form of the sex pistols expressed alienation and apathy toward the then accepted, and perhaps irrelevant, popular culture of the mid 1970’s represented by disco, polyester, and “soft rock”.

SWINGING LONDON will cover the years from 1963 through 1966 in London and the revolution in fashion and music which occurred then. As mentioned earlier, it will combine archival footage, celebrity interviews, as well as a contemporary “walking tour” of the city showing places of culturally historical significance as they exist today. Interviews will include musicians, models, fashion designers, studio engineers, club owners, and other chroniclers of the scene.