Mod Fashion

Mod fashion started in the 60s. A small group of young men and a few girls started to look to French and Italian cool, combined with American Ivy League style to create a uniquely British youth fashion. These early Modernists listened to Modern Jazz, rejecting the prevailing fashion for 'Trad' jazz, as typified by Aker Bilk. They also liked American Negro Blues music. The fashion caught on and the Modernists became the Mods.
Since then Mod has played a part in British fashion. Several revivals have kept the look in the public eye. The first of which started in the late 70s following hard on the heals of Punk. Bands such as The Jam provided the music and 60s Carnaby Street provided the fashion inspiration.
Mod returned in the 90s and has been with us ever since.

60's Skinhead Fashion

The Skinhead look from the late sixties and early 70s is almost a forgotten fashion. Although, most people associate Skinheads with the late 70s and early 80s, there was a strong Skinhead movement in Britain between 1968 and 1972, with 1969 to 1971 being the time when Skinheads were primarily in the news.
Most people think of the 60s as the era of the Mods, then Flower Power and Hippies. The Hippy era though was mainly a middle class rebellion against middle class values. Many working class young people found they could not identify with it. They never had the middle class lifestyle to rebel against. Whereas Mod embraced the consumer society, the Hippy movement, although later much commercialised, itself rejected it. These working class youngsters had nowhere to go.
The Skinhead fashion for men evolved from the Mod fashion earlier in the sixties. The original Skinhead fashion was smart style derived from the American Ivy league fashion, although unlike Mod fashion, which was an ever changing scene, the 60s Skinhead became a uniform.
The late 60s and early 70s Skinhead took elements of Mod and was a clear evolution from it. The look was smart. Short hair was a brave statement in the late sixties, when most young people wanted to grow their hair long. The original Skinhead was not completely shaven, but had a short, smart haircut. The inspiration may have been a combination of the college boy haircut favoured by the Mods and military style haircuts. A new hero was emerging on our TV screens in 1968 and 1969, the American astronaut. Their short, smart haircuts were the complete opposite to the Hippie style.
By 1968, the Skinhead look comprised short hair, a button-down shirt, or sometimes a Fred Perry instead, Sta Prest trousers or Levi 501s, brogues or boots with an army-style shine on them (often not Dr Marten's for the 1968 look). Sometimes a suit was worn, often a classic Mod style tonic suit with narrow trousers and lapels, the complete opposite of the flared jeans preferred by the hippies. Ties were narrow, usually striped. Sometimes a cardigan replaced the suit jacket.
The button down shirt was often a Ben Sherman. Skinheads wore gingham check, sometimes other check patterns, or plain Oxford cotton. Ben Sherman struggled to keep up with demand and alternatives from Brutus and Jaytex were also available in similar styles. Fred Perry shirts were also worn by Skinheads in the 60s.
Skinheads wore Crombie overcoats, favoured by gangsters such as the Krays, but smart and expensive. Alternatives were fly fronted gabardine Macs or sheepskin coats. The look was grown up and smart. Very definitely not hippy.
Skinhead was not Mod, since it was much more of a rigid dress code. The Mod look was ever changing with the mood of the Mod fashion of the time. The later 1979 Mod revival, turned the Mod fashion into more of a uniform, but in the 60s being Mod meant you needed to change your look frequently to stay in fashion. Skinheads had no such problem.
Skinheads had a taste for West Indian Reggae music. In the late sixties and early seventies Reggae was underground. It received very little airtime on mainstream radio. One reason for the apparently contradictory liking for ethnic minority music is that Reggae was the music of an oppressed generation. The Skinheads identified with this. Most of all though, they loved the beat.
An early Skinhead band was Slade. They changed their look to glam because of problems getting gigs as Skinheads.
George Melly, in 'Revolt into Style' had no time for the Skinheads, which he also called agro boys. To him they were working class boys wearing a look that passively accepted their limited future. They took on dead end jobs without protest. Like Mods and Teds before them, Skinheads were involved in violence. Football hooliganism was often put down to Skinheads in the early 70s. In spite of their liking for Reggae music, Skinheads were involved in racist violence, as well as petty crime and acts of vandalism.
From 1970 to 1971, Skinheads conformed more to the traditional image we have of them. They wore Dr Marten's boots, and trousers or jeans an inch or so shorter than normal length. They were also making their presence felt in the media. Acts of violence and aggravation were common, as well as vandalism.
The 1968 to 1969 Skinhead look did not last much into the 70s. Skinheads started to grow their hair longer. The media invented new terms such as suedehead, for a slightly longer Skinhead look. Then they grew their hair long and wore flares and penny collars, like everyone else. Like Mod, the Skinhead look had a revival at the end of the 70s and into the early 80s.

Baracuta Harrington

The Baracuta Harrington is the original Harrington worn by the Mods in the 1960s. The Harrington's expression of style and attitude was attractive to Skinheads, Punks and followers of Ska, as well as Mod revivalists in the late 70s and early 80s. Yet it was designed in the 30s and originally made for export to the US.
The original Harrington jacket was designed in 1937 by John and Isaac Miller, owners of the Baracuta Clothing Company. It was a blouson style windcheater jacket with raglan sleeves, a zipper and a distinctive tartan lining. The lining was the Frazer Tartan and it was marketed as the G9. The name 'Harrington' was added much later.
The Baracuta G9 was popular with golfers in the US in the 50s. The G9 was well made and practical, as well as being a casual look in a formal age. It attracted some famous US wearers, including Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. James Dean also famously wore a red Harrington in the film 'Rebel Without a Cause'. The Harrington's place in US fashion iconography was firmly established by the end of the 50s.
In the UK, Baracuta was mainly known as a manufacturer of quality raincoats. Well made, sensible and dependable, but hardly a fashion icon.
The Harrington's place in UK fashion really began in the 60s. The Modernists (later Mods) of the early sixties loved the American Ivy League style. They sought out US style button down shirts, wing tip brogues and loafers, and combined them with Italian style suits and French hair cuts for the original Mod look. The Harrington jacket, by a strange twist of fate, got its Mod reputation because it was so cool in the US. In the sixties, Steve McQueen wore one and was pictured on the front of Life Magazine, the ultimate US coffee table magazine.
The Baracuta G9's cool and its name was sealed in 1964, when Ryan O'Neal wore one in the US soap, Peyton Place. Peyton Place was shown to UK audiences when ITV bought the show in 1965. Ryan O'Neal's character was Rodney Harrington; from then on the G9 was known as the Harrington.
The Harrington was manufactured in the UK, but it was cool by its association with the US. John Simons and Jeff Kwintner, whose Richmond store, 'The Ivy Shop', specialised in American style Ivy League men's fashion, 'discovered' the Harrington for the UK market in 1966. They opened a year earlier in 1965 and catered to a growing number of London Mods. The Harrington was great for them because they did not need to import it from the US.
The Harrington's long association with British youth fashion began when it went on sale in the Ivy Shop. As Mod came to an end, like the button down shirt, the Harrington was adopted by the Skinhead movement. It was combined with Levi 501s, Dr Marten Boots and a gingham check shirt for the definitive Skinhead look.
When young people rejected the hippy influenced style of the seventies and flares and Budgie jackets were finally discarded, the Harrington became a natural choice. It found favour with the revivalist side of Punk, with the 1979 Mod revival and with fans of Ska music. The Harrington was also a natural choice for the Mod revival in 1979. Wearing a Harrington expressed a certain attitude in the late 70s and early 80s. There was a rejection of long hair, flares and the disco music still liked by those only a few years older.
The classic look for the 1979 to 1981 era was a black Harrington. By the late 70s there were cheaper versions of the original Baracuta design available.
The original Baracuta Harrington or Baracuta G9 is still available in the original pattern which can trace its routes back to the 30s. You can buy the original Harrington in 'natural', black, navy, dark red, dark brown or tan.
Baracuta has also introduced a new version of the classic G9, the G10, Mod Harrington. It is a slimmer fitting Harrington jacket available in a similar range of colours, as well as a very bright 60s style turquoise.