Hardy Amies

In 1965 Saville Row tailor Hardy Amies published the “ABC of Mens Fashion” setting out the rules and advice for men to achieve sartorial perfection. Recently the book was republished, and the Guardian ran an article testing whether these classic rules still apply. You can read it here.

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Amies is a pretty interesting character. He first opened his Saville Row boutique in 1946, regularly appeared in Vogue, earned a royal appointment to the Queen, designed the 1966 winning England football teams’ suits and (even more impressively to my mind) designed the costumes for Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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The Hardy Amies brand is synonimous with top quality materials (as I mentioned in The Suit Jacket, wool, tweed and linen are generally more expensive than cotton or polyester mixes) and bespoke tailoring. It is closely associated with vintage clothes of the 1960s – ecchoing the slender frame and sharp shouldered look of the time.

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One of these vintage 60s suits would quite frankly, probably cost more than a car. Today, a modern Amies suit would set you back at least £3000.

Hardy Amies remains an iconic and influencial British tailor. Next time you chaps have trouble deciding whether to wear socks with your sandles, I highly recommend you reach for Hardy Amies ABC.

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The Leather Jacket

The leather jacket remains an iconic classic, moving from military bomber jackets in the 1950s to fashion uniform for rockers, punks, grunge kids and hip-hoppers alike. With each new trend, the leather jacket has been adapted and evolved – a longer, blazer cut in the 1970s for example, or tassled and studded in the 80s. The latest September issue of Vogue has devoted a seven page fashion shoot to Pixie Geldof wearing a selection of leather jackets (and leather dresses, hats and corsets). The styling is distinctly 1980s, mirroring Pixies own penchant for vintage clothes of that period.

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http://www.vogue.co.uk/blogs/the-vogue-blog/articles/090803-pixie-geldof.aspx

The 80s style of leather jacket is similar to the traditional suit jacket I described in an earlier post. The shoulders are generally more pronounced with sleeves wide at the shoulder tapering to the wrist (a tudor-sleeve). Designers at this time experimented a lot with detailing so many vintage 80s jackets are studded or tassled, come in a variety of garish colours or distressed leather. To be honest they also come in varying degrees of hideousness too, but then, thats the wonderful nature of fashion isn’t it. Whats cool one day, is god-awful the next, and vintage the day after that.

For similar jackets to those worn by Pixie for Vogue, check out Covert Candy for some one-of-a-kind goodies.

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The Modern High-Street

Today the high-street is dominated by brands like Topshop and H&M that cater to the constantly changing trends of young people. Its easy to see the appeal of this market, especially during the current recession. A recent article in The Independent newspaper, evaluates how certain brands have fared during the first crucial months of ‘The Credit Crunch’ – “Retailers such as H&M typically cater to a younger customer base with fewer financial constraints… [Similarly] New Look, Peacocks and TK Maxx, are understood to be trading robustly nationwide” (Thompson, 2008).


This relationship between brands and young people has radically changed the speed of fashion cycles. Previously, youth-instigated trends like Teddy Boys, Mods, Hippies, Punks and Grunge all developed over a number of years, becoming fully fledged sub-cultures. Now trends are snapped up by brands and remarketed for the mainstream in a very short period of time. Thus, rendering them no longer ‘cool’, and the whole process starts again.


The residing appeal of collecting vintage clothes is that it is still the most effective way to create a totally independent, unique look. Although the high-street provides much in the way of bland mock-vintage fashion, it’s still possible to source original clothes in charity shops for half the price. High-street brands haven’t quite achieved the monopoly on that front just yet. Infact, better still, the ability to swap clothes as promoted by Covert Candy, sidesteps the capitalist nature of high-street fashion altogether.

Here endeth the long and ramblesome history lesson I’ve doled out over the last few posts. Hopefully thats provided some insight into the development of certain trends over the last fifty years and the current vintage trend.

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Generation X

Since that initial ‘identity crisis’ in the 1980s, brands consistently targeted young people, their trends and sub-cultures as a goldmine of potential profit. Some trends lent themselves to this commercialisation more than others. Hip-Hop kids, as I have said, took pride in consuming and displaying affiliation with brands. It was therefore easy for brands like Nike and Adidias to target this audience.

The term Generation X, although previously alluding to those born after WWII, came to represent the 80s generation of young people who consumed with a sense of ‘ironic detachment’. For independently minded young people, it had got to a point where it was no longer possible to defy mainstream consumerism the way previous generations like the Teddy Boys, Mods and Hippies had done. Those sub-cultures grew from a desire for independence and self-created style. Now however, every new youth movement was picked up, remarketed and sold back to the consumer by major corporate brands. So instead, perhaps as the only method of defiance, young people began consuming with abandon but doing it ‘ironically’.

“…The tentacles of branding [reach] into every crevice of youth culture, leaching brand-image content not only out of street styles like hip-hop but psychological attitudes like ironic detachment…” (No Logo, 2000)

When Grunge came around in the 90s, the young followers were far more reticent, choosing to adopt vintage clothes and thrift store finds as a means to evade contemporary fashion and consumerism. Their blasé disregard for branding and advertising meant that from a brands perspective, they were an incredibly difficult audience to target.

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Logo-Mania

Hip-Hop’s embracing of particular brand logos from the early 80s, soon became a youth culture staple. Overt logos on clothing denoted the wearers affiliation with a particular trend in the same way Teddy Boys and Mods had reappropriated vintage clothes to signify their look.

In Britain, the Football Casuals favoured Armani, Burberry and Ralph Lauren sportswear (later, those wearing knock-off versions would be disdainfully known as Chavs).

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In America, Hip- Hop continued to support very specific brands; high-end labels like Louis Vuitton and Rolex that declared the wearers wealth and style. The Hip-Hop endorsement could have a huge impact on the success of a brand. Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, Mercedes-Benz, Krug, Dom Perignon and Cristal champagnes and several other brands all benefited from an association with Hip-Hop culture.

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Lil Kim famously photographed by David La Chappelle for Rolling Stone magazine covered in ‘LV’ Louis Vuitton logos, 1999.

Such brands were patronised often without prompting. As an article from USAToday says, “Mercedes-Benz — the most-mentioned brand in last year’s top songs — says the car’s popularity in hip-hop circles certainly didn’t hurt sales growth over the last dozen years…Bentley Motors and Louis Vuitton — also among the most name-checked brands in music — were more reticent on the subject. While some companies may shy away from being associated with a culture often marked by misogyny and violence, it is undeniable that hip-hop wields immeasurable power and influence in business”

(USAToday, April 2006).

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Hip-Hop

In the early 1980s, the American mass-market suffered a huge “identity crisis” (Klein, 2000). ‘Household’ brands found that the customer loyalty they had built up since the 50s, suddenly dissipated during the 1981-1982 recession. According to Klein, analysts found that the only goods to ‘hold steady’ during the recession, were “beer, soft drinks, fast food and sneakers – not to mention chewing gum and Barbie dolls” (No Logo, 2000), products  associated with young people.

Even in times of economic downturn it seemed, teenagers and college students were still armed with pocket money and were spending freely. For major brands, the obvious solution was to change tactics and concentrate their advertising power on this previously ignored demographic. However, as Klein says, “it was not going to be sufficient for companies simply to market their same products to a younger demographic; they needed to fashion brand identities that resonated with this new culture” (No Logo, 2000). Advertisers did this by ingratiating themselves with young people, discovering what they considered ‘cool’ and then attempting to mold new brand identities around this.

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At that time, the coolest new trend amongst young people, was Hip-Hop. As Hal Espen confirms in an article for the New York Times, “Rap didn’t merely offer a useful line of demarcation for kids eager to set themselves apart from their parents. It was the expression of a genuine, undiluted, unmediated subculture; it really did come from the streets” (1999). The look included brightly coloured tracksuits, leather bomber jackets, caps and trainers and a strong penchant for brands like Kangol, Adidas and Reebok. Like The Teddy Boys before them, Hip-Hop kids were re-appropriating elements from otherwise incongruous sources to create their own look.

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Nike, for example, a straightforward sportswear label at the time, unwittingly found a rising popularity amongst the Hip-Hop tribe. Nike carefully altered its brand identity to resonate with this group, and gain more ‘cool’ credentials. As I’ve mentioned, an important Hip-Hop characteristic was a loyalty and overt display of particular brand labels, signifying the wearers’ accomplished wealth and taste. Thus, the Nike ‘swoosh’ logo began to appear on all garments and trainers, becoming a staple Hip-Hop emblem. In 1988, Nike employed the advertising company Wieden+Kennedy to create the now infamous slogan, “Just Do It” (www.wk.com). Like the logo, this mantra was emblazoned across t-shirts as another visual signifier of the brand. Klein quotes Nike designer Aaron Cooper, who witnessed the power of branding at this time, “having kids tell you Nike is the number one thing in their lives – number two is their girlfriend” (No Logo, 2000).


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More info here

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Mods and Rockers

A few more brief notes on how today’s vintage trend developed from the desires of young people to set themselves apart from accepted ideas of fashion, that as I’ve said, really kicked off with the newly liberated Teddy Boys of the 1950s…

In the 1960s, Mods and Rockers took over as the predominant genres. These subcultures also borrowed from a wide source of influences. They too ‘nicked the style of their betters’ [like the Teddy Boys]. Mods favoured sharp Italian tailoring, re-appropriated the militaristic Parker jacket and listened to Jamaican Ska music. Rockers emulated Marlon Brando and James Dean with leather jackets and Levi’s jeans.

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Mods

After Mods and Rockers, came Hippies in the 70s, Soulboys, Punks, New Romantics, Skinheads, Football Casuals, Acid-Ravers, Grungers, Hip-Hop and Indie kids, Goths and probably far more besides. Through the decades, these trends continuously set young people apart from the establishment, mixing and borrowing styles from previous genres. The codes of dress developed and changed according to musical preferences, political ideologies and cultural influences of the period. Wearing these clothes signified one’s affiliation with a tribe and the tribes concerns, literally ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’…

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Rockers

From the 1950s to the present day, young people have found ways to assert their own style. Though wildly different in appearance, each subculture has demonstrated some common, consistent features; a hybridization of existing styles, a desire to rebel and create a unique identity, and an elitist, tribal attitude.

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Teddy Boys

Over the next few posts I thought I’d move away from talking about current trends, and explain more about the history of vintage fashion. I’ve chosen a few brief passages from my dissertation (yep, I wrote an entire dissertation about vintage clothes!) that illustrate key moments over the last fifty years that have made the current fashion climate what it is.

First up, is a passage I wrote about the Teddy Boys, really the first generation of young British people to create their own unique look by borrowing stylistic elements from the past. Essentially this is what vintage is all about; borrowing past fashions as a way to express one’s individuality. It sidesteps all that homogenous fashion dictated by the highstreet and allows the wearer to look cool, elitist and most crucially of all, unique.

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In the second half of the twentieth century, Britain began to enjoy a massive consumer boom. After the rationing and restriction of World War II, people suddenly found themselves equipped with a disposable income and a far more prosperous outlook. The public was enjoying a new sense of freedom and in consumerism, found an exciting way to channel their optimism…

Whilst the mainstream thrived during this period, young people were largely ignored as a potential consumer group. Advertisers simply assumed that young people could be targeted later in life, when they grew up to become far more predictable adult consumers. As social commentator Naomi Klein puts it, “keeping track of the trends and tastes favoured by style-setting youth wasn’t worth the effort” (No Logo, 2000).

So for several decades, young people dictated their own trends, regardless of the sways of mainstream consumerism. This trailblazing period has been referred to as the “youthquake” (Old Clothes, New Looks: Second-Hand Fashion, 2005). In Britain, the first major example of the ‘youthquake’, occurred in the years immediately following the end of World War II. Developed by Northern working-class teenagers as a dramatic escape from the drab and dreary climate of post-war Britain, these youths had slicked back hair, wide-shouldered suit jackets, skinny drainpipe trousers and brothel creeper shoes.

Known as Teddy Boys (and Teddy Girls), they went to great lengths to source particular clothes. As “the original heirs of Beau Brummel” (Loud And Proud, 2008), they took a fastidious interest in the elegant
suits of the Edwardian era (Edward being shortened to Ted and thus, Teddy Boy). Yet they mixed this Edwardian notion of sartorial perfection with a “proudly proletarian” (Loud And Proud, 2008) attitude. In doing so, they created and maintained a sense of exclusivity and elitism, “designed on the street, for the street” (Loud And Proud, 2008). They also created for themselves, perhaps inadvertently, a notoriety and cult-like status. Teenagers had never before experienced the freedom to make their own cultural choices; instead they had obediently adopted the attitudes (and wardrobe) of their parents. The shockingly different Teddy Boy trend, influenced by the emerging American Rock ‘n’ Roll scene, was therefore seen by older generations as a brazen rebellion against authority and decency.


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I hope you don’t mind my meanderings down fashion memory lane too much. Next post, I’m back to the 80s, documenting the immergence of hip-hop and how this changed vintage fashion and youth subculture once again.

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The 90s

Oh my goodness, would you believe it. It seems after only a short season dominated and inspired by 80s clothes, fashion journalists and trend analysists are already predicting a shift towards the 90s. Although the  80s trend will undoubtedly remain a steadfast feature of the highstreet for the near future, the indicators are already there for a gradual move towards 90s fashion.

For one thing, Blur’s unanimously well-received come-back performance at Glastonbury last month brought that interest and nostalgia for 90s Britpop back into the public domain. See 30 seconds of them being amazing here. You could say Take That did something similar with their recent revival but I’m not sure I’d want to credit Gary Barlow and co with starting new trends!

Those Bright Young Things Pixie Geldoff, Alice Dellal and Agyness Deyn have also instigated a bit of 90s vintage revival.

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Their punky, rock look typified by black leather, studs, chunky metal jewellery and Dr. Martin boots, take the 80s trend into the early 90s. These are exactly the same components that made up 90s Grunge, a looking almost single-handedly created by trend-setting, era defining Kurt Cobain.

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Its certainly a trend to watch out for. The 80s are by no means over, in terms of the current fashion cycle, but a gradual move towards vintage 90s Grunge does seem inevitable. Interestingly, in this weeks Guardian, fashion columnist Jess Carter Morley notes how the Grunge trend is likely to adapt for a modern audience by making it more glamourous – Glamour Grunge or “Glunge”. See her explain the look here.

Hmmm, not sure about the terminology, “Glunge” sounds faintly offensive somehow. Oh well, in a couple of months time we’ll all be wearing it. Watch this space.

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Lucile

A side-step from my usual ramblings about the trend for 80s clothes, I thought I’d blog about something a little more vintage.

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The Victoria & Albert Museum have just published a book of archive material from original Edwardian fashion designer Lady Duff Gordon, also known as ‘Lucile’. From the 1890s – 1930s, Lucile controlled a vast international fashion business, with boutiques in New York, London, Paris and Chicago. She is attributed with holding the first ever catwalk show, publishing the first ever look book, dressing royalty and celebrities of the day and she even survived the Titanic. A pretty amazing resumé, yet Lucile is virtually unheard of in modern fashion. Perhaps the book will explain why…

Its available here www.vandashop.com

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Lauren Laverne has also written about the book – Lucile Ltd by Valerie D Mendes and Amy De La Haye – in this weeks Grazia.

She writes, “Vintage-Junkies will be in heaven”. Sounds good to me.

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