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.

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.

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.