What happens when the signs are re-interpreted?

The Mod movement started in the late 1950’s and the name derives from modernist, which was a term used in the 1950s to describe modern jazz musicians and fans.  It reached its height in   and   declined in 1966, but there was a Mod revival in 1970’s which still continues today.

The Mods were devoted to looking cool. They were a London based working class youth subculture typically office workers who were identified by their hairstyle and clothes. They were described as w/class dandies who were devotees of Italianate style, who adopted a sharp individual style to keep pace with the city. Their favourite fabric for suits was tonic an iridescent mix of mohair, which in certain lights looked different. Popular tones were red/green, mustard, ice blue

The early Mod uniform was a ‘waisted’ suit, based on the English Gentlemen’s Suit, which along with their shirts was made to measure.

Italian style was a strong influence on suits were either single seamed at the back with a central vent (English) or two seamed with a double vent (Italian)

Masculinity took the form of preening and parading with an aloofness and

represented a less obvious style than rougher cruder version of masculinity that their rivals the rockers adopted .

Mods were competitive over the length of their side vents, which started at 3 inches, these became 4 inches then 5 inches - all wanted to have the longest vent!

Mod culture was about looking at themselves and each other rather than girls.

However they used a heavily coded satire by and appropriating elements from the objective world that would otherwise determine and constrict him

They were inverting values that were associated with smart dress and they challenged assumptions and expectations derived from such sources.

Mods stripped the insignia of the business world of its connotations of efficiency, compliance and authority and transformed them into empty fetishes to be desired and valued in own right.

Mods lifted the mask on masculinity and revealed the uniformity and conformity of the suit as being a construction. This subculture were less open to ridicule by parent culture as their subversion was more covert although the signifiers and referents they used were subverted which produced an  ‘otherness’ which the establishment could not quite situate.

As mod style gathered momentum they moved away from the suit to a more casual look but the purists did not approve of this. Mod obsession with detail showed vanity and a lack of concern with things that were deemed to matter.

Escapism/aspiration

The clothes designer Lloyd Johnson, who was a Mod, has ‘always been fascinated by detail.’ He  opened a shop called ‘Cockell and Johnson’ at The Worlds End in Chelsea 1968-1. He created a world that encapsulated ‘the suburban dream of glamour, celebrity and Rock’n’roll, so people travelling from the suburbs could ‘take part of that world away with them.’ The branding was a ‘tongue in cheek jab at the establishment in Saville Row and Jermyn St in its allusion to the heritage tradition and sense of that institution.  

Johnson’s customers were the ‘who’s who’ of rock and pop at the time and included Mick Jagger, Roxy Music and The Kinks. Johnson took his influence from the American ‘college boy’ look. Mod clothes were in demand and Johnson was asked to design for Sting and Phil Daniels and some of the other leading men in the film Quadrophenia.

Eventually Cockell and Johnson became typecast as a Mod shop so Johnson invented the LA Rodker brand and started designing leather jackets, black jeans,  jean jackets and biker boots and they then established themselves as a rock and roll shop.

He had already touched upon the influence of cinema and the tendency to American rock and roll is very evident in Johnson’s exhibition. Other designers have identify with British and American 1940s gangster film including more recently stylized films such as Tarrantino and Guy Rirchie’s Pulp Fiction. The Italian Mafioso style is a strong and defined look. Also influence of Italianate style from the mods and Prices 1940’s influence. Edward Sexton draws on art deco 1930s elegance and European. Currently,  designers are drawing from  historical influences for example  the Social Suicide company.