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Mods!: Over 150 Photographs from the Early '60's of the Original Mods!
The bestselling, definitive account of the 1960s Mod movement. With over 150 dazzling photographs the book reveals the reality of the movement in dances, clothes, style and scooters. The book contains ephemera gathered from the earliest days of Mod, from the seaside to Carnaby Street, as well as a glorious celebration of a lifestyle, gratifyingly accurate and visually meticulous.
- GenresMusicSociologyNonfiction
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 5, 2018
Music: Tommy Tucker - "Hi-Heel Sneakers"
This book talks about the self-created youth fashion of mods, whose time was from very early 1960s up to 1965ish.
This book is slim, but the story part is full of really good information, and though the pictures are all black and white, and not always the clearest, they are very informative - not just about fashion, or the riots, or the music. When the teens started to earn money of their own, this style of fashion and life was one of the roads.
Although the text could benefit from some subject titles, it's clear that each part talks about certain parts of the culture, and has been written by someone who saw and knew about what was going on. There's talk about the origins (incl. Italian fashion, some Jewish kids, plus French influences).
- activities: dancing at clubs (doing the most recent dance crazes), coffee bars, watching "Ready Steady Go"
- clothes (*very* important): suits, parkas, casual look, certain labels (Fred Perry, Levis), certain shops (at Carnaby Street), daring to use more colors
- haircuts: short and neat (even for girls)
- scooters: Lambrettas, Vespas; customising, driving around, no helmets
- music: R&B and soul particularly, but also blues, modern jazz, bluebeat/ska (Beatles and Rolling Stones were uncool)
- troublesome side: speed pills (with mental/physical damage possible), beach riots (mostly exaggerated by press at first, at least there was no real fighting the first few times)
Boys were less interested in girls, since money was best used on clothes/clubs/music, and pills killed much of sex drive. But the birds didn't really mind it mostly: their style was more relaxed and less feminine, hair could be really short and always straight, not much makeup but what was there was focused more on eyes, and so on.
It also surprised me a little that there could be more than one kind of mod. Of course there was, they were always changing their looks. And there were some clueless ones who mixed some rocker elements in (though this was not always unintentional). But rockers and mods generally did not seek each other to fight - even within mod community rival fighting was avoided - and it was mostly just verbal abuse if a mod passed a rockers group. The beach fighting didn't really happen much, at least in the first few events.
Eventually, though, things come to an end. There is not much talk of this in the book, but one can imagine: some became normal, some remained in the style, some wandered off to oncoming psychedelic fashion, and on the working class end some ended up being the first skinheads (I kind of guessed this in just looking at the pictures - some looks can slide pretty easily towards this end).
So: this book gave me more than I first thought it would - the text was thorough even with under 20 pages, and although the pics are not always the clearest, they give a good view into the style and the life. One can easily get ideas into one's own personal style from this, and the reading of this book was much fun for me, and could be easily be so for other readers, too.
This book talks about the self-created youth fashion of mods, whose time was from very early 1960s up to 1965ish.
This book is slim, but the story part is full of really good information, and though the pictures are all black and white, and not always the clearest, they are very informative - not just about fashion, or the riots, or the music. When the teens started to earn money of their own, this style of fashion and life was one of the roads.
Although the text could benefit from some subject titles, it's clear that each part talks about certain parts of the culture, and has been written by someone who saw and knew about what was going on. There's talk about the origins (incl. Italian fashion, some Jewish kids, plus French influences).
- activities: dancing at clubs (doing the most recent dance crazes), coffee bars, watching "Ready Steady Go"
- clothes (*very* important): suits, parkas, casual look, certain labels (Fred Perry, Levis), certain shops (at Carnaby Street), daring to use more colors
- haircuts: short and neat (even for girls)
- scooters: Lambrettas, Vespas; customising, driving around, no helmets
- music: R&B and soul particularly, but also blues, modern jazz, bluebeat/ska (Beatles and Rolling Stones were uncool)
- troublesome side: speed pills (with mental/physical damage possible), beach riots (mostly exaggerated by press at first, at least there was no real fighting the first few times)
Boys were less interested in girls, since money was best used on clothes/clubs/music, and pills killed much of sex drive. But the birds didn't really mind it mostly: their style was more relaxed and less feminine, hair could be really short and always straight, not much makeup but what was there was focused more on eyes, and so on.
It also surprised me a little that there could be more than one kind of mod. Of course there was, they were always changing their looks. And there were some clueless ones who mixed some rocker elements in (though this was not always unintentional). But rockers and mods generally did not seek each other to fight - even within mod community rival fighting was avoided - and it was mostly just verbal abuse if a mod passed a rockers group. The beach fighting didn't really happen much, at least in the first few events.
Eventually, though, things come to an end. There is not much talk of this in the book, but one can imagine: some became normal, some remained in the style, some wandered off to oncoming psychedelic fashion, and on the working class end some ended up being the first skinheads (I kind of guessed this in just looking at the pictures - some looks can slide pretty easily towards this end).
So: this book gave me more than I first thought it would - the text was thorough even with under 20 pages, and although the pics are not always the clearest, they give a good view into the style and the life. One can easily get ideas into one's own personal style from this, and the reading of this book was much fun for me, and could be easily be so for other readers, too.
December 4, 2021
Honestly more useful than every stupid self-help book about adult ADHD, COMBINED
October 28, 2007
A great snapshot of one of the most buttoned-up subcultures. Cleancut-looking kids all hopped up on amphetamines dancing to R&B! While the 150 black-and-white photographs are wonderful, the 18-page essay that bookends the images is priceless.
April 8, 2018
Interesting read
Well written book,well worth a read by anybody into the music and the mod scene and its history,from the original mods to the mid 60s evolution.
Well written book,well worth a read by anybody into the music and the mod scene and its history,from the original mods to the mid 60s evolution.
May 6, 2023
Richard Barnesin "Mods!" (Plexus, 19991) koostuu sarjasta mustavalkoisia valokuvia ja parikymmensivuisesta esseestä, jonka aiheena on 1960-luvun puolivälissä kultakautaan elänyt mod-kulttuuri. Tyylikkäitä vaatteita, rhythm'n bluesia, skoottereita ja sitä rataa. Ei teos tarjonnut varsinaisesti mitään maailmoja mullistavaa ja aiheesta kiinnostuneelle löytyy paljon parempia teoksia, mutta ihan kiinnostavaa ajankuvaa tässä kuitenkin tarjoiltiin.
April 12, 2008
Richard Barnes put together the ultimate Mod book. A must for all those who are interested in British subculture. Wonderful images and the essay is good as well. Do get it. Dandies at their most beautiful moment - the 60's!
January 12, 2013
Originally published in 1979, this is an insider's look back at the Mod movement in early '60s Britain. I found this in the early's 1980s after seeing the 1979 movie Quadrophenia, and wanted to know more.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews