Mods

Mods (abbreviation for Modernists) defines a youth subculture of the working-class which emerged in the post-war period and especially during the swinging sixties in Britain (Hebdige 1979, 17). Due to “changes in the constitution of the family, the organization of school and work, shifts in the […] status of work and leisure” and the overall breakdown of consensus, the working class community began to polarize and split, which produced “series of marginal discourses within the broad confines of class experience” (ibid. 74). According to Hebdige, the development of youth subcultures, like the Mods, is “just part of this process of polarization” (ibid.).

What is a subculture?

Generally, subcultures can be described as groups of people with a distinct culture that differentiates from the larger culture to which they belong. Cohen defines subcultures as “a compromise solution between two contradictory needs: the need to breate and express autonomy and difference from parents […] and the need to maintain the parental identification” (Cohen 1972 in ibid. 77) Thus, subcultures like the Mods, can be interpreted as an attempt to mediate between something traditional and modern (ibid.). Familiar things from the larger culture are borrowed and appropriated by the subcultural group, but are modified and get a new meaning.

Mod Culture

The Mod subculture developed within the south-eastern (mainly London and new towns of the South) working class teenagers and represented “an exploration of the upwardly mobile, consumption-oriented working class lifestyle” (Osgerby, 70). Their style, rituals and speech reflected “many core values and concerns of the parental working class [combined with a] flamboyant style [,] consumption [and] classless affluence” (ibid. 65).

Life and Style

In subcultures lifestyle, fashion and music are very significant, because they signaled the membership to the group (Hebdige 1979, 18). As well to the Mods, a particular lifestyle and usage of symbols was very important.

Life

“The average Mod […] earned £11 a week, was either semi-skilled or more typically an office worker who had left secondary modern school at fifteen. Another large section of Mods were employed as department store clerks, messengers, and occupied menial positions in the various service industries of the West end.” (Hebdige 2003, 91). These jobs made “fairly stringent demands on their appearance, dress and [behaviour] as well as their time” (ibid. 1979, 53). The only way the Mod was able “to compensate for his relatively low position in the daytime” was the weekend during which he could “exercise complete dominion over his private estate, his appearance and choice of leisure pursuits” (ibid. 2003, 91). “They lived between the leaves of the commercial calendar […] which alone made work meaningful” (Hebdige 1979, 53). During the weekends, a Mod’s life took place in night clubs and city centres, where he was “absorbed into a ‘noonday underground’ of cellar clubs, discotheques, boutiques and record shops” (ibid.). These demanded a “certain exquisiteness of dress” (ibid. 89).

Fashion

A Mod could be easily identified by his characteristic conservative Italian style suits, which resembled the “Italian Mafiosi type so frequently depicted in crime films shot in New York” (ibid. 89). This style made it possible to move successfully between school, work and leisure. The same applied to their hairstyle which was generally short and stayed in shape “with invisible lacquer rather than with the obvious grease favoured by the more overly masculine rockers” (ibid. 52). The aim of their outfit was “to look cool, sophisticated and stylish, to walk into [a] coffee bar and be admired by the other mods” (Everett, 53). In the same manner a fashion accessory and symbol of status was the motor scooter, usually Vespers or Lambrettas. Mods were “obsessed with the small details [...] and pushed neatness to the point of absurdity” (Hebdige 1979, 52).

Music

Most Mods listened to R’n’B, because the rhythms “were rather more subtle than those of ordinary pop and therefore more difficult and rewarding to dance to” and “the best records were obscure and hard to get” (Everett, 54ff.). “In fact anything would do as long as it had a tricky beat and nobody else knew about it” (ibid. 55).

Drugs

In order to use the days of the weekend to full capacity and have enough energy to stay awake, Mods took pills, the so-called amphetamines. In the early sixties, amphetamines were widely prescribed for the treatment of depression, anxiety or to facilitate a diet- “in fact, almost anyone qualified for a prescription” (ibid. 55).

I’d take probably eight of these capsules , which would keep me awake for two nights. And of course the next two days at work, Monday and Tuesday, were pretty horrible. And by the time Wednesday came I was looking forward to the weekend. You get a tremendous amount of energy from it, and you’re talking all the time. You think you’re a genius. It’s really great. (Everett, The Mod Experience, 55).

Opposition to Rockers

Another subcultural group were the Rockers. They were the right reverse to the Mods: they rode motorbikes, wore jeans with leather jackets and were rather existentialist. “They were puritan in that they disapproved of drunkenness, drug-taking and any sort of sexual sophistication or concern for fashion. They were conservative in that they thought and talked much like their working-class war-veteran fathers. They believed in the virtues of hard work, manliness and patriotism” (Everett, 57). Unsurprisingly, the two subcultures got into conflict, which resulted in a violent riot in Brighton on Whitsun 1964. The fight attracted both public and media attention and brought up a lot of skepticism and press hysteria around subcultural groups. The “Battle of Brighton” was famously dramatized in the movie “Quadrophenia” (1979).

Cited Works

Everett, Peter. "The Mod Experience." You’ll Never Be 16 Again. An Illustrated History of the British Teenager. London: BBC Books, 1986. 52-60.

Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: the Meaning of Style. London: Routledge, 1979.

Hebdige, Dick. “The meaning of Mod.” Resistance through Rituals: Youth Cultures in Post-war Britain. Ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. London: Routledge, 2003. 87-96.

Osgerby, Bill. Youth in Britain since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

Further Links

• Website of the German and English Mod scene: http://www.thescene.de/

• Archive of original Mod/ern/ist recollections and information: http://jackthatcatwasclean.blogspot.de/

• Website on Modculture (Lifestyle, History, Literature,...): http://www.modculture.co.uk/

• Documentary in British youth styles (Teds, Mods, Skinhead, Casual)
  • Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsAwqT61Gzg
  • Part 2 (especially on Mods from 05.00 on): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7SjJt6fjr4&feature=relmfu

• Sequence about the Battle of Brighton from the movie „Quadrophenia“: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5rkj6_we-are-the-mods-quadrophenia-1979_shortfilms

• Newspaper articles on the “Battle of Brighton”:
  • BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/18/newsid_2511000/2511245.stm
  • The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/1964/may/19/fromthearchive