Rockabilly Rebel Part 2

In part 1 of this series, JOHN ROBB looked at the musical trends that have accompanied rockabilly culture through five decades from the original Teds to today's goth-tinged Psychobillies. Here, he traces the fashion influences from the wartime desert through Savile Row and the American midwest.

Soar spring/summer 07 collection.

Photo: Jane Hodson

Photo: Jane Hodson

Soar spring/summer 07 collection.

The 50s rock' n' rollers had a look that matched the feral wild fuck music they were making: sharp cuts, swept back hair piled high, they were crazy rock 'n' roll beasts. In the UK, the Teddy Boys roamed the streets - the first proper mass media British youth cult- the whole history of the Ted is as weird as pop culture gets.

In the late 40s, as a reaction to the austere post war world of the UK, Dior created the 'new look' shocking because of its wastefulness, this was picked-up on by the Savile Row tailors who came up with the 'Edwardian look' exaggerating the wastefulness with extra long cuffs and collars on the jackets.

Savile Row was pitching its clothes at the posh end of the market, but the style was quickly picked-up on by the spivs and the flymen who crossed it with the new American 'drape' style jacket, named after the way the jacket draped from the shoulders. 'The Drape' was a long, knee-length, single-breasted wool jacket with narrow contrasting lapels and cuffs either of velvet or satin and plenty of pockets. The new sexuality of fashion was underlined with the contrast or matching drainpipe or stovepipe trousers, brocade waistcoats, stiff shirts and shoestring ties or bootlace slim Jim ties topped off with suede shoes.

Somehow by 1951 it had filtered down to the streets as the notorious Cosh Boys of the East End picked up the look. Within months, the newly-arrived press sensation, the 'teenager' had picked-up on the style, exaggerating it still further as it spread like wildfire across the country. The boys slicked back their hair with Brilliantine into a wavy quiff style with long sideburns and, because of the way the hair was finished to the back of the head, the style was brushed back to meet in the middle with the finishing touch of a comb run down the centre back thus giving the look of a DA (duck's arse). The most common hair cut was called a Tony Curtis taken from the way he wore his hair.

On the feet were crepe sole shoes which helped with the dance movements of jiving. It was the first shock horror rampage look that swept the nation. By the mid-50s, rock ' n' roll had arrived from America and all the parts were in place for the first British youthquake. The press termed the new look 'Teddy Boys' named after a Daily Express story in 1953 on this very British delinquency.

The crepe soled shoes have their own curious history. Put together in World War II for officers in the desert who didn't wear army boots, the crepe stopped their feet getting burned on the hot sand. Liking the shoes so much, they continued to wear them back on civvy street. The shoes were then picked up by George Cox. This company which first made the Brothel Creeper is still in business making them today. The Ted look was all about Working Class flash, the clothes were made by a tailor, it was about being flash and showy.

The Teds were the bad boys of the 50s, the folk devils and they were involved in the usual folk devil activities, petty crime, hooliganism and it all culminated in the Notting Hill race riots of 1958 as the darker end of the culture went on the rampage. Most Teds were into it for the clothes and the music - a colourful escape from the austere world of 50s Britain.

In the 60s they disappeared from the front pages retreating to their own circles - some got on their motorbikes and became Rockers, hanging out on a circuit of greaser cafes one of which, the Ace Cafe remains in London.

The Teds may have died down by the early 60s, but the subculture's influence has been profound. Providing the template to a very British take on youth culture, every pop style that followed from the Mods to the Skinheads to the Punks, were cast in its shadow of renegade outsider, folk devil, dandified troublemaker.

A very British revolution, the Teds were a curious mix of traditional and modern, a post-war revolt into style and it was this rock 'n' roll riot heritage that the children of the quiff revolution trade on. The Psychobilly is the younger cousin of the Ted, the Rockabilly their American nephew in a family of noise that refuses to go away.