Teddy Girls and Boys

[Dr. Shocker]

this one is a damn interesting exhibit...and if another section is more appropriate please feel free to move it......

Since I do a mix of dress I have heard refrences once or twice to Teddy Boys and ussually I hope thier not refering to the 80's gay movement....but came across this lil tidbit the essay is wonderful as are the pix.....

http://www.teddygirl.co.uk/index.htm

 

[Jen]

teds

From wikipedia:

"The Teddy Boy youth culture first emerged in Britain during the early 1950s, and was strongly associated with American rock and roll music of the period.

It was typified by young men wearing clothes inspired by those of the Edwardian period: "Edward" being commonly shortened to Ted.

Clothing consisted of long drape jackets with velvet collars, narrow 'drainpipe' trousers, large crepe-soled shoes (sometimes nicknamed 'brothel creepers'), and bootlace ties. Originally these were sourced cheaply from second-hand clothes shops, but before long the smarter Teds were having them tailor-made at considerable expense, in a rainbow of garish colours. Preferred hairstyles included long, strongly moulded greased-up hair with a quiff combed back to form a 'DA' (duck's arse) at the rear of the head.

'Teddy girls' adopted American fashions: toreador pants and voluminous circle skirts, wearing their hair in ponytails.

As with some other youth culture movements, groups of 'Teds' sometimes formed gangs and enjoyed notoriety following violent clashes with rival gangs, seized upon and exaggerated by the popular press.

In the 1960s, many teddy boys became 'rockers'. During the 1970s, rockabilly music enjoyed a brief period of popularity and saw a resurgence of interest in 'Teddy boy' fashions."

The Teds were tough! Think of Ringo Starr in his Rory Storm and the Hurricanes days. Working-class dandies.

 

[scotrace]

Teddy Girls.

 

[mondocatto]

evrything you ever wanted to know about the Ted movement

http://www.edwardianteddyboy.com/page2.htm

The girls, photographed by Ken Russell in 1955. It's a great style

 

[Edward]

The photo in Scotrace's post was one of the 'Teddy Girls' photos taken by Ken Russell in 1955. Unlike the more American look of the girls in West London, a lot of these East End girls, photographed on various bombsites, leftover since the Blitz, took a much more triaditionally masculine approach in their look. You can see some of the same attitude in them as in Dietrich's cross-dressing, imo. Here's a typical shot:

This is Rosie Shine, one of the girls in that photo, at the Launch of Ken Russell's Teddy Girls exhibition in 2008:

This is one of my favourites - see the attitude in her face! This girl was apparently only fourteen:

Interesting little blog piece here on the cross-dressing nature of the Teddy-Girl look, putting it in some fashion-history context:

http://dot429.com/articles/4815-paying-homage-to-the-teddy-girls-and-their-lasting-influence

...and a nice little blog piece on the Russell exhibition, which was entitled 'Bombsite Boudiccas':

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

One of my neighbours who's originally from Luton was a Teddy Girl in her youth. And she actually remembers the George Hotel Ballroom.

 

[Edward]

Did she confirm the accuracy of the stories about the "fingertip test" to keep out drape jackets?

 

[esteban68]

Great thread about an oft forgotten era and style!

 

[tropicalbob]

I've always loved the Teddy look. Very odd, and very creative. Southern Gothic with something undeniably British about it.

 

[Bamaboots]

I will look for them but I've seen pics of my mom and friends sporting the same look from the 50's. In the south it was often referred to as a "tomboy" look.

 

[Edward]

I've always loved the Teddy look. Very odd, and very creative. Southern Gothic with something undeniably British about it.

It's an interesting one. The very first Teddy boys - before they became known as such - were Guards officers; the look was quickly pinched by some working class kids for their own. It's fascinating for a number of reasons. There was a huge American influence on it - think the styles of Old West gunslingers in various Hollywood films. The elegant sherrif or gambler types that dressed in that very formal yet uber stylish Edwardian way. Yet despite this, it remains a resolutely British style. When Sue Blaine was asked to recreate her original Rocky Horror Show costumes for the first US productions and subsequently the film, both in 1974, one of the first things she did was make over the costume worn by the actor in the role of Eddie (played by Meatloaf first at the Belasco in LA to great critical acclaim, and later immortalised on screen in the Rocky Horror Picture Show). Eddie started life as very much a teddy boy type, but, according to Sue - "In america, of course, they wouldn't know what a Teddy boy was, so I made him a Greaser."

The other thing that always sticks in my mind is how it absorbed American rock and roll as an integral part of Ted culture, while still remaining resolutely British. What is often forgotten is that Teddy Boys actually predate rock and roll. The Teds were already an established thing when a 1953 Daily Express headline created the label "Teddy Boy", using its own abbrieviation for Edwardian. It is hard in retrospect to imagine, but the music was a significantly later addition to what began as purely a clothing-based subculture.

 

[tropicalbob]

That is really surprising. I'd always assumed they'd gotten the look from Elvis or Jerry Lee. I was always a big Doc Holliday fan when I was a kid, which probably explains my admiration for them.

 

[Edward]

There's no separating them now; a lot of people - those who don't inherit it - get into it because of the music, finding the look later.

It's a lot like the whole Brando / Johnny Strabler thing: pre-rock and roll, but inextricably associated with it forever more in the pop culture mindset...

 

[Stearmen]

There was a huge American influence on it - think the styles of Old West gunslingers in various Hollywood films. The elegant sherrif or gambler types that dressed in that very formal yet uber stylish Edwardian way.

I never noticed that, but now that you mention it, they did tend to dress the 30s-50s western stars in Edwardian suits! Of course, the real well dressed 1870-90 sheriffs and gamblers would have worn the suits similar to Albert Prince Of Whales, better known as "Bertie." Queen Victoria's playboy son, and fashion trend setter.