You might have heard of the Teddy Boys, a 1950s rebel youth subculture in Britain characterized by a style of dress inspired by Edwardian dandies fused with American rock’n roll. They formed gangs from East London to North Kensington and became high profile rebels in media. An important sub-subculture of the Teddy Boys, an unlikely female element, has remained all but invisible from historical records - meet The Teddy Girls.
These are a few known collections of photographs of the first British female youth culture ever. In 1955, freelance photographer Ken Russell was introduced Josie Buchan, a Teddy Girl who in turn introduced him to some of her friends. Russell photographed them and another group in Notting Hill.
After his photographs were published in a
small magazine in 1955, Russell’s photographs remained unseen for over 50 years. He became a successful film director in the meantime. In
2005, his archive was rediscovered, and so were the Teddy Girls.
Russell remembers 14 year-old Teddy
Girl, Jean Rayner: “She had attitude by the truckload. No one paid much
attention to the teddy girls before I did them, though there was plenty
on teddy boys. They were tough, these kids, they’d been born in the war
years and food rationing only ended in about 1954 – a year before I took
these pictures. They were proud. They knew their worth. They just wore
what they wore.”
To understand the Teddy Girls style, we
must first return to the boys culture. They emerged in England as
post-war austerity was coming to an end and working class teenagers could afford good clothes and began to adopt the upper class Saville
Row revival of dandy Edwardian fashion. By the mid 1950s, second-hand
Edwardian suits were readily on sale in markets as they had
become unwearable by the upper-class once the Teddy Boys had started
sporting them.
Teddy Boys style…
The Teds, as they called themselves,
wore long drape jackets, velvet collars, slim ties and began to pair the
look with thick rubber-soled creeper shoes and the ‘greaser’ hairstyles
of their American rock’n'roll idols.
Despite their overall gentlemanly style
of dress - compared to today - the Teddys were a teenage youth
culture bent on shocking their parents’ generation, and quickly became
associated with trouble by media.
Teddy girls were mostly working class
teens as well, but considered less interesting by media
more concerned with sensationalizing a violent working class youth
culture. While Teddy boys were known for hanging around on street
corners, looking for trouble, a young working class woman’s role at the
time was still focused at home.
Even with lower wages than boys,
Teddy girls still dressed in their own drape jackets, rolled-up
jeans, flat shoes, tailored jackets with velvet collars and added their
feminine spin on the Teddy style with straw boater hats, brooches,
espadrilles and elegant clutch bags. They went to the cinema in
groups and attended dances and concerts with the boys, collected rock’n'roll
records and magazines. Together, they cultivated the first
market for teenage leisure in Britain.
In the end, it was the troublesome
reputation of the Teddy Boys that got the better of this youth
subculture. Most of the violence and vandalism was exaggerated by
media, but there were notably a few gangs that chose a darker path.
While most dedicated Teddys were at
worst involved in petty crimes such as bootlegging, there were instances
of fascist gangs rioting and using razors and knives to carry out
racist attacks. The racist tendencies of the Teddy boy gangs in the end
lost to the unstoppable rock’n'roll movement centered around
African-American acts. The British pop boom of the 1960s brought new
music and new youth cultures.
1950′s Teddy Boy interviewed by a news reporter about thoughts on an attack
on a Vicar, one of the boys said, “We only went down there so
we diddnt have to go home for our tea.”
It is a great shame that
an interesting and elegant style of dress for youngster was
associated with such negativity. The Teddy Boys were the first group in
Britain whose style was self-created. But in the end, it seems the
style only spawned fashion victims.
Sources: More about Teddy boy culture via the Edwardian Teddy Boy.
Photographs of Teddy Girls by Ken Russell (1927-2011).
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