Skinhead
A skinhead or skin is a member of a subculture that originated among working-class youths in London, England, in the 1960s. It soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working-class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in the late 1970s. Motivated by social alienation and working-class solidarity, skinheads are defined by their close-cropped or shaven heads and working-class clothing such as Dr. Martens and steel toe work boots, braces, high rise and varying length straight-leg jeans, and button-down collar shirts, usually slim fitting in check or plain. The movement reached a peak at the end of the 1960s, experienced a revival in the 1980s, and, since then, has endured in multiple contexts worldwide.
Not to be confused with White power skinhead.Years active
1960s–present
The rise to prominence of skinheads came in two waves, with the first wave taking place in the late 1960s in the UK. The first skinheads were working class youths motivated by an expression of alternative values and working class pride, rejecting both the austerity and conservatism of the 1950s–early 1960s and the more middle class or bourgeois hippie movement and peace and love ethos of the mid to late 1960s. Skinheads were instead drawn towards more working class outsider subcultures, incorporating elements of early working class mod fashion and Jamaican music and fashion, especially from Jamaican rude boys.[1] In the earlier stages of the movement, a considerable overlap existed between early skinhead subculture, mod subculture, and the rude boy subculture found among Jamaican British and Jamaican immigrant youth, as these three groups interacted and fraternized with each other within the same working class and poor neighbourhoods in Britain.[2] As skinheads adopted elements of mod subculture and Jamaican British and Jamaican immigrant rude boy subculture, both first and second generation skins were influenced by the rhythms of Jamaican music genres such as ska, rocksteady, and reggae, as well as sometimes African-American soul and rhythm and blues.[2][3][4]
The late 1970s and early 1980s saw a revival or second wave of the skinhead subculture, with increasing interaction between its adherents and the emerging punk movement. Oi!, a working class offshoot of punk rock, soon became a vital component of skinhead culture, while the Jamaican genres beloved by first generation skinheads were filtered through punk and new wave in a style known as 2 Tone. Within these new musical movements, the skinhead subculture diversified, and contemporary skinhead fashions ranged from the original clean-cut 1960s mod- and rude boy-influenced styles to less-strict punk-influenced styles.[5]
During the early 1980s, political affiliations grew in significance and split the subculture, demarcating the far-right and far-left strands, although many skins described themselves as apolitical. In Great Britain, the skinhead subculture became associated in the public eye with membership of groups such as the far-right National Front and British Movement. By the 1990s, neo-Nazi skinhead movements existed across all of Europe and North America, but were counterbalanced by the presence of groups such as Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice which sprung up in response. To this day, the skinhead subculture reflects a broad spectrum of political beliefs, even as many continue to embrace it as a largely apolitical working class movement.
History[edit]
Origins and first wave[edit]
In the late 1950s the post-war economic boom led to an increase in disposable income among many young people. Some of those youths spent that income on new fashions; they wore ripped clothes and would use pieces of material to patch them up as popularised by American soul groups, British R&B bands, certain film actors, and Carnaby Street clothing merchants.[6] These youths became known as mods, a youth subculture noted for its consumerism and devotion to fashion, music, and scooters.[7]
Working class mods chose practical clothing styles that suited their lifestyle and employment circumstances: work boots or army boots, straight-leg jeans or Sta-Prest trousers, button-down shirts and braces. When possible, these working class mods spent their money on suits and other sharp outfits to wear at dancehalls, where they enjoyed soul, ska, and rocksteady music.[1][8]
Around 1966, a schism developed between the peacock mods (also known as smooth mods), who were less violent and always wore the latest expensive clothes, and the hard mods (also known as gang mods, lemonheads or peanuts), who were identified by their shorter hair and more working class image.[9] Hard mods became commonly known as skinheads by about 1968.[10] Their short hair may have come about for practical reasons, since long hair could be a liability in industrial jobs and streetfights. Skinheads may also have cut their hair short in defiance of the more middle class hippie culture.[11]
In addition to retaining many mod influences, early skinheads were very interested in Jamaican rude boy styles and culture, especially the music: ska, rocksteady, and early reggae (before the tempo slowed down and lyrics became focused on topics like black nationalism and the Rastafari movement).[1][12][13]
Skinhead culture became so popular by 1969 that even the rock band Slade temporarily adopted the look as a marketing strategy.[14][15][16] The subculture gained wider notice because of a series of violent and sexually explicit novels by Richard Allen, notably Skinhead and Skinhead Escapes.[17][18] Due to largescale British migration to Perth, Western Australia, many British youths in that city joined skinhead/sharpies gangs in the late 1960s and developed their own Australian style.[19][20]
By the early 1970s, the skinhead subculture started to fade from popular culture, and some of the original skins dropped into new categories, such as the suedeheads (defined by the ability to manipulate one's hair with a comb), smoothies (often with shoulder-length hairstyles), and bootboys (with mod-length hair; associated with gangs and football hooliganism).[10][11][21][22] Some fashion trends returned to the mod roots, with brogues, loafers, suits, and the slacks-and-sweater look making a comeback.