What is Collective Identity?

What is a mod?

(Especially in the early 1960s) a young person of a subculture characterized by a smart 
stylish appearance, the riding of motor scooters, and a liking for soul music.

What is the historical context of a mod?

George Melly wrote that mods were initially a small group of clothes-focused working class young men insisting on clothes and shoes tailored to their style, who emerged during the trad jazz boom. Early mods watched French and Italian art films and read Italian magazines to look for style ideas. According to Dick Hebdige, by around 1963, the mod subculture had gradually accumulated the identifying symbols that later came to be associated with the scene, such as scooters, amphetamine pills and R&B music. While clothes were still important at that time, they could be ready-made. Dick Hebdige wrote the term mod covered a number of styles during the emergence of Swinging London, though it has come to define Melly's working class clothes-conscious teenagers living in London and south England in the early to mid 1960s.


For the mods dressing for show was transformed into a religion as British youth demolished the notion of male clothing as merely a status indicator. Until this time, it had been a com-mon stereotype that only homo-sexuals were interested in fashion. The Mods trampled on this idea as well. Clothing took precedence over all else, as this Mod explains: “We used togo to a lot of extremes. Once I didn’t go out because I put on my suit and my shoes were a little bit dirty so I got the polish out and --- disaster --- I looked in the mirror and I’d splashed my shirt. So I got the hump and I didn’t go out that evening. I stayed in because my shirt wasn’t perfect. And I knew guys who’d get on a bus with a sheet of brown paper so they could put it on the seat so they didn’t get any dirt on their suit. And they’d sit bolt upright so they were not touching the back of the seat. We took it very seriously and you had to be immaculate, very dandyish.” 

What are the "fashions,mannerisms and music" that "signal...membership" of this youth sub-culture?

Mods rejected the "faulty pap" of 1950s pop music and sappy love songs. They aimed at being "cool, neat, sharp, hip, and smart" by embracing "all things sexy and streamlined", especially when they were new, exciting, controversial or modern.

Due to the increasing affluence of post-war Britain, the youths of the early 1960s were one of the first generations that did not have to contribute their money from after-school jobs to the family finances. As mod teens and young adults began using their disposable income to buy stylish clothes, the first youth-targeted boutique clothing stores opened in London in the Carnaby Street and King's Road districts.Two youth subcultures helped pave the way for mod fashion by breaking new ground; the beatniks, with their Bohemian image of berets and black turtlenecks, and the Teddy Boys, from which mod fashion inherited its "narcissistic and fastidious [fashion] tendencies" and the immaculate dandy look. The Teddy Boys paved the way for making male interest in fashion socially acceptable, because prior to the Teddy Boys, male interest in fashion in Britain was mostly associated with the underground homosexual subculture's flamboyant dressing style.

Male mods adopted a smooth, sophisticated look that included tailor-made suits with narrow lapels (sometimes made of mohair), thin ties, button-down collar shirts, wool or cashmere jumpers (crewneck or V-neck), Chelsea or Beatle boots, loafers, Clarks desert boots, bowling shoes, and hairstyles that imitated the look of French Nouvelle Vague film actors. A few male mods went against gender norms by using eye shadow, eye-pencil or even lipstick. Mods chose scooters over motorbikes partly because they were a symbol of Italian style and because their body panels concealed moving parts and made them less likely to stain clothes with oil or road dust. Many mods wore military parkas while driving scooters in order to keep their clothes clean.

Many female mods dressed androgynously, with short haircuts, men's trousers or shirts, flat shoes, and little makeup — often just pale foundation, brown eye shadow, white or pale lipstick and false eyelashes. Miniskirts became progressively shorter between the early and mid-1960s. As female mod fashion became more mainstream, slender models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy began to exemplify the mod look.