The Tailored Generation ~ Teddy Boys & Teddy Girls
“They knew their worth.”
This observation by photographer Ken Russell about the Teddy Boys and Girls, (the latter also known as the Judies), is a critical observation that unites this particular teenage subculture from the working class areas of East and West London in the 1940s and 50s with their counterparts the world over. What is perfect about his comment is that it sublimely pinpoints the kind of innate confidence that comes with being a youth whose dreams are big and whose doubts are small. If there was a ubiquitous heart for the burgeoning teenager, at its center would beat a boldness and innate desire to display a specific persona and sense of identity, something that the Teds — as they were sometimes known — did very well. As they grappled with postwar life, their style allowed them to assert themselves in a world no longer sure of itself, to declare that they were not to be confused with naive children nor with jaded adults, but were to be recognized as occupying a betwixt and between niche that they filled with their own style and aplomb.
In contemporary culture, ‘teenager’ is part of the daily lexicon, but there was a time where it was primarily an intimidating and enigmatic buzzword, often in the same Venn diagram as such negative labels as delinquent and hooligan. The idea that those between the ages of roughly twelve to eighteen deserved a specific place in society — one with their own finesse, identity and satirical embrace of sophisticated rebellion — was contrary to Victorian era thinking. It’s important to remember that the “term teen-ager dates back to the early 1900s, but the word didn’t stick. Even until World War II, there are hardly any instances of teenagers in the popular press”. Teenagers at once did and did not exist. And yet, despite living in this seemingly No Man’s Land of being both grown and nameless, the Teds approached their iconic looks with the kind of introspection and bombastic sense of fashion and self that is recognized today as almost standard.
In the aftermath of World War II, teenagers were, for the most part, establishing an unequivocal sense of character, one they were ready to announce. In 1945, the New York Times Magazine published “A Teen-age Bill of Rights”, as proposed by Elliot E. Cohen who believed that “in the current debate about ‘teen-agers’, the pendulum has swung between ‘What is wrong with our children?’ and ‘What is wrong with us?’”. To respond to this bewilderment, Cohen published a ten-point charter that, mimicking the American Constitution, set forth such rights as ‘The Right to Have a Say’ About His Own Life’, ‘The Right to Question Ideas’ and ‘The Right to Struggle Toward His Own Philosophy in Life’. While this manifesto was particular to the United States, its philosophies and mantras could be applied to the world of Teddy Boys and Girls, a decidedly British phenomena that predated the rockabilly days of 1950s America.
To understand the style and particular panache of the Teds, it is imperative to understand the world from which they evolved. They were those in the midst of ‘teenagehood’ living in the immediate aftermath of World War II, residing in a war torn Britain of bombed buildings and ravaged roads, at a metacognitive crossroad of ‘what’s next’?
For the Teds, this question was answered through fashion liberation, an emancipation achieved by reneging years of austerity and sacrifice. Teenagers declared that they ‘knew their worth’, as Ken Russell stated. Despite global devastation that might have hampered the dauntlessness in any other age group, they wanted to be noticed, to shock their elders and families. By all accounts, they succeeded.
“It was our fashion and we made it up.”
- Rose (nee Hendon), remembering Teddy Girl style in 2006
In the wake of the war, when rationing and careful spending was foremost in everyone’s minds, the Teddy Boys and Girls deviated from the ‘norm’, adopting a style that was both second-hand and posh, making them a paradoxical subculture that can be described as forward-thinking nostalgics who recognized the elegant flare of yesteryear’s trends.
Without a doubt, the Teds “had a put-together smartness that at first feels at odds with the idea of a rebellious teenager, but they were, in fact, ripping up the rulebook (or ration book, as it were) by rejecting the austere approach of a post-war economy”. In essence, the neo-Edwardian look allowed the Teds to cut a cool figure against a landscape of rubble and recovery. After years of somber duty, they wanted a taste of the flamboyant, choosing for inspiration styles that were in vogue from roughly 1901–1910.
To understand the Edwardian style is to look at such figures as Bertie, the Prince of Wales and eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. For men in the upper echelons of society, the uniform varied throughout the day, starting with morning coats, waistcoats and striped trousers made of wool serge. Other parts of the ensemble included cravats and silk hats, frock coats and lounge jackets; black dress coats and dinner jackets. Because Bertie himself was fond of sports jackets, the Norfolk shooting jacket became the rage with its pleats and boisterous tweeds, thus prompting equally stylish uniforms to be worn when playing polo, tennis, golf and cricket. In an era of industry as well as catalogues and mass market advertising, it was not difficult for those outside high society to mimic these styles, bringing a sense of effortless charisma to the everyday look.
Fast forward to the mid 1940s and such decadence was no longer status quo. For adults, it seemed absurd for young people to aspire to pre-war elegance, but they didn’t care. These teenagers were hardened and resilient, with a streak of independence courtesy of many having to drop out of school and begin working by age fourteen. Many were also first-generation decedents of Irish immigrants and lived in the poorer areas such as North Kensington and Poplar. Reaching for the flamboyant was an act of optimism. Oh sure, some Teds earned a bad rap from fights that would break out in pubs and dance halls, causing some establishments to carry a ‘No Edwardian Dress’ policy, but, for the most part, it was less about delinquency and more about stylish aspirations.
“The Teddy Girls were the punks of their time, impertinent characters with wild quiffs who wore Edwardian-style men’s jackets with ample skirts, jeans and black leather jackets.”
– Maria Grazia Chiuri (Italian fashion designer)
Many Teddy Boys and Teddy Girls worked in factories, with girls also working as shop assistants and secretaries. They acquired second-hand essentials at shops on the Portabello Road, a street that was home to stores owned by ‘rag and bone’ men, (old clothespin and junk dealers), selling a variety of wares. Photographer Ken Russell learned about them through a friend who attended the South Essex Polytechnic and School of Art. After being told about girls who added a feminine angle to the Teddy Boy silhouette, he set out to photograph this emerging clique of rough-around-the-edges fashionistas. His photos — rediscovered in 2005 — have continued to bring a surge of interest back to this real world cast of smart teens embracing style at a time when adults cautioned for prudence. It is because of Russell that we have names and ages for some of the photos.
There is the iconic image of fourteen-year-old Jean Rayner who is captured casually holding a cigarette off to one side (think titular Bette Davis sass) and staring straight at the camera.
Then there is the image of seventeen-year-old Iris Thornton and Pat Wiles in 1955, wearing the telltale coolie hats, hats that were a take on the paddy or rice hats that originated from Southeast Asia.
Jean Raynor makes a subsequent cameo in another of Russell’s photos alongside fellow Teds Elsie and Rosie Hendon. Their setting is a bombsite in Southam Street in North Kensington, West London, a stark reminder that the wartime landscape was part of the teen world long after peace was declared.
While the uniform for Teddy Boys remained fairly standard — drainpipe trousers and long jackets — for girls, the style pushed boundaries of acceptability as they sometimes played around with androgynous looks via boyish haircuts and slacks. Still, to maintain a girlish flair, they relied on such accouterments as clutch handbags, Victorian cameos and the aforementioned coolie hats. They also relished jeans and ballet flats, but could also be found wearing pencil skirts. For girls living on the East End, tailored jackets with velvet collars were the norm when available.
So what does this fashion — this wearable art — tell us about this era…about this time and this place? Why study it at all? Perhaps — and most importantly — it is because that time, place and those visceral reactions cannot be replicated. The fashion captures an outlook that proves teens were determined to defy the omnipresent bleakness and jagged edges of the war’s aftershocks. One need only gaze at Teddy Girl gal pals posing for photos in their tailored outfits amid rubble to feel their cheerful defiance, and revel in it as much as they did.
Moreover, those few years prove that fashion does not have to have a runway debut to establish its import. Those snapshot not only immortalized those young adults, they remind history that the vivid character of the rebel teenager should never be dismissed. Those teens were defiant and gutsy as they refused to let the horrors and malnutritions of war force them to prolong a lackluster existence. They flaunted their survival. And they always did so fashionably.
“Fashion is then armor to survive the reality of everyday life.”
- Bill Cunningham (American Fashion Photographer)
