Teddy girls in the 1950s

[Mossleybrow]

Rose Hendon remembered: "Me and my friends used to go to the Back Ace Club in the Harrow Road. They had a juke box, and we’d all meet up there for coffee. Or we’d go down the Seven Feathers Club and there’d be music and you’d do your dancing. That was where I used to go with my boyfriend Jimmy. He was one of the Teddy Boys. They were smart. And it was because of that us girls started getting that look…We started wearing turned-up drainpipe jeans. Plastic belts round them. And blouses with a wing collar. Then we added in cameo brooches, and scarf, tailored jackets with wide lapels and velvet collars, white ankle socks and flat black shoes…The thing I spent most money on was an Astrakhan coat. It was £25 . It came from Debenhams in the Harrow Road, and buying it felt just really good. I felt …glamorous." Virginia Nicholson, Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, (2015), pp.356-357.

I love the teddy girl look! It's especially interesting when you look at it in relation to the hyper feminine mainstream fashion of the time.

That's really interesting, thanks!

That's such a cool look, thanks op.

That’s really interesting, thanks for posting.

It reminds me of the women in This Is England, somehow. A very strong look and quite different to mainstream style (although I know 1980s fashion was v androgynous in general)

That’s what l dressed like in the 1980’s

Rolled up jeans, hair in a quiff, brothel creepers and boot lace tie. It was very much an ‘alternative 80’s look.

Androgyny was for the masses!

Thank you Mossley. Lovely post.

makes a come back quite regularly. Pictures were by Ken Russell by the way

I recommend Virginia's book on the 1950s "Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes" and also her book on the 1960s " How Was It for You? Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s"

Great point CoOp.

It extended into the 90s with "heroine chic" and grunge, and took a swift gender rigid turn from the mid-90s onwards. Rock/Pop.

New Jack Swing (80s/90s) led a similar path from "gender rigidity" on to "androgyny" to "girl power" back to mid 90s-onwards "gender conformity."

70s/80s solo idols (Popular - all genres)

80s - Groups. Gender bending.

80s - Solo idols - female and male breaking glass ceilings/androgynous/gender bending.

Boy Bands. Grunge. Brit Pop.

Girl bands - "ball breakers"

Solo women - "ball breakers"

Girl bands ("girl power")

Girl Bands

Boy bands

Stage school/Idol/X/You Tube

Thanks for the tip Mossley.

Also completely unrelated but interesting fact.

Men grow facial hair when threatened by women.
Late Victorian, 1970’s ( womens Lib)
Now.

I teach all this!

Great look but £25 for a coat in the fifties! Nearly 4 week's pay for a man let alone a woman. Serious commitment to fashion.

Ah!

That explains Prince Albert and his great, great great, grand Hipster sons of London 21st 10s

I know!

So much facial hair around at the moment!

Vaguely related as its clothing. Jeremy Clarkson mentioned in his column at the weekend he'd seen a t-shirt that said 'there are more than 2 sexes'. Underneath it said 'available in male and female sizes'.

Vair funny Angel.

I like it

Mossley's posts are more of what is needed here.

And CoOp: your academic contributions. Past and Living history.

Thank goodness for UK museums over the past few years.

Ooooh well history of fashion is completely about women’s social history, repressions and freedoms.

Mini skirt sexual freedom
Trouser suit - fighting for equality with men
Power dressing-rise of females in the work place
1920’s boyish shape- post war freedom
1950’s exaggerated female shape, women back in the kitchen after the war

I could go on...

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Also completely unrelated but interesting fact.

Men grow facial hair when threatened by women.
Late Victorian, 1970’s ( womens Lib)
Now.

I teach all this!

I've got a lovely mental image of beards sprouting like Saru's ganglia (Star Trek discovery, for the uninitiated)

ArseInTheCoOpWindow Please do go on!

1890’s first wave of power dressing. Women dressed in tailored suits like men-rise of suffrage
1910’s. First non corset fashions appear- suffrage continuing
1920’s first wave of gender benders. Loss of men in war and women’s new freedoms meant genders swapped roles a bit. Men wore make up for fist time and women had short hair
1930’s- depression- long skirts ( hemlines go up in a boom down in recession)
1940’s; war, masculine silhouette, padded shoulders, women filling mens jobs
1950’s as above!
1960’s as above
1970’s. Mini , midi , maxi and trousers. This was a decade in flux for women, equal pay, women’s Lib etc, so fashions reflected this. Punk was important as women were leading rather than following or being told what to do (Siouxse, The Slits)
1980’s power dressing- masculine silhouettes, short skirts, gender benders
1990’s- dress down Fridays, men letting go of ‘work suit’ as women become more equal, long skirts again

First attemp to throw off corsets was in the 1850’s. At around the same time as the Married Woman’s property Act.

The biggest equaliser is jeans. The more freedom women achieved ( since the 50’s) the more men and women wore jeans

Also Kier Hardie leader of the first Labour Party was the first man not to wear a stiff formal collar in Westminster.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Ooooh well history of fashion is completely about women’s social history, repressions and freedoms.

Mini skirt sexual freedom
Trouser suit - fighting for equality with men
Power dressing-rise of females in the work place
1920’s boyish shape- post war freedom
1950’s exaggerated female shape, women back in the kitchen after the war

I could go on...

I find fashion fascinating because it really does reflect bigger societal trends.

Canning Town.

I love that Teddy Girl look, and the This Is England style, except those collared t-shirts are so expensive. I need them to come back into fashion so I can buy cheap knock offs again.
The social history facts are fascinating, I never knew that about facial hair. Thanks!