It was very aspirational – a way to stand apart from your parents and peers, and to align yourself with this new Britain that embraced immigration, that looked to Europe, with the tailoring and the scooters, and that was starting to break down class distinctions. “The Italian thing then came in with the boxier jackets and slimmer flat-fronted trousers. Guys like Miles Davis had been through the zoot suits and bebop flamboyance, but then they went the other way, and embraced the preppy, conservative Ivy League look – slim suits, knitwear, loafers – and made it look really contemporary and slick. “Men were all wearing suits back in the late fifties, but the mods tweaked the look by taking inspiration from jazz, the Ivy League, and Italian tailoring. “Paul, Martin and Bradley are basically following the philosophy of the early mods,” says Powell in his gruff geezer accent.
And here’s Powell himself, looking equal parts Edwardian gent and East End gangster on the set of 1986’s Absolute Beginners – the movie. We’re talking in his Soho atelier, just a winklepicker’s throw from Carnaby Street, ground zero of the original mod detonation in the late fifties and early sixties, and Powell is guiding me through his rogue’s gallery of mod-con clients: Paul Weller in a double-breasted grey pinstripe suit, based on a ’60s style Martin Freeman in an Ivy League-inspired short-jacketed, slim-trousered pinstripe suit Bradley Wiggins in a velvet double-breasted jacket, accepting his Sports Personality of the Year Award. “You’ve got to remember that the word ‘mod’ is derived from ‘modernist’, and that the key thing about the look is that, yes, it’s clean-cut and smart, but that it’s open to all kinds of influences, and it constantly evolves,” says the tailor Mark Powell. So why has mod style retained such traction while the other looks have crashed and burned? It’s all about the clothes themselves. There’s the brands still flying the flag – Ben Sherman and John Smedley (and their descendants, such as Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green) as well as the influence of mod-borrowing musical movements like 2-Tone and Britpop.Īnd let’s not forget contemporary clean-cut modfathers such as Paul Weller, Martin Freeman and Bradley Wiggins, and younger bucks like Miles Kane, Jake Bugg, and The Strypes. The sharp tailoring, the knitted polos, the jacquard and paisley accents, the Clarks Desert Boots – these are all still stylish pieces that resonate with the man of today. While fellow youth subcultures – the teddy boys, the rockers, the punks, the new romantics – have either fallen by the wayside, become a hardcore cult, or dwindled into costume-party irrelevance, the original principles of the mod look are still playing out in men’s fashion.
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