Mod - A Very British Style

We're All Mods Now

Clean-cut looks will never go out of style. A tidy haircut or a polished shoe will never age. This is why the mod aesthetic was built to last. It's smart. And it helped that its soundtrack was the best that popular music had to offer.

Richard Weight's new book, Mod - a Very British Style, charts the history of mod culture from the modern jazz lovers of the 60s to later incarnations such as the clothes-obsessed football casuals of the 80s, and also mod's lasting influence on art and popular culture.

The mod ethos is future-facing and constantly changing - but, like any culture, there are non-verbal social signifiers - attitude and clothes - that communicate belonging. But cultures also exclude by signalling what they do not represent. And mods have always been elitist in the best possible sense, a sophisticated gang apart. This is where the book has attracted controversy, introducing some fairly unusual members to the mod family, such as glam rockers. I'll have to agree with the classic mod fraternity here, surely glam rockers were way to scruffy?

Mod - a Very British Style is available as a hardback on The Bodley Head imprint from Random House and also as a Kindle edition [Amazon].