The Soul Stylists: Sixty Years of Modernism

With the use of personal testimonies of both the famous and the unknown, this book seeks to establish the link between the two key elements of Modernism today—American rhythm and blues and British working-class fashion. It follows the transition of musical styles from London in the late 1950s, with the black American servicemen and their love of bebop, through the sharply dressed Mods of the early 1960s, to the dawning of the skinhead and suedehead movements which provided the musical and stylistic inspirations for 1980s bands such as Madness, The Beat, and The Specials. It also explores Britain’s Northern soul scene, the soulboy and the casual, as well as 2001’s Mod inheritors—the youth who make up the acid house and hip-hop scene.