FASHION SPECIAL
The Seventies
Margate with the Bowie Boys
Roy Kerridge
Young hooligans today have a nondes- cript, loutish appearance. By slouching with their hands high in their brown leather jacket pockets instead of their trouser pockets as of yore, they present jagged elbows as offensive weapons. To my relief, however, plain oafishness is back.
There was a time, in the Seventies, when fashionable young men were decadent and frightening. I had feared that they would grow into some kind of sadistic fascist movement, as precious 'progressive' coun- terparts of skinheads and bovver boys. Cheltenham was then a skinhead town, and so was the resort of Margate.
Uncanny post-war fashions for men be- gan with the hippies. In Soho in 1970, I had been alarmed to 'see young men parading in elfin style, with crimson velvet suits and poetic haloes of fluffy curly hair, yet with brute-like, broken-nosed faces peering
from below the haloes. These mannequins, or manikins, were evolving from Hippie to Glitter. Glitterbugs begat Bowie Boys and Bowie Boys begat punks. All such fashions were linked to pop singers and styles of music. Young thugs thought it amusing to flirt with transvestism and to wear lipstick and eye-shadow. This made their appear- ance frightening in the extreme, to their great relish.
Here are my Fashion Notes of 1975, jotted down in Dreamland, Margate's great funfair. 'Young people surged around in groups, greatly enjoying them- selves. Traditional skinheads, with shaved, bristly heads, braces, boots and baggy half-mast jeans, 'added an old-world touch to the scene. Blue denim prevailed in general, but the Bowie Boys stole the show. These are followers of the singer David Bowie. Bowie's act, music and make-up seem inspired by, and an incen- tive towards, the destruction of civilisation and sanity. It was unnerving to see tough, threatening young swaggerers with lipstick, eye make-up and earrings, their short spiky hair dyed a shocking blond or a brilliant scarlet. All these crazes have been created by irresponsible pop singers who are ignored or encouraged by equally irres- ponsible authority.'
Today, 'rock' is treated as life's back- ground music: It no longer inspires its devotees to wear outrageous clothes and develop interesting vices. My feared' 'fas- cist' movement dwindled and faded away with the 1970s themselves. Perhaps it went out of fashion.
'Grant me a safe journey to the diocesan conference, and parking in the cathedral close when 1 get there.'
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