Title
A description of Teddy Boy fashion.
Subject
Being young
Description
Malcolm Mason talks about the clothes he wore as a Teddy Boy in the 1950s.
Creator
East Midlands Oral History Archive
Source
Interview with Malcolm Mason. EMOHA Ref: 1600, EM/103/YC
Publisher
East Midlands Oral History Archive
Date
1950s
Contributor
East Midlands Oral History Archive
Rights
You may use this item in accordance with the licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/
Format
.mp3
Language
English
Original Format
Minidisc
Duration
2 min 1 sec
Bit Rate/Frequency
320kbps
Transcription
Teddy Boys were about then, and I won’t say everybody, but a lot of people – your drainpipe trousers and your drape jackets and your DA haircuts.
Where would you get these clothes from?
Burtons! Yeah, Burtons was one shop, I always remember. There was Irish Manufacturing, I used to buy stuff from there.
What did the shoes have to be like?
Well, I mean, if you were going to be really in you’d got to have the crepe sole creepers, you know, the thick crepe sole shoes. The socks were, they used to kill my feet, but they were nylon, fluorescent pinks and blues and yellow, but nylon - did they ever make your feet sweat!
The trousers…?
Drainpipes. Quite a variety of colours, the jackets. Maroon-y colour, grey, all with the black velvet collars. Very wide lapels, very wide lapels. Shirts – you could get fancy shirts – frills on the front with the… some of them with the frills with the black edging on them. Bootlace ties. Yeah, fairly expensive, they wasn’t cheap. I don’t suppose it was a lot more expensive than if you went in to buy a good suit.
And was this a look that you had if you wanted to be rebellious or was it a look that everybody was going for anyway?
A bit of both. Mainly, if you wanted to be rebellious. You’d got people that were on the fringes, they wanted to look like that but they didn’t particularly want to be rebellious.
Where would you get these clothes from?
Burtons! Yeah, Burtons was one shop, I always remember. There was Irish Manufacturing, I used to buy stuff from there.
What did the shoes have to be like?
Well, I mean, if you were going to be really in you’d got to have the crepe sole creepers, you know, the thick crepe sole shoes. The socks were, they used to kill my feet, but they were nylon, fluorescent pinks and blues and yellow, but nylon - did they ever make your feet sweat!
The trousers…?
Drainpipes. Quite a variety of colours, the jackets. Maroon-y colour, grey, all with the black velvet collars. Very wide lapels, very wide lapels. Shirts – you could get fancy shirts – frills on the front with the… some of them with the frills with the black edging on them. Bootlace ties. Yeah, fairly expensive, they wasn’t cheap. I don’t suppose it was a lot more expensive than if you went in to buy a good suit.
And was this a look that you had if you wanted to be rebellious or was it a look that everybody was going for anyway?
A bit of both. Mainly, if you wanted to be rebellious. You’d got people that were on the fringes, they wanted to look like that but they didn’t particularly want to be rebellious.
Interviewer
Colin Hyde
Interviewee
Malcolm Mason
Location
Interviewee's home address.
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