WE ARE THE MODS

WE ARE THE MODS, WE ARE THE MODS, WE ARE

	"We are the mods, we are the mods, we are, we are, we are, we are the mods." the chant of the mods along the beaches, but what are mods?. Mod is a movement that started in the early sixties, it started as a very underground movement as a group of mostly men who dressed immaculately in suits and Italian shirts, and listened to R&B, Stax music and Northern soul.

It wasn't until a newspaper article revealed these youngsters at various clubs and gave them the name "mods" as an abbreviation of "modernists" (as their style was so new and different from the Teddyboys and Rockers before them) that the style became a commercial movement.

Mods were obsessed with clothes and style, wearing zoot suits with three inch side vents, skinny ties, pork pie hats, tight cut trousers, Ben Sherman shirts and the obligatory ex American army Parka jacket to keep everything clean, as cleanness and order was the most important thing.

Hence their chosen mode of transport were Vespa and Lambretta scooters as the engines were so clean compared to the heavy motor bikes of the rockers, also scooters of these types are beautiful to look at with their curves and streamlined appearance perfect for the showy butterfly mods.

With their obsession with fashion came a one-up-man-ship between mods and mod groups, for instance a brand new shirt could go out of fashion in a matter of hours, and other strange fashions came about, such as one week it was out of fashion to dance with girls!, so all the mod boys danced alone and the mod girls either stood around and watched or danced with each other!.

within the mod groups there was a pecking order as follows;

1 The top of all the mods was "the ace face" this mod was the leader to which all mods followed he wore all the best suits and shirts and was always ahead of fashion to the point that he set it, his scooter was a top of the range Vesper GS (Vespa Grans sport).

2 Below the ace face were "faces" these were hip young mods who were trend setters in their group and very cool and fashionable, other mods looked up to them and followed their example.

3 next there was "tickets" these were the mods that followed and looked up to the faces and would generally be lackeys to the faces i.e. hold their coat and envy their clothes.

4 and lastly were the "states" who were the lowest of all the mods, the sort who were always one week or more out of step on the fashion front, and the type who's Fred Perry fell off the back of a lorry.