In the late 1960s young mods were looking for new ways to become different from their older brothers. I’m sure they borrowed some of their gear but every generation wants distinction. So it was they moved towards shorter hair and shorter trousers with more turn ups and boots giving a more working class look. It was a meaner look too, short hair being great for fighting, so it appealed then – as it has forever since – to a more aggressive element less concerned with the attention to detail which defined them. It was a newspaper who gave them their name: Skinheads.
So from late 60s skinheads were mods with a slightly different outlook. Some mods went into the hippy thing and this look was in the opposite direction. The look was still smart and clean paying heed to the little things. I think I’ll dedicate a whole page to skinheads later.
By the turn of the 1970 skinheads started growing their hair and so a new name was found: Suedeheads. Whether some grew it for distinction or just because they now had jobs and had to look respectable who knows but it became a style of the time in it’s own right.
Boots were exchanged for shoes – brogues or clumpier basket weave types. Suits and sta-prest preferred to jeans. Coloured socks (often red) gave a flash of colour as they walked. The music was still reggae and ska of the skinheads but more soul was being heard too. Suggestions that some were getting into glam which might have had something to do with Slade being made to dress like suedeheads in their early days. Fortunately suedeheads did not start to follow Slade’s style :¬)
If you Google for suedehead you will no doubt find the image of the books ‘Suedehead’ by Richard Allen. Richard Allen was but one of several pen names of jobbing journalist James Moffat who was a chain-smoking alcoholic sports biography writer. However he quickly gained notoriety following the series of Joe Hawkins skinhead pulp fiction. With a successful formula, all the youth cults of the day were singled out for commodification by the New English Library. Other titles included Skinhead, Mod Rule, Boot Boys, Sorts and Smoothies.
The name suedehead has also spurred obvious commercial associations such as the Trojan Suedehead Box Set and less obvious ones like Morrissey’s single entitled ‘Suedehead’.