Youth Culture.

Youth Culture celebrates the rebellion and creativity of the ever-restless; the young. A sonically immersive ride through the disruption of 1970s punk to the syncopated drum patterns of dubstep . Each culture will be examined through the lens of social and political history, music and found footage with contributions from journalists, scholars and musicians.

Originally from Texas, Elliott is who studied International Marketing at Chapman University while working Pictures. Upon graduating he worked

New Edwardians & Teddy Boys & Girls.

South London, early 1950s

Through the dark days of World War II, the British were urged to pull together for the common good. When peace arrived, and a Labour government was elected, many people hoped for a more classless society.

Not everyone, of course. The adoption of the New Edwardian look by a group of young upper-class men looked like determined elitism. Harking back to the days of Edward VII, the key feature of the Savile Row tailored look was a long, fitted, single breasted jacket, sometimes with velvet trim at collars and cuffs with narrow trousers and fancy brocade waistcoats.

But it wasn’t only the elite who could aspire to be New Edwardians. Energized by the nascent ‘teen spirit’, a new generation of assertive working class youths hijacked the toffs’ finery. In areas like South London’s Elephant & Castle, the working class ‘Edwardian Youth’ grew in numbers.

When the Rock’n’Roll revolution hit Britain in 1956, the tribe now known as Teddy Boys or just Teds -became the subject of a media-led moral panic. All Teds were branded juvenile delinquents but their refusal to countenance additional class restrictions and their sharp awareness of themselves as a powerful teenage group seeded a class revolution.

Ravers.

Ibiza, the tiny Balearic island off the coast of Spain became the centre of pop culture for a couple of summers in the mid-1980s.

All night clubs played the House Music which had first appeared in Chicago’s Gay Warehouse club, boutiques sold bright, casual yet outrageously sexy clothes, the drug Ecstasy became popular - all against a background of blazing sun and uninhibited beaches. The result was a Balearic lifestyle which would prove hugely influential.

Londoners returned from their holidays determined to inject the Ibizan spirit in to a flagging club culture. The Project Club and Shoom opened and as queues formed outside their doors, Acid House subculture hit the streets.

The hippyish flavor of this new scene became evident as smiley motifs, tie-dyed Psychedelic T-shirts and peace and love became the order of the day. When one-off, illegal warehouse parties or raves caught on, those dancing till dawn became known as ravers.

In the North of England, a different Rave Scene emerged, this was defined by ‘Madchester’ styles of clothing, with clubs like the Hacienda, and bands like the Stone Rosesalong with a shift from lager to Ecstasy.

Liverpool’s Scallies and Manchester’s Perries shifted away from the causal look which they had pioneered in the late 1970s, developing a proudly provincial style. This featured enormous denim flares, hooded sports tops, trainers and pageboy haircuts. One subgroup were named as ‘Baldricks’ after their visual similarity to a character on the Blackadder TV series.

Beats, Beatniks & Existentialists.

The Beats, Beatniks and Existentialists have a lot in common. Pre-dominantly middle-class, well-educated and white but always nonconformist and inclined towards nihilism. The groups assumed dressing down styles to assert an affiliation with “the common man.”

There are differences between these groups however.

The Beats were a band of writers, visionaries and drop-outs who emerged in New York and San Francisco in the 1950s. Critical of the commercialism of the postWorld War II ‘American Dream’, they sought authenticity, adventure and mystical experience. Although their freewheeling lifestyle owed much to the Black Hipster jazz musicians, the Beats’ dress style rejected Hipster flamboyance in favor of rough and ready, supremely casual workwear. If their sweatshirts, chino’s, Levi’s 501s and crumpled worksheets seem unexceptional today, this is a tribute to their stylistic as well as literary influence.

A similar tendency toward casual, had been evident on the Left Bank in Paris since the end of World War II. Cliques of left-wing intellectuals, artists and hangers-on - the Existentialists - shunned the elegant and the prestigious. They chose army surplus garments such as the duffle-coat and sheepskin Canadienne for their proletarian associations. Expressing their nihilistic worldview, the Existentialists also tended to dress in black - and this became a key symbol of their movement.

Headbangers.

In the late 1960s, youth culture focused on middle-class university educated kids and rock music veered into concept albums and similar sophistications. All of which was a long way from the gutsiness of original Rock ’n’ Roll, the product of the working poor.

Heavy Metal music and its followers, originally called Headbangers were here to change that and serve an alienated youth.

The clothing associated with heavy metal has its roots in the biker, rocker, and leather subculture. Heavy metal fashion includes elements such as leather jackets; combat boots, studded belts, hi-top basketball shoes; blue or black jeans, camouflage pants and shorts, and denim jackets or butte vests, often adorned with badges, pins and patches.

The independence, masculinity and honor of the warrior ethos is extremely popular with headbangers as is the rejection of perceived modern-day consumerist and metrosexual culture. Folk metal, Viking metal and power metal fans often grow long thick hair and beards reminiscent of a stereotypical Viking, Saxon or Celt and wear pagan symbols. On stage, in photoshoots, and in music videos, it is very common for bands of these genres such as Turisas and Moonsorrow to wear chain mail, animal skins and warpaint.

Psychedlics.

West Coast, USA, London, Mid 1960s

In the summer of 1964, Ken Kesey and his band of ‘Merry Pranksters’ took an old school bus, loaded it full of camera equipment and LSD (then still legal) and set off across America. The bus was driven by Neal Cassady (model for Dean Moriarty in Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’)

and painted in a far out array of colors.

And so the Psychedelic revolution was born. Not to be lumped in with the hippies, Psychedlics were never nature loving and had a love of futuristic artifice.

Soon exported from the USA, Psychedlia’s most stylish manifestations were in Britainperhaps because Britain escaped most of the fall-out of the Vietnam war. Some parts of London society by contrast were still swinging - enjoying a party-on, ‘groovy’ ‘happening’ atmosphere. All of this found expression in Psychedlia: whirling patterns drawn from art nouveau in mind-boggling acidic color, op/pop art designs, exotic, tactile fabrics, decorative excess, trippy makeup and ‘cosmic’ hairstyles.

Rude Boys

Kingston, Jamaica Mid 1960s - London, 1980s

Elliott Watson

In the 1960s, DJ’s like Prince Buster created an indigenous Jamaican music known as Rudie Blues. Lingering on the off-beat, this uniquely Jamaican sound came to be known as Bluebeat, Rocksteady and ultimately, Ska.

Jamaicans embraced the Modernist look (which had first surfaced with the Cool School jazz musicians in New York). The leaders of this Jamaican style revolution were the Rude Boys - Kingston’s notorious street-corner ruffians.

While the Rude Boy look owed a great deal to Black America, it developed in a way that was purely Jamaican. Harder edged, it featured wrap-around shades, pork pie hats, ‘cropped’ (short) trousers, and two-tone fabrics which shimmered in contrasting colors.

Transplanted to Britain by Jamaican immigrants, the Rude Boys’ sharp, ultra-cool style provided a key inspiration for both Mods and Skinheads.

In the late 1970s, under the banner of Two-Tone, the Rude Boy look flourished once again. While the Mods, the Skinheads and Two Tone each came to interpret this look in different ways, they all share a common debt to the original Rude Boy synthesis: reconciling the subtle and the showy in the pursuit of consummate cool.

Youth Culture comes from the creators, writers, producers and editors of the Webby Award Nominated podcast series The Comeback. The Comeback is being developed into a TV Series with the Academy Award

Winning director Daniel Junge, and Academy Award Winning actor, writer, director Sylvester Stallone. Honora’s past titles have seen them win The Tribeca Film Festival, premiere at Sundance, TIFF, SXSW and be nominated for a BAFTA. They have worked with Academy Award Winning talent and distributed their work from Netflix to NBCUniversal.