The Teddy Boy: Fashion

 

 

The Teddy boy represented their values and ideas. They wore long coats with velvet collars and pocket flaps. Original Teddy boys wore separate non-matching waist coats, jackets and trousers whereas later Teds sometimes wore three piece drape suits. The drape jackets were normally dark in colour with straight sides (not tucked in at the waist) and didn’t have a vent in the back to create a boxy look. The drainpipe trousers were normally high waisted and left the socks exposed. With these the Teddy boys wore a loose collared, high necked white shirt with a Slim Jim or bootlace tie. Brogues or thick soled Brothel Creepers were their shoes of choice. The most popular hair style donned by the subcultural group was a quiff slickly combed back into a ‘duck arse shape at the back’. There were other styles such as the Boston, the pompadour and the jelly roll. They were all strongly moulded and heavily greased.

 

We hear a lot about the Teddy boy style but not much about the girls. The Teddy girls wore similar velvet collared drape jackets. However instead of drainpipe trousers they wore pencil skirts or rolled up jeans. The Teddy girl’s choice in clothes was their way of rejecting post-war austerity. They were mostly young women from the poorer districts of London. The style they wore would turn heads and had trickled down from the haute-couture houses that had created collections reminiscent of the Edwardian era.