TEDDY BOYS (YOUTH SUBCULTURE) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

TEDDY BOYS (YOUTH SUBCULTURE) - Essay Example They take symbolic meanings and become stigmata for those who hate it and a token of identification and acceptance into the brotherhood for those who are part of that group. The Teddy Boys subculture emerged in the 1950s in England (Hazlehurst & Hazlehurst, 1998). Primarily it was a reaction to the confining space and declining status that the middle class English people were given. Developing a subculture is inevitable, as Dick Hebdige writes in his book Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), that â€Å"modes† and â€Å"categories† inherited from the old folks no longer serve the needs of a new generation. The Teddy Boy subculture gained roots during post-world war Britain (Hazlehurst & Hazlehurst, 1998), to raise a voice against the social injustice that was plaguing Britain. It rose from the working middle class and strived to get them better social status (Hazlehurst & Hazlehurst, 1998). The Teds were originally called the Cosh Boys later Daily Express termed the Edwardian looking teenagers as Teddy Boys (Robertson, 2007). The ‘Teddy Boys’ was the first one with identifiable gangs that wore similar clothing. The classic Teddy Boy look would be the drake jacket and ‘brothel creepers’ for footwear. In the beginning there were drapes and drainpipe trousers for the Teds (Marko, 2007). Later this look was upgraded to drapes with collar, cuff and pocket trimmings. The trousers got narrower with crepe soled shoes (also known as the beetle crushers). The hairstyle was heavily gelled (greased) with a quiff shaped into a DA, more popularly known as the ‘duck’s arse’ (Marko, 2007). The ‘Edwardian’ style adopted by the Teds was a ‘take’ on the kind of clothes worn by a certain section of the British army (the Guards) after WW2, with deliberate references back to a time when the upper class were ‘in charge’. Worn by the guards the style had strong