On Jasmine Howard's Granny, My Mother, and the Likely Lasses

Two girls in Newcastle (1970)

Photo by Laszlo Torday 

 

I. 

 

The other day, on a sunny afternoon, as Ray Davies would say, I attended a meeting of the Subcultures Interest Group (SIG), held in a fifth floor room at the London College of Fashion, located, for those who don't know, on the East Bank of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford. 

 

After discussing the graphic design of Dave King - the one who designed the Crass symbol; not the one who designed the Anti-Nazi League logo - and the contents of an upcoming issue of SIG News, there were three short presentations, including one by a canny lass dressed in a vintage outfit called Jasmine Howard; a Fashion Cultures and Histories student, writing her MA dissertation on class and clothing in the North East of England in the mid-late 1960s [1].

 

 

II. 

 

More interested in the women who lived and worked and raised families in the small towns and villages rather than big cities such as Newcastle, Ms Howard argued that her grandmother was not only a long way geographically from Swinging London and its youth-driven cultural revolution, but essentially belonged to a different world from the one inhabited by Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton.

 

And, after looking at a photo of her grandmother on her wedding day in comparison to a London model wearing one of the lastest Mary Quant designs, one has to agree. 

 

But that's not to say that Jasmine's granny didn't look lovely; futuristic minimalism and space-age fashion is all well and good, but there's nothing wrong with looking neat and tidy in a more traditional sense and wearing garments that are a little more down to earth and designed to last. 

 

My own mother, who was from the North East, but moved south after marrying in 1948, never had much money to spend on clothes and wasn't very much interested in fashion. Nevertheless, she always made sure she looked respectable when she left the house; always with makeup and never with bare legs or bare head. 

 

Back then, people would refer to themselves as working class and proud, which, amongst other things, implied they took care of their appearance, but didn't necessarily feel the need to wear silver miniskirts and go-go boots.          

 

 

III.

 

Having said that, as the North East fashion historian Caroline Whitehead [2] reminds us, there were young women (and young men) in the North East during the sixties - certainly in the large cities, but also, I suspect, in the smallest towns and villages - who were bang on trend and keen to keep up with all the latest fashions from London, even if they couldn't afford to buy such and had to make their own outfits or buy cheap knock-off designs by mail order.

 

I can't imagine, for example, that if you were a student at the Newcastle College of Art and Industrial Design [3] in the 1960s, you were dressed either like Jasmine's granny or my mother and, if one can judge from the clothes worn by Thelma and all the other likely lasses [4], by the early-mid 1970s many women in the North East were now wearing colourful outfits, often with very short hemlines.    

 

  

Notes

 

[1] The two other presentations were made by Nael Ali and Eylem Boz; the former spoke on the symbol of the wolf within black metal; the latter, on the way in which social media and other forms of digital communication transformed emo in the early 21st century. My thoughts on these papers can be read here and here.    

 

[2] Whitehead organised an event celebrating local history month on 1 May, 2010, at Newcastle City Library, which examined the impact that the 1960s had on the North East. She gave an illustrated talk entitled 'The Sixties Revisited: Dedicated Followers of Fashion'. Tony Henderson's article on this event in the Chronicle can be found online by clicking here.

 

[3] Newcastle College of Art and Industrial Design was a key institution in the NE region in the 1960s. It eventually merged with other colleges to form Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University).

 

[4] I'm referring here to the female cast of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads (BBC TV 1973-74), led by Brigit Forsyth as Thelma Ferris (née Chambers). See the post dated 2 December 2023: click here. 

Joining the Black Parade: Brief Reflections on Emo

 Portrait of the Scottish poet, philosopher, and founder 

of Emo, Thomas Brown (1778 - 1820)  [1]

 

 

I. 

 

The other day, on a sunny afternoon, as Ray Davies would say, I attended a meeting of the Subcultures Interest Group (SIG), held in a fifth floor room at the London College of Fashion, located, for those who don't know, on the East Bank of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford.

 

After discussing the graphic design of Dave King - the one who designed the Crass symbol; not the one who designed the Anti-Nazi League logo - and the contents of an upcoming issue of SIG News, there were three short presentations by post-grad students, including one by a vivacious young woman called Eylem Boz, who was writing her MA dissertation on the way in which social media and other forms of digital communication have transformed emo - an alternative music genre - in the 21st century.

 

Now, I have to confess that my knowledge of emo is pretty limited, although I am aware of the fact that it has existed not only as a sound but as a fashion - and not only as a look, but as a lifestyle - since the early-mid 1990s, so I was keen to listen and learn a little more from someone who was clearly speaking with an insider's knowledge, experience, and passion, whilst still viewing things with a degree of academic objectivity [2].

 

 

II. 

 

If I'm not mistaken, Ms Boz was arguing that emo, as a subculture, radically developed (and mutated) as an online phenomenon - particularly in the early 2000s - in a way that earlier youth subcultures had not had the opportunity to do so. 

 

So, whilst some emo bands - such as My Chemical Romance [3] - found a level of mainstream success during this period, that's kind of irrelevant. What really matters and what really interests, is the way that emo was a fan-driven phenomenon; they made their own rules, relationships, and values, etc. [4]

 

And so, whilst emos may or may not be overly-sensitive and prone to mental health issues, they are also highly creative and tech-savvy and one can't help feeling a mixture of admiration and affection for them. 

 

What ultimately struck me during Eylem's presentation, however, was that emo is something of a paradox. For what she revealed is not that members of this community have a rich and complex inner life, but that their authenticity is a game of artifice and their model of selfhood is something created, stylised, and performed, rather than something to be known via philosophical reflection.

 

That's not to denigrate those who identify as emo, or mock them for their concern with clothes, haircuts, and makeup; I'd be the last person in the world who would wish to rain on their black parade, so to speak.

 

I'm simply suggesting that it would be a good idea for Ms Boz to acknowledge in her dissertation that that the emotions are things that demand expression, always pushing towards a surface [5], and that the ancient Greeks were wise to adore appearance, believe in forms, and courageously remain, as Nietzsche says, superficial out of profundity [6]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This image features an engraving by William Walker based on a painting of Thomas Brown by George Watson (1806) and a ghostly-looking version of an Emo Girl by the graphic designer and illustrator Manuela Zamfir. Her original can be viewed (and downoaded for a fee) on vecteezy.com. 

      Brown, for those who don't know, has been described as the 'inventor of the emotions'. For more details, see Thomas Dixon's post dated 2 April 2020 on the History of Emotions Blog, operated by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions: click here. 

 

[2] Eylem Boz certainly looked the part, though whether she would identify herself as an emo girl I don't know and, amusingly, her lively and outgoing character seemed to be somewhat at odds with the popular idea of the latter as someone a bit reserved and introverted (though perhaps this popular idea of an emo girl is a misconception and stereotype).    

 

[3] My Chemical Romance rejected the label after the UK press whipped up a moral panic surrounding the cult of emo and accused them (and other groups) of promoting social alienation, self-harm, and suicide amongst their young followers. To play their huge hit single, 'Welcome to the Black Parade', taken from the album The Black Parade (Reprise Records, 2006), click here.  

 

[4] As the character Dewey Finn would say: "That is so punk rock."

 

[5] The English word emotion was coined in the early 1800s by Thomas Brown - arguably the first emo - and derives from the French term émouvoir, which means to stir up (i.e. to move things towards the surface). It is arguable that whilst people before this date experienced certain passions and affections, no one felt emotions in the modern psychological sense.

      It is also arguable, that our emotions (like our ideas) are entirely constructed by external regimes of power, which is why I would like to close this post with the following (non-emo) track from the American punk band the Dead Kennedys; taken from the album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (Cherry Red Records, 1980), 'Your Emotions' amusingly suggests that our emotions betray our monstrous nature and that our scars only begin to show when we confess how we're feeling or what we're thinking. To play, click here.  

 

[6] Nietzsche, The Gay Science, preface to the second edition (1886), section 4. 

 

 

For a related post to this one, in which I offer some Deleuzean reflections on the symbol of the wolf in black metal, click here.  

 

For a related post to this one on the politics of female fashion in the NE of England during the 1960s, click here.