From Skins and Punks, by Gavin Watson. From a review of the documentary, “This is England”:
Simon Garfield in Getting under their skins writes about the work of Gavin Watson (photographer) and Shane Meadows (film-maker) with detailed descriptions of the visual and musical styles and the intersection with the social upheavel of the 80s: “For a while in the late Sixties and early Eighties, Britain fostered a youth cult so iconic in its imagery, and so threatening in its pose, that we remain ashamed of it decades later. Steel-capped boots and jeans with back pockets shaped by sharpened metal combs: that was the look, all aggravation and bristle, the terror at station platforms and football terraces and corner shops. Fashion is about many things – money, humiliation, fitting in and sticking out – but until skinheads showed up it was rarely about menace.”
