Trust me. Mod is blessed with some excellent books on the subject, with more in the pipeline too. Years in the planning and researching, around , words in length and with interviews with mods from all over Britain. Well said Dave. Whom I do know on a personal basis, and have one hell of respect for!
Wiggins has helped the media light the blue touch paper, now lets sit back and wait…and see.. The look is just a vintage whimsy, like Elvis Presley records or Art Deco wallpaper. The sad fact is that all subcultures, no matter how daring, end up being museum pieces in the garages of middle-aged men. Clothes wise I have not moved on a mile, but have a better class of shoes and shirts etc.
People normally pull a funny face when I say about some of the music I like, meaning they think I only listen the small faces and the jam! I was a mod as a kid in the 80s. These kids are the way it should be—young. I always liked the 60s stuff more. Some of those revival bands were mod in style only—Secret Affair, The Lambrettas, etc.
The Prisoners and the Chords were the best bands of that era! But give me the Artwoods and the Birds over all those revival groups. It's probably fair to say that Bradley Wiggins can't really experience all elements of authentic Mod culture.
If he were to regularly stay up 'til 3am at the Twisted Wheel while dancing to Northern Soul and necking amphetamines, it's likely that the Chorley-based cyclist wouldn't be leading this year's Tour de France. But when it comes to everything else, Wiggins is quintessentially Mod. The helmets, sunglasses and uniforms of road cycling can make it difficult for casual fans to tell cyclists in the peloton apart when they're flying past, but Wiggo's signature Paul Weller-style sideburns immediately mark him out in Sky's black and blue.
His recently acquired yellow jersey makes things a lot easier now, too Combine that with a professed love of classic guitars, a scooter collection that began with a silver Vespa PX, a love of sharp tailoring, a "fetish" for brogues and Adidas Originals trainers and Wiggins may well be the Moddiest man ever to play sport. For the tour, he was even presented by a custom-made seat from Italian firm Prologo with a graphic of himself on an Union Jack-painted scooter. The parkas of the post-war era were often ex-RAF issue and so displayed the classic target symbol, known as the roundel.
Wiggins reportedly has the RAF roundel on some of his training kit. Mod hair was neat and clean in contrast to greasy-haired rockers and long-haired hippies. Wiggins has said he grew his hair long in in honour of John Entwistle bassist from The Who. The sideburns were another Entwistle touch.
Mods defined themselves as sleek, neat and well turned out. It was a tribe. Convoys of scooters would descend on seaside towns and scuffles - greatly exaggerated by the media - would break out between the mods and rockers. The classic mod movie is Quadrophenia, which came out at the end of the s at the height of the mod revival. The hero Jimmy, played by Phil Daniels, sums up the philosophy. That's why I'm a mod, see? I mean, you gotta be somebody, ain't ya, or you might as well jump in the sea and drown.
There's always been a cycling crossover, he argues, with "mod designer" Paul Smith having initially aspired to be a professional cyclist. Wiggins is a classic mod, Elms says.
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