In 1979, at the tail end of the punk era, Franc Roddam’s QUADROPHENIA helped convince a certain crew of UK kids to favor sharp suits over bondage gear.
Host Rico Gagliano tells the twisty story of the movie, the ‘60s mod subculture it celebrates, and the mod revival it fueled. Guests include Roddam himself, superstar fashion designer Anna Sui, mod historians Paolo Hewitt and Eddie Piller…and a cameo from Sid Vicious’s shirt.
Season 5, titled Tailor Made, dives deep into the worlds of film and fashion. Each episode tackles a landmark movie that captured a major fashion look of an era, and then decodes what that look meant—to the culture that spawned it, the people who wore it, and the audiences who watched it on screen.
Sofia Coppola's PRISCILLA will stream exclusively on MUBI in the UK, Germany, and many other countries starting March 1. It is currently in cinemas in many countries. For tickets and showtimes, visit mubi.com/priscilla
SCALA!!! directed by Ali Catterall and Jane Giles is now showing in select UK cinemas. Check out our season 2 episode on the infamous repertory cinema here.
To stream some of the films we've covered on the podcast, check out the collection Featured on the MUBI Podcast. Availability of films varies depending on your country.
Links to the books mentioned in this episode: A TO Z OF MOD by Paolo Hewitt and Mark Baxter, CLEAN LIVING UNDER DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES by Eddie Piller, and YOUR FACE HERE by Ali Catteral and Simon Wells.
MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI makes, acquires, curates, and champions extraordinary films, connecting them to audiences all over the world. A place to discover ambitious new films and singular voices, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. Each carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.
In 1979, at the tail end of the punk era, Franc Roddam’s QUADROPHENIA helped convince a certain crew of UK kids to favor sharp suits over bondage gear.
Host Rico Gagliano tells the twisty story of the movie, the ‘60s mod subculture it celebrates, and the mod revival it fueled. Guests include Roddam himself, superstar fashion designer Anna Sui, mod historians Paolo Hewitt and Eddie Piller…and a cameo from Sid Vicious’s shirt.
Season 5, titled Tailor Made, dives deep into the worlds of film and fashion. Each episode tackles a landmark movie that captured a major fashion look of an era, and then decodes what that look meant—to the culture that spawned it, the people who wore it, and the audiences who watched it on screen.
Sofia Coppola's PRISCILLA will stream exclusively on MUBI in the UK, Germany, and many other countries starting March 1. It is currently in cinemas in many countries. For tickets and showtimes, visit mubi.com/priscilla
SCALA!!! directed by Ali Catterall and Jane Giles is now showing in select UK cinemas. Check out our season 2 episode on the infamous repertory cinema here.
To stream some of the films we've covered on the podcast, check out the collection Featured on the MUBI Podcast. Availability of films varies depending on your country.
Links to the books mentioned in this episode: A TO Z OF MOD by Paolo Hewitt and Mark Baxter, CLEAN LIVING UNDER DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES by Eddie Piller, and YOUR FACE HERE by Ali Catteral and Simon Wells.
MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI makes, acquires, curates, and champions extraordinary films, connecting them to audiences all over the world. A place to discover ambitious new films and singular voices, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. Each carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.
This episode includes adult language mentions of drug abuse and spoilers. In the early 1960s, a young farm kid named Roger Burton was living in, let's say not the flashiest part of the UK. In a little village actually, in the Midlands of England, called Burton Overy. Which was bizarre because my surname is Burton also. But it was, yeah, I mean obviously farm life and village life was very traditional, shall we say. Nothing more than kind of barn dances and village hall hops, you know. But then he started going to school nine miles north. In a place that sounds like a different planet. The city of Leicester. And Leicester at that time was actually the richest city in Europe because of its hosiery and boot and shoe industry. Lots of garments were made there. Working kids who'd grown up during 15 years of war and rationing could finally indulge in stuff that was international and new. Like they bought coveted records from the USA. Mail ordering, you know, R&B and soul. And they in turn started little pop-up clubs everywhere. Clubs in cafes and the backrooms of pubs and so on. And I used to go to these clubs. And one night that one of them... he got his mind blown. There was a little group of kids who were probably a little bit older than me, started to get up and dance. And they were wearing a very distinct style, straight leg trousers, button down shirt, and, you know, those shiny mohair suits that they wore and Italian knits and wearing kind of formal clothes but like in a casual way, which was very new. Yeah for decades, young British men basically dressed like their dads. Even went to the same tailor. But here were these mostly working class dudes decking themselves out like the cool cats on their R&B albums. Or from French and Italian movies. Austerity was over, they wanted a modern life, which meant dressing nothing like their dads. Or even, Roger noticed, like each other. Going to a club at night in the dark, you'd spot in the distance maybe a suit with a detail on it. You'd think, oh, he's got like six buttons on his cuff. That's a new thing. Or the vent in his jacket might be extremely long. Just all those little things that made it special. It was something that really appealed to me about being an individualist. He was officially hooked on a sharp, ever evolving look and lifestyle called "mod." So this was kind of like, you know, bright lights, big city. I wanted to be part of it, and it affected me so much I mean, I spent every penny I had on clothing. It just like, wow, this is a whole new world that I really want to get involved with. And he did. In fact, 20 years later, he's one of the guys they asked to suit up the cast of a mod movie called <i>Quadrophenia</i>. Which at a time when a lot of kids were slashing their clothes to ribbons, gave them a blueprint for rebelling in style. I'm Rico Gagliano, welcome back to the MUBI podcast. MUBI's the streaming service that champions great cinema. On this show, we tell you the stories behind great cinema. This is season five, we're calling it 'Tailor Made', because every week we're diving into a movie that captured the fashion look of an era. And then we're figuring out what that look meant to the culture that's spawned it, the people who rocked it, and the audience who watched it on screen. And <i>Quadrophenia</i> meant a lot. It is a movie about a controversial corner of the Mod world circa 1964 that entranced a certain breed of UK kid when it hit screens in 1979. We saw <i>Quadrophenia</i> and it gave us a template for. That is esteemed mod DJ, historian and keeper of the flame, Eddie Piller, and I talked to him Quad's director Frank Rowbottom, and many more about what made this movie a mod Bible. For everyone from working stiffs to fashion superstars. There was a whole mod collection where I opened the show and Linda Evangelista came out on the Vespa. In fact, thanks in part to this movie, this is one fashion I dabble in. I will rock Fred Perry shirts with Harrington jackets, and I've known it's a look with a history, but I had no idea how complicated. So doff your Trilby hat and loosen that thin tie as we try to rip open the seams of mod and <i>Quadrophenia</i>. Last September, I visited the beachside city of Brighton on the southern edge of England. It boasts a famous rocky beach, a ridiculous charming 125 year old pier, one of the world's oldest cinemas called the Duke of York. At the top of my sightseeing list was an alleyway off a shopping road. And here we are, Quadrophenia Alley. That's what people call it. The location of <i>Quadrophenia</i>'s most iconic scene. Where two mods make love while a riot rages on the street outside. I definitely was not the first to visit. Just a narrow little alley. You wouldn't think much of it or think that it was anything special except that the walls are covered with graffiti from mods who have made the pilgrimage here. Pilgrimage is the right word. For a lot of people this is obviously a shrine. People writing RIP to their lost friends or relatives, RIP Helen Cartwright assuming fellow mods. Somebody here wrote "It's a way of life". With the mod target drawn underneath it. Kind of the symbol of the mod movement. The walls are covered. My guess is that they must paint this over every now and then because all of these inscriptions people have dated them, and they're mostly from like 2023. If they didn't paint over this every now and then, it would probably just be like black with writing and graffiti. This is how much <i>Quadrophenia</i> still cast a spell. For a lot of folks it's a touchstone for mod culture 35 years after its release. So I was surprised when I dug into mod history to learn the movie's story and fashions were pulled from a year some mods don't exactly celebrate. 1964 into 65. By which time mod is, in real terms had come to an end, really. Paolo Hewitt is a former features writer for the music mags NME and Melody Maker and coauthor of among many other books The A to Z of Mod. Mod started, really, late fifties in London. It was then the modernist movement. It wasn't mod at the beginning. It was modernist. People referred--"I'm a modernist". They referred to themselves of modernist. They dug a new art for the modern postwar world, beat poetry, Jack Kerouac. And they listened to modern jazz they liked Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, those kind of guys, and they like dressing like those guys. The Ivy League look, buttoned down collars, tie, suit, looking very smart. By 61 or 62, there was a shift. Smart, modern sound and style to be into was American R&B. You just heard about that a minute ago. But mod was still niche, an underground culture of cool kids, mostly in London, plus a few elsewhere, popping uppers so they could dance all night. And then in 1963, Rediffusion Television over here started a show called <i>Ready, Steady, Go!</i> What they wanted were bands on with an audience to dance to those bands. So they went around the clubs in London and they got all these mods to come and be on the show. But what that did was to nationalized mod so that kids in Leeds and Manchester and Liverpool could suddenly see what these kids in London were wearing. Well, each week we like to have a special look at fashion, so we'll kick off that way this week. First of all, hairstyles. So suddenly this kind of very elite youth cult became a national phenomenon. For folks like Roger Burton sounds like it was pretty exciting at first. Everybody was like, you know, all my friends were all really hooked on it. It was like, you know, the weekend starts here. Friday night, 6 o'clock.<i>Ready, Steady, Go!</i> And of course, they featured all those American bands. So I was able to see them. But then he noticed things starting to change where the modernists had been about looking like no one else suddenly there were all these newbies looking alike. Especially after the arrival of a cheap, sleek vehicle from Italy that would become an iconic mod accessory. I remember as early as 1963, this kid turning up with a silver Vespa GS scooter dressed head to toe in white, and I think he had a white suit on. White shirt, even had white hair as well. He just looked incredible. But he had on an American parka like over the top of it. Well, I'd seen these American parkas in surplus shops, but I'd never actually seen one being worn as a fashion thing. But he looked amazing and he explained it as being, you know, a cheap form of being able to protect his white clothing on his scooter. Because it covered it up from the rain and the wind and so on and so on. So super cool and super practical. But then... it was everywhere. And probably even within six months, all of a sudden I started to see scooters around the town and kids wearing parkas. And it became like a plague, you know. This was the most infamous mod look of 1964. Out of the underground, roaring down roads all over the UK. Still sharp, but more populist. Frankly, more like the stuff I wear today. And for some original mods, less special. It became like a uniform. Parkas and jeans and Fred Perry shirts and stuff. And that to me was just jumping on the bandwagon and it felt like, you know, the secret was out. Soon this new breed not only got disdain from O.G. Modernists, but from the rest of the country. When a faction of these guys scootered to the seaside town of Clacton over Easter 1964 and ended up going on a minor rampage.<i>- And what happened?- As far as the police were concerned,</i><i>they came into the town and finding not much else to do</i><i>they committed several acts of wanton and purposeless damage.</i> News crews breathlessly reported fights had busted out between the mods and another subculture, biker-types called rockers. The story sounded pretty exciting. So when summer hit aggro, guys from both crews headed again to beach towns like Brighton looking for more trouble.<i>Brighton did not go scot free.</i><i>Before the holiday was over,</i><i>76 mods and rockers were arrested.</i> In retrospect, these were probably minor skirmishes blown out of proportion by media into a moral panic.<i>It really has come to something</i><i>when people can't take a short holiday without</i><i>the threat of long haired youngsters with knives,</i><i>indulging in an orgy of hooliganism.</i> Paolo Hewitt says, didn't matter. By 1965, for a lot of Brits, this was the face of mod. They've got parkas and scooters and you had all that stuff about Brighton and beating up rockers. No modernist would ever have, you know, fighting? You're going to ruin your clothes. Why would you go fighting? I mean, it was, everything was anathema, but it just grown so big that this is what was happening under the term mod. Modernist was now gone, it was now mod. Now, some of this sounds a little snobbish. Well, Roger Burton admits as much. I mean, it was a lot of eliteism going on, let's put it like that. But this wave of mods got the last laugh because years later they and their style would become immortalized in music and then on screen, thanks to a major British institution who felt he understood them. Pete Townsend<i>Quadrophenia</i>, you probably already know, first took shape as a concept album from Townshend's band, The Who. They had actually started out in 1964 playing, quote,"Maximum R&B for an audience full of mods." But by 1973, The Who had become prog rock superstars. Which is when...<i>I felt that the band</i><i>had lost its way.</i> That's Townsend from an interview in 2011.<i>I felt the band needed to look back at its roots,</i><i>and I thought the best way to do that was to look back at,</i><i>you know, a young man who would be, if you like, kind of a...</i><i>a model of a combination of all of our boy fans from that period.</i> Namely a parka wearing kid circa 64, born into a gray country traumatized by war and looking for some spiritual direction in a tribe.<i>Quadrophenia</i> is the story of Jimmy. a teen who feels split into four personalities. Not mere schizophrenia, quadrophenia. He's a rebel, a romantic, a madman, a hypocrite. In the first track, <i>I Am the Sea</i> we hear musical themes for each. Like voices in his head.<i>Is it me, for a moment...</i> The grown ups in his life are too sad or clueless to help him. His day job as a janitor is a dead end. So in the <i>Song Cut My Hair</i>, he sings about throwing in his lot with the mods.<i>Why should I care</i><i>If I have to cut my hair?</i><i>I got to move with the fashion</i><i>Or be outcast</i><i>Suiting up with this army of kids feels glorious, at least in the moment.</i><i>Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents</i><i>Five inches long.</i><i>I'm out on the street again</i><i>And I'm leaping along</i> He pops pills with the mods. He joins them for a beach rumble with the rockers.<i>A gang of nearly a thousand youths entered the Grand Hotel</i><i>in pursuit of two leather clad rockers.</i> But as he gets more cynical about the regular world, Jimmy also gets the feeling being a mod is no escape. Especially when he sees a respected top mod, an ace face working a lowly gig at a beach hotel.<i>Bell Boy! I got to get running now</i> Bell Boy! Keep my lip buttoned down Bell Boy! Carry this baggage out<i>Bell boy!</i> It's the last straw. Sick of everything, Jimmy steals a boat, sales it out to a rock waits to be swept away by waves, but instead ends the record drenched in a purifying thunderstorm. Suddenly enlightened. And accompanied by a song anyone who's ever listened to classic rock radio knows.<i>Love, Reign o'er me</i> So the album is like a beautiful, sweeping opera about an 18 year old. That is Frank Rodham, the guy who'd eventually direct the <i>Quadrophenia</i> film. The emotions are very powerful. The likes and dislikes are very powerful. It's also about fighting and sex and taking drugs. So it's all there on the original album, and it was a beautifully made album, shot with beautiful black and white cover with four sides to it and beautiful still photography. In other words, it was begging to be made into a movie. And in a lot of ways, Rodham was just the filmmaker to do it.<i>Quadrophenia</i> is about an 18 year old in 1964, and I was 18 in 1964 myself. So it was this perfect era for me to film. But he also came to the material as a kind of sympathetic outsider. Strangely enough, I was a Ban The Bomb guy, you know. Nuclear disarmament, I wanted to be a baby beatnik. So when I was about 16, I... I lied about my age and was traveling a great deal, hitchhiking around. And then I came back one day from a trip, one of my trips, and the whole town did change. Suddenly everyone was a mod. The whole style had changed. My mate suddenly had very short hair. Very neat clothes. Even though that I was like long haired and a bit of a beatnik, I was best man at least two mod weddings. What is the groom and bride wear at a mod wedding? A very smart clothes, you know. I mean, really sharp. So when he got asked to do the <i>Quadrophenia</i> movie in 1978, he knew well the world he'd be recreating. And he also knew when it wasn't going to look or sound like. I didn't want to make just a copy of <i>Tommy</i>. As glorious as it was. And as much as I love Ken Russell. Yeah, 1975, director Ken Russell had turned The Who's first rock opera <i>Tommy</i> into a top ten box office hit.<i>Ever since I was a young boy</i><i>I played the silver ball</i> It's a gorgeous, lurid, over-the-top musical, the kind of flick where Elton John sings <i>Pinball Wizard</i> while wearing a giant pair of three foot wide combat boots.<i>He sure played a mean pinball</i> Iconic, but that vibe was not Frank Rodman's thing.<i>I've never actually set to marryin', yet.</i><i>Right, on so-and-so date, we will get married.</i><i>I have never set out to marryin', yet.</i> He actually got his start directing hit cinema verité TV documentaries, including what was more or less the UK's first reality show. I did a series called <i>The Family</i>.<i>She's either a liar or you are.</i> I sort of lived with this particular family and their four children, their lodger and their 50 pet birds, and I was the director on the series and we did 13 episodes. And then after that I made a documentary about a young boy who was an arsonist.<i>What do you think about it?</i><i>Do you think it's a good thing to do?</i><i>To me it is. But to other people it's not.</i><i>Because people don't like</i><i>having fires set all over the place.</i> He was nearly 11 years old. He's now 60. But I still speak to him three or four times a week. Drawing a parallel to this movie, you know, unsettled kid who's fractured mentally in some way. You think you brought some of that to <i>Quadrophenia</i>? Yeah, I think I was very influenced by <i>Quatre Cent Coups</i> by Truffaut.<i>400 Blows</i>, as it's called. And also <i>Kes</i> by Ken Loach. They were about disenfranchized kids who were like, you know, wanting and a little bit a little bit sad, you know? And the same character's in <i>Quadrophenia</i>, if you like. So this was Rodham's take on Pete Townsend, sweeping rock opera. He'd make it a bittersweet kitchen sink drama with the grit of a documentary. It was going to feel real. And in a flick about mods that had to start with the clothes courtesy of one Roger Burton. Since his mod youth in Leicester, Burton had become a fashion pro. With his partner Jack English, he had a boutique in London and amassed a trove of vintage wear. In 78 they were selling it from a stall on London's Portobello Road. And one day... It was a Saturday and I phoned up my partner to see how he'd got on. And he said, oh, it's been really interesting. She said, "This guy walked by and he noticed"that we've got some sixties clothing for sale."And he asked if we had any more."So I said, Yes, Why?"And he said, oh, it's because we're just about to start a movie"set in the sixties about mods, and would we be able to supply them?" Of course, the movie was <i>Quadrophenia</i>. The guy was Frank Rodham who lived nearby, and his first assignment for Burton, ironically, was to find parkas for the dozens of actors and extras who were going to be reenacting a Brighton Beach Rumble on the first week of shooting. I think it was like 150 parkas. They wanted American parkas. And of course, you know, I said,"Yeah, no problem." But then I found out that we could get what they called a shell, which is the actual coat, but most of them didn't have a hood. And I was like, well, why haven't they got hoods? Turns out the UK government had just decreed army surplus stores couldn't sell military clothes unless they were distressed somehow. So then we found a lot of hoods in Holland actually. And so we got those shipped over and we had like a team of women sewing the hoods back onto the coats. Meanwhile, a lot of the suits the actors wore in those beach melees were actual pristine vintage items from the era. That sadly also ended up getting pretty distressed. During the fight scenes sleeves got ripped off, jackets and sweaters got torn apart. And then, of course, going in the sea in a mohair suit, it ain't going to survive. It was heartbreaking, but yeah, there you go. Is there a specific piece that you remember being like, oh man, this one's being sacrificed to the sea.- This is terrible.- Not really, no. Basically, we were out on the road most of the time trying to locate stuff to replenish what had been lost or destroyed or were even stolen, actually. Stolen by who? Well, the cast! Not everyone in the cast was so keen to nick their mod gear, though. Because you've got to remember, this movie was being shot in 1978. A year, says Frank Rodham, when a lot of UK kids were obsessed with a very different fashion style. What you had, you had the punk era and punk was very influential. You know, these outside clothes, they they did away with the tight structure. It was-- it had a big impact on everything in England, from furniture to architecture, and prints, and design. Everything. You're about to hear just how big an impact. It's a story Frank told me about the guy who played Jimmy's best pal Dave. Actor Mark Wingett. He was 16 years old and he was a complete punk. But he was such a good young actor and I thought he was perfect for the role. We convinced him to become a mod. And then there was an incident that took place the first week of shooting. He'd been causing a bit of problem in the hotel they were all staying in Brighton. And the assistant director spoke very harshly to him. And he said, I'm leaving!" I'd already done a weeks filming, couldn't get him to stay. And I think, my God, it's going to destroy the film. And then I remembered the Johnny Rotten had given me a shirt that belonged to Sid Vicious. And as Johnny told me at the time, Sid had come round to attack him for some reason. And got annoyed with him about something, come round his house in Fulham. And Johnny had hit him with the blunt end of an ax. And Sid Vicious threw up onto his own shirt. And when Dave said he was going to leave, I said, "You stay,"you can have this shirt that's not only belonged"to Sid Vicious and he's got his puke on it, but it was actually given to me by Johnny Rotten." and that was it. That turned the whole meeting around. The deal was done. He was so pleased to stay and get the shirt and I was so pleased.- About a week later, his mother washed it- Oh no! And I don't think he ever spoke to her again. You see the power of fashion on and off set. Yes. Yes indeed. By the way, the reason Rodham had that shirt was because he had originally planned to cast Johnny Rotten as Jimmy. To make the movie relevant for the punk crowd. Turns out he was better off without him. Because a growing group of UK kids were looking for something other than the shirt off Sid Vicious' back.<i>Quadrophenia</i> gets dropped into the middle of a mod revival. Coming up in just a minute. Stay with us. Alright everybody, MUBI is the curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema. Movies from around the world, from first time filmmakers to legendary auteurs. Any movie that's excellent, basically, we want to bring it to you. And I want to mention something extra excellent, that's in theaters now. And coming for subscribers in the UK, Germany and many other countries starting March 1st. That would be <i>Priscilla</i>, the latest film from Sofia Coppola, of course, the iconic director of <i>Lost in Translation</i> and <i>The Virgin Suicides.</i> This is Coppola's take on the life of Priscilla Presley and her romance with Elvis Presley from the fifties into the seventies. And I know, there is no dearth of movies about Elvis, but this one is centered on a woman, and it's made by a woman. So it's take on the whole King of Rock and Roll world is like no other. Fascinating movie. Also, if you're familiar with Sofia Coppola's films, you will not be surprised to learn the period costumes are gorgeous. You will actually hear us speaking to Coppola about that and much more in the final episodes of the season. So subscribe to MUBI at MUBI.com so you don't miss <i>Priscilla</i> when it hits the platform March 1st. You will find a list of the countries where it will be available and where it is currently in theaters, in the show notes of this episode. Speaking of which, let's get back to it. So it's December 1978. Shooting has wrapped on <i>Quadrophenia</i> and in London, a 14 year old kid who would soon be one of the movie's biggest fans was busy getting way into the punk scene. It was such a powerful thing on the streets of London. Eddie Piller now runs the record label Acid Jazz. DJs at fests like Glastonbury and just published a memoir called<i>Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances</i>, about his youth in UK subcultures. I was going to punk gigs regularly, you know, I feel I was quite a good little punk. But the end came for me at a Buzzcocks gig. Where people were just taking the piss out of me. Yeah, some older kids took one look at Eddie's fluffy mohair sweater and called him the worst punk insult imaginable, a poser. And I thought "Sod that I don't need that in my life." And then I saw The Jam in December 1978 and and... Became a mod.<i>This is a modern world</i> Went out the next day and bought parka.<i>This is the modern world</i> The Jam, a band that was punk in its fury and energy. But whose frontman, Paul Weller, had been taking the style cues from classic mod since the early seventies, when most British teens just weren't. I've seen Paul Weller's schoolbooks and they are full of little drawings of scooters and The Who logos. You know, everything that man has done has been for mod. Every decision he makes in his life, the books he reads, the socks he wears, he's done for mod. He's just the mod. Where a lot of punk acts wore shredded clothes and bondage gear Weller's band wore vintage suits and ties, and to Piller, the music had a kind of modernist attitude that felt different too. Punks were nihilistic. Smash it up, tear it down Mods, on the other hand, especially around The Jam, were, well, the opposite of that. He started singing about what's the point in saying destroy? We want a new life for everyone. And this is the modern world, you know, and even the song titles<i>This is the Modern World.</i><i>This is the modern world</i><i>We don't need no one</i><i>to tell us what's right or wrong</i> You know, we wanted to create, we wanted to build. We wanted smart clothes. Everything that they weren't we wanted to be. It was so different that we had to do it. We had to be there. And I saw The Jam 53 times. Eddie was not alone. Around London mod bands sprung up in The Jam's wake. Aiming for a similar attitude and that same dapper look, which lucky enough for their mostly working class teen audience, was easy to pull off. Most of the clothes were secondhand. Because don't forget, the Sixties was only 12 years ago, you know, and there were plenty of secondhand suits lying around that you could just pick up for a pound. So the look was very cheap when it started. Around the same time came the so-called two-tone music scene, multiracial bands reviving the ska sound of the sixties. They also dressed in trim throwback suits. And the two-tone thing were seen as a very much as a mod movement at first. You know, for the first year. Music mags like The NME heralded the dawn of a mod revival. And right then, in a moment of perfect synchronicity,<i>Quadrophenia</i> premiered in London summer 1979. Now, before I tell you how it was received, you should probably hear something. Pete Townsend said in a BBC interview 30 years later. It was right before the debut of the <i>Quadrophenia</i> musical, and interviewer Andy Breare asked Pete what kind of audience might come to see it.<i>Right in the front row will be old blokes</i><i>of about my age wearing parkas.</i><i>And next to them will be a young bloke</i><i>of about my son's age, also wearing a parka.</i><i>And the old bloke will be telling the young bloke</i><i>what is right and wrong with our show.</i> That's my nightmare."Oh no, no. We never did that."No, that dancing. That's not how we did it. I would never have worn shoes like that. Oh my God!" Yeah mod fashion is all about sweating the details. And in 1979... some thought <i>Quadrophenia</i> didn't sweat 'em enough. I don't know, I've got to be careful what I say here, Including the movie's own outfitters, Roger Burton and his partner Jack English. You know, people like Jimmy and, you know, some of the rest of them, they look great. But I mean, I remember going to see the premiere and Jack was completely horrified. I mean, I think he ended up walking out of the film. He was just like, "Oh my God, this is a shambles." Like background extras who dressed in their own totally era inappropriate gear. Or more egregious, the character of the Ace-Face, Jimmy's mod icon, played by a young Gordon Sumner a.k.a Sting, specifically his outerwear. You know, he was meant to be the ultimate, you know, the pinnacle, the face and to look the best and his leather coat might have been the right color, but it was, that was a 1970s leather coat. Think we had... But I mean, you had some input, right? What did you want to dress him in? Yeah, we had a we had a suede, a red suede coat that, yeah... The production just wouldn't accept it. You know, mods didn't wear red suede coats. I mean we know for a fact that they did because a dear friend of ours used to wear one. Paolo Hewitt says none other than Paul Weller disdained the film for similar reasons. And he says some viewers noticed even more unforgivable flaws. Do you know what the funny-- I spoke to Frank Rodham, do you know what he told me? What the funniest one was?- What?- It's the bit where Jimmy goes to the supermarket to see Leslie Ash. She's at the till- and she's swiping stuff through- Groceries. Yeah, she swiped through this tin of hot chocolate, Cadbury's hot chocolate and Frank said he got a letter saying, Damn, dear Mr. Rodham, your movie is completely flawed. The tin of hot chocolate, that particular make wasn't made until 1974. But if Eddie Piller and his crew of mod revivalists noticed any of that, they absolutely did not care. It was August, August 79, a local place at Woodford the ABC Woodford Cinema. Thirty or forty us went, young mods to see it. And I never forget seeing it the first time it was so important to me and to my friends. It changed everything. Especially when it came to clothes. As much as O.G. Modernist, dissed some of <i>Quad</i>'s fashion choices. Eddie says the movie showed him there was more to mod than cheap suits and parkas.<i>Alright darlin'?</i> Biggest example, the scene where Jimmy, played by the brilliant Phil Daniels, brags to his crush, Leslie Ash, about the sweet outfit he's getting tailor made.<i>Yeah what's it like?</i><i>Handsome. Three buttons</i><i>side vents, 16 inch bottoms, dark brown.</i> Up till that time we were dressing very much second hand, going down the East End markets on a Sunday morning and buying clothes. After that... We'd think about getting suits made or, you know, going down to tailors and paying weekly so you could save up for the suit.<i>Going to be one of the faces down there, are you?</i><i>What do you mean, going to be?</i><i>I am one of the faces.</i> That's when mod differentiated. Everyone looked the same. But after <i>Quadrophenia</i>, they didn't. They looked original and different. In fact, it sounds like it started to feel a lot like Roger Burton's young mod-hood in Leicester. A sartorial arms race. I mean, it was getting more and more ridiculous, actually. People were wearing suits from a tailors that had butterfly cuffs and step-downs we called them, on the bottom of trousers. Where the back of the suit was longer than the front, so it fell down the back of your shoes without leaving a crease. You know, just mad, obsessive things. Meanwhile, like <i>Ready, Steady, Go</i> a generation earlier, <i>Quadrophenia</i> took the revival national. I think the release of the movie sort of caught a moment and a mood. Ali Catterall is a filmmaker and coauthor of <i>Your Face Here</i>. One of the first books ever written about British cult movies. There was an already a kind of burgeoning mod scene that I think the movie really sort of landed, made a huge impact with. And then radiated out of London into sort of regional UK. Definitely scooter clubs, which had never died out in parts of the country, attracted a new wave of kids in <i>Quad</i>'s wake. And Frank Rodham says it didn't hurt that as subcultures went mod, was more practical. Punk was much more revolutionary than the mod movement. But the thing about punk, it wasn't for everybody. Not everybody wanted to dress like a punk or could pull it off, you know, behave like a punk. I always think about American sport, like football and basketball. You have to be like 6'6" to play basketball and you have to be 300lbs to play American football. Punk was like that. Yes, you could have a safety pin through your nose, but you couldn't go and work in a bank like that. You couldn't go down the factory like that. It was quite strangely elitist punk. So I think, you know, with <i>Quad</i>, I think it did help the transition back to sort of modernism. It was happening so fast, you know, in the space of that year from from January to December in 1979, there went from being maybe 500 mods in the country to being hundreds of thousands of mods. It was really strange. Strange, but not really a surprise. Even before the movie came out, mod revivalist figured it would blow things up.<i>You don't think being a mod's just another thing after...</i><i>Quadrophenia's going to end all that.</i><i>- What do you think will happen...- It's going to commercialize it</i><i>And you're going to get all the shops, like the punk shops</i><i>and all the little kiddies following on.</i><i>Yeah, it's going to end it all.</i><i>I mean, getting too big now.</i> And Ali Catterall says in London sure enough, the cash-in began. Yeah, mod clubs start to open, taking inspiration directly from <i>Quadrophenia</i>. And Carnaby Street it started opening, sort of, mod shops and selling parkas that look like duvet covers. But big brands were in on the action too. So this is a 1980 newsletter it's called Levi's International. Tracey Panek is the in-house historian at Levi Strauss. The company's 501 jeans were coveted by sixties mods and they are worn by basically everyone in <i>Quadrophenia</i>, not by accident. So this is 1980, and it's a profile of one of our employees in, London. His name was Howie, and this is what they describe"Howie put his talents"to work on the new mod revival in the UK"with the release of The Who films <i>Quadrophenia</i>."Levi's tied in with the film by providing the cast with Levi's 501s"and putting point of sale material"in record stores and movie theaters."This, says Howie, resulted in a rerelease of the 501 jean in the UK to meet the new demand." Every teenage craze has one thing in common There's money in it for somebody. And then there's The Who, who joined up with a London fashion outfit called Suchi to debut a <i>Quadrophenia</i> clothing line at London's Lyceum Ballroom a few weeks after the movie debuted. Celebrities like John Entwistle and Kenny Jones of The Who here because their money financed the film. And the BBC show Nationwide, Entwistle made no bones about what that fashion show was all about.<i>Well, if there's going to be a new mod culture.</i><i>Why shouldn't we partake in some way?</i><i>Is it just purely a commercial venture?</i><i>As far as I know, yes.</i> But the gold rush wasn't going to last.<i>Now, a band from South London,</i><i>they're called the Chords, and this is their current single.</i><i>It's called Maybe Tomorrow.</i> In January 1980, The Chords cracked the UK top 40 with this Jam-like hit.<i>Sometmes I just feel these crazy dreams inside</i> They were one of the few mod acts to hit the charts in the wake of <i>Quadrophenia</i>. That summer, the Purple Hearts actually hit number 60 with a tune called <i>Jimmy</i>, an ode to the movie's hero. And then all of a sudden... it all stopped. By the end of 1981, it was pretty much finished. What happened do you think that ended that first wave of the mod revival?- Like what?- It's a good question. It was absolute vilification by the music press. The music press did not like mods because it was a street movement from the streets. Whereas the favorite movement of the music press and media, they were all university graduates, was post-punk, you know, The Mekons, Gang of Four. It was an intellectual movement. And reviews of bands started being about, you know, scooters, get on your little scooter, ride away kind of thing. And in the end, they did. Paolo Hewitt thinks mod was just one of a slew of trends Britain's pop culture industry hyped and discarded in the eighties. For a different set of cynical reasons. If you take The NME, The NME was kind of struggling. And then punk came along. And they got onto it much to their credit very early, and by 1977 they were selling 250,000 copies a week. Right? That's a lot a lot of money being poured in. And everybody realized that there was a lot of money to be had if you got in on the right thing. And that's why all these movements started sprouting up like the mod revival, the ska revival, the this revival the that revival. It just all came up. By his telling mod got its 15 minutes and then it was on to the next subculture. In any case... The Jam split up in December 82 and with them mod was finished. And I thought that would be the end. It wasn't. Yeah, like a brood of well-dressed cicadas mod has a way of laying low and then blooming out of nowhere. And since 79 every flowering seems to involve <i>Quadrophenia</i>.<i>Please join me in welcoming</i><i>from England, Blur.</i> Like I still remember in 1993, seeing the band Blur play their song Chemical World on a brand new talk show called<i>Late Night With Conan O'Brien</i>. Front man Damon Albarn was wearing a slim three button suit. My first glimpse of the mod inspired mid-nineties Britpop explosion.<i>The pay-me girl has had enough of the bleeps</i><i>So she takes the bus into the country</i><i>Although she...</i> And what do you know, on the title cut of their next album, <i>Parklife</i>...<i>Oi!</i> There was <i>Quadrophenia</i>'s Jimmy himself, actor Phil Daniels contributing a running monologue.<i>Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur</i><i>Of what is known as</i><i>Parklife!</i> And the very next year in 1995, with Britpop in full swing and UK bands like Oasis sashaying around in parkas mod returned to the fashion runway. There was a whole mod collection where I opened the show and Linda Evangelista came out on a Vespa. That is superstar designer Anna Sui. She has always been inspired by Mod and sixties UK bands. And a formative moment came just as she was starting out circa 1979. Oh sure, I went to the New York premiere of <i>Quadrophenia</i>. It was on Eighth Street and it was, I believe, the premiere because Sting was there. I remember he came walking through the movie lobby and everyone..."The Face! The Face!" Do you think that movie specifically, like gave you a new way of seeing or like sort of crystallized the look for you in any way? Oh yeah, definitely. It gave me a new vantage point in looking at mod because I had only seen mod through record covers and music magazines and suddenly, like I see the everyday mod those army, navy parkas like the fishtail jackets. And, you know, in that whole scene in Brighton, you know, like so was just it was a whole new thing to me. And for evidence, the movie still resonates today just pay a visit to Brighton and step into Quadrophenia Alley. It's not just the place full of mod graffiti. The shop right next door.- Let me ask your name.- Paul Bone. And what do you do? I work in Quadrophenia Alley Store. When Paul Bone and his partner John Lasseter opened the place nine years ago, it was called Bone Clothing. The plan was to sell the same menswear as their other shop 15 miles away. Italian suits, that sort of thing. They got no buyers. We stood here all day taking no money, but we were completely aware of the alleyway and what it represented. People would stop in to have their photograph taken by the alleyway, and we thought well perhaps there was something in it for us. They decided to stock one of the staples of the <i>Quadrophenia</i> look, Fred Perry style polo shirts striped around the collar and sleeves. We purchased 120 Lambretta tipped polo shirts and they came in on the Thursday and I was in the other store on a Saturday afternoon and they called me out and they said,"You know those polo shirts?" I said, Yeah. They said, "They've all gone." I said, "What, all of them?" They said, "Every single one." Realizing they were on to something, they cleared the Italian suits out of the shop. Restocked it with all this mod type clothing, and we doubled the turnover in the first year. And we realized then that we did underestimate the popularity of the movie. And to be fair, as a sometimes mod myself, I can't quite understand why I'm so into this movie. For reasons that I put to Ali Catterall, who, by the way, has made his own pilgrimage to Quadrophenia Alley. I've graffitid it myself, to be honest. I actually have a question for you about this.- Okay.- This movie has become such a mod Bible that mods come from everywhere to graffiti this alley, but the movie's actually not that, you know, high on mod. In fact, the original concept is basically saying, you know, this is a dead end. You won't find yourself in this army, you won't find yourself in a mob. Why do you think it resonated with mods in the late seventies and with mods today when that's its message? I think, I think that comes out of Pete Townsend's inherent depressive cynicism. Really, that kind of attitude. If we remove Townsend's cynicism from it, the film in itself is one of the most joyful exuberant, exhilarating evocations of youth and what it means to be young. And in love and being off your head and not knowing your place, not knowing who you are but slowly, slowly clawing away towards finding those truths. If you watched the movie carefully, Jimmy, he's walking away from the cliff top at the end of that movie. He's facing a new dawn, if you like, literally a new dawn in which hopefully he's going to discover himself. And I think modern mods took some optimism away from that during what was quite definitely a very pessimistic era. And optimism I think is actually the essence of mod. And maybe why the look never really goes away. It might seem nostalgic or a throwback, but what it feels like when I wear it is hopeful. Staying sharp, even when everything's a shambles. And looking forward to the modern world. And that's the MUBI Podcast for this week. Follow us this season for more stories about film and fashion. Next time double Oscar winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter tells us about the street style she dreamed up for Spike Lee's <i>Do the Right Thing</i>. Both timeless and not so timeless. Joie Lee's character, we gave her a Swatch watch that she put on her ankle. We thought we'd set a trend with it, but it didn't set any trends. Follow us so you don't miss it. Meanwhile, this episode of the MUBI Podcast was written, hosted and edited by me, Rico Gagliano. Ciara McEniff is our producer. Beth Schiff is our booking producer. Stephen Colon mastered it. Music by Martin Austwick. The additional track <i>Blueprint</i> by Jahzzar came courtesy of Tribe of Noise. Extra thanks this week to David Harper, Michael Gino, Melis Uslu and Ali Catterall. Ali is co-director of the new documentary <i>Scala</i> about the legendary London cinema of the same name. You can see it now in UK theaters and then go back and check out our episode about the Scala back in season two. This show is executive produced by me along with Jon Barrenechea, Efe Çakarel, Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca. If you love the show, tell the world by leaving a five star review wherever you listen, let them know were something special. Also, if you've got questions, comments, or if you are at this moment wearing a parka and itching to tell me everything I got wrong about mod, email us at podcast@mubi.com And of course, to stream the best in cinema, including some of the films we talk about on this very podcast just head over to MUBI.com to start watching. Thanks for listening. Be safe and may all your movie outings be worth dressing up for.