Great portrait series from photographer Anita Corbin.
"In the early 1980s, photographer Anita Corbin documented the “informal uniforms” of young women’s subcultures across London. Corbin photographed rude girls, rockabillies, mods, skinheads, and some “less defined” female groups including soul, rasta, punk and futurist, as well as those involved “in and around the women’s liberation movement.” Her photographs were exhibited in a traveling exhibition organized by the Cockpit Gallery Project called Visible Girls in 1981."
Quite a few of these subcultures filtered down to Sydney through the early 80s, especially the mod and rockabilly scenes. However, not so much the knitted ski jumper scene, unfortunately. As a young guy I found these scenes a little daunting. I wasn't going to sign up to any of them, and it was pretty confronting trying to ask out any girl that was embedded in a scene. My friend Catherine was in the rockabilly scene, and made a great Super 8 film about it. The girls seemed to mainly enjoy the dressing up, while the rockabilly guys really did appear to be throw-backs to the 1950s, in everything including attitude. Sydney's version of the Blitz scene (kind of New Romantic) coalesced around the Stranded nightclub, in the basement of the Strand arcade. This is the closest I got to being in a scene. My friend Nick and I were in a synth band and we played at Stranded, to a bemused crowd. I wore a dark turtle neck skivvy, Chinese "happy shoes", and a Scottish Tam o' Shanter. Best forgotten. However, I think it's time for the knitted ski jumper scene to make a come back.
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/visible_girls_londons_lost_female_subcultures
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