Review: Mod! – A Very British Style, by Richard Weight

Doesn’t it all seem a long time ago? For years, the 1960s remained a key cultural reference, universally understood. But then, at some point, probably around the turn of the millennium, the Eighties took over and the Sixties began to fade into a psychedelic version of 1920s sepia.

The two periods, separated by the shame and loon pants of the Seventies, were both about being young and “cool”. They were also about being bang up-to-date and liberated from “old” thinking. And, in the way of things, both have aged badly.

The Mods of 1960s Britain were a social movement wrapped up in a fashion statement. Modernism, by contrast, is timeless. In this book, Richard Weight sets himself the task of elevating a phenomenon rooted in the London of the Beatles, the Kinks and the Small Faces into a revolution whose echoes can still be heard today and – rather like a populist version of the Enlightenment – will resonate with scholars for centuries to come.