In pictures: the multicultural roots of the skinheads

Originally published in 1994, Gavin Watson’s Skins is a modern classic among the cannon of seminal, celebrated photography books that not only exist as extraordinary bodies of art, but also function as vital cultural documents. Chronicling the emerging skinhead culture of 70s Britain, Watson’s arresting black and white images are an incisive visual record of youth culture and fashion in the early days of a subculture which, in its inception, was radical, multi-cultural and inclusive. 

In opposition to the perceived bourgeois indulgent sloppiness of the hippie movement, the skinheads emerged from the embers of the mod scene and embraced the style and sound of the Windrush generation. Like the mods before them, the skinhead subculture was defiantly working-class, codified by a precise uniform and silhouette defined by shaven heads and Doc Marten boots. Rejecting the boot-licking deference and modesty that had defined previous generations of working-class Britains, skinhead culture was a rebel yell from the displaced youth dragged up on London’s post-war brutalist estates.

‘It’s incredible that [the far-right] could take something that was so inclusive and weaponise it to divide people’ – Gavin Watson

While aspects of the movement were later paradoxically appropriated by right-wing extremists and fascist groups, the original subculture was born from the very opposite sentiment. “Where the skinheads came from was really simple,” Watson tells Dazed in a conversation over email. “It was mods and young people in the 60s mixing with West Indians and digging the music and then skins were born. By the time I came along, Madness and The Specials were around and that was my zeitgeist… they wore the same clothes as us, they sang about us, they sang about our estates, they sang about the new generations of people having to get together and, you know, that was my thing. It was pure, it was innocent. It's incredible that [the far-right] could take something that was so inclusive and weaponise it to divide people.” 

Growing up in High Wycombe, a suburban town in the hinterland of London’s commuter belt, the ‘Wycombe Skins’ as documented by Watson were part of this working-class skinhead subculture, brought together by a shared love of ska music and fashion. “If there’s ever a strong working-class culture, it’s because of the music,” he says. “Every youth culture is about the fucking music.” 

But alongside their shared musical references, the photographer does concede that the skins also “looked cool”. “It’s American 50s prep, really,” he explains. “Maybe not the boots, but the chinos, the tight trousers, the smart Levi’s and the Ben Sherman shirts. It’s very classic. It wasn’t made up by the skins, it came from Americana, really.”

‘Every youth culture is about the fucking music’ – Gavin Watson

After being out of print for many years, the cult photo book has now been republished by ACC Art Books. Having inspired so many acclaimed photographers – notably, the likes of Derek Ridgers and Nick Knight – this new edition will make Watson’s images available to new generations interested in capturing the world around them with such absorbing style and storytelling flair. In a quote on the book’s press release, filmmaker Shane Meadows says, “What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.” 

Like many of the world’s most beloved documentary photographers – such as Tom Wood or Vivien Maier – Watson was initially drawn instinctively to take pictures for their own sake out of an innate curiosity, rather than shooting with an intended audience in mind. As a teen, his “on the spot decision” to buy a Hanimex camera from Woolworths was primarily because the store had run out of the binoculars he’d intended to buy. “But when I got my first prints back, I looked at them and I just said, ‘I’m gonna be a photographer.’ I remember turning around in the kitchen and just saying it to whoever was in there. They didn’t fucking listen to me, but I said it anyway. And that was it. My first set of photographs that something just clicked off in my soul. And that’s where the journey began.”

“Bullshit has always been written about working-class kids” – Gavin Watson

As well as captivating viewers with his cinematic, often black-and-white imagery, so saturated in the high-drama of everyday life and so evocative of adolescence, Watson hopes the book has done something toward reclaiming the truth about skinhead culture and its origins. “You can put a narrative onto something, you can pile a narrative on top of it. But if you go to the bottom and pull out the truth – in imagery – then, you know, I’ve done a little bit towards putting a bit of truth out there. Bullshit has always been written about working-class kids, whatever colour. But I’ll never understand it because how can you be a skinhead and be a Nazi, and know that your whole cult comes from the mixture of Black and white kids?” he shakes his head. “Without Jamaicans, there would be no skinheads.”

Skins by Gavin Watson is published by ACC Art Books and is available here now.