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Wednesday, November 15th, 2017

A Look Back at the Last of the Teddy Girls

Jean Rayner ©2006 TopFoto/Ken Russell.

Before Ken Russell became the Oscar nominated director of such classic  movies such as  Women in Love, The Devils and The Who’s rock-opera Tommy he was a young photographer in the mid-fifties working for British newspapers and magazines such as Picture Post.

For one of his assignments in 1955 he was commissioned to take photographs of a new breed of British working class girls in neo-Edwardian clothing who called themselves Teddy Girls.  The male equivalent …Teddy Boys…. have been well-documented and are well-established in pop-culture history if the time, but this series of photos by Russell provide a unique and rare glimpse of a little recognized and under-documented subculture of austere post-war Britain.

 

Elsie (15) and Rose Hendon with Mary T Photo by Ken Russell – January 1955

 

Pat Wiles and Iris Thornton wearing coolie hats.
©2006 TopFoto/Ken Russell

 

Iris Thornton and Pat Wiles, 17 year olds from Plaistow, showing off their lace-up espadrilles, a favourite with teddy girls.
©2006 TopFoto/Ken Russell

 

Iris Thornton and Pat Wiles ©2006 TopFoto/Ken Russell

 

Barbera Wood pointing to a council election poster for Ordnance Ward in Poplar, East London.
©2006 TopFoto/Ken Russell

 

Elsie and Rose Hendon with Mary Toovey and Jean Rayner on an East End bombsite.

 

Elsie (15) and Rose Hendon with Mary Toovey and Jean Rayner (14) in front of the Seven Feathers Club in Edenham Street, North Kensington.
©2006 TopFoto/Ken Russell

 

16 year old Eileen from Bethnal Green, with two teddy boys “duelling” over her on an East End bombsite. Photo by Ken Russell, January 1955

Posted by queerguru  at  11:39


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