Decked out in an A-line dress and vintage 1960s shoes, Angeline King looks like an extra from an “Austin Powers” movie–but only to an untrained eye.
Don’t call King a hippie. And don’t tell her she looks “Groovy, baby.”
King’s style is mostly Mod, a tribute to the period in the mid-’60s after ’50s rock faded and before “make love, not war” became the nation’s anthem.
King and other Mod fans identify themselves with the brief period four decades ago. They mix the sleek British fashion of the time with a blend of music genres such as soul, R&B and psychedelic to create an underground scene that’s getting hotter in Chicago and around the world.
Starting Thursday, local Mod group MODchicago hosts its fifth annual Mod weekender, a three-day party featuring retro regalia, a salute to scooters and a collection of DJs spinning 45s you won’t hear anywhere else. The group is expecting this year’s turnout to match the 1,000 participants who came from all over the world in 2005, said Eric Colin, who organized the weekender.
Mod all-nighters and weekenders are common around the world and are touted on several Web sites. From London to L.A., lovers of vinyl records, Vespa scooters and all things 1960s gather to celebrate the subculture. While outsiders might expect to see Mike Myers roller-skate through a weekender wearing a lacy shirt and velvet suit, King says the truly Mod take the movement much more seriously.
“It’s about the clothes, the music, the hair,” said King, a 33-year-old Schaumburg resident, “but it’s mostly about attitude.”
King said Mods like to stand out as individuals. They don’t want to look like everyone else, and they want to look their best. “Mods like to look prim and proper,” she said.
According to scenesters, Mod can be an overarching term for all ’60s culture, or more precisely, it can identify the music, fashion and art popular in England during the middle of that decade. “I would say it’s a reference to style,” said Colin, a 35-year-old living in Roscoe Village. “It’s a certain style of music, of dress, and the accent is on the detail.”
The Mod era arose alongside the Beatles and ended with the Grateful Dead, but Mod has cycled through highs and lows in popularity ever since. It ballooned in the ’80s, bringing about much of the music popular among today’s Mods, including British rockers The Jam and The Chords. Just as the original Mods gave way to hippies and the psychedelic movement, the ’80s craze eventually faded into the punk and ska scenes.
Today many people in their 20s dip into the Mod culture for a short stint, Colin said, but others, like Boston-native Wayne Baptiste, have been Mod for more than 20 years.
Baptiste, who is in his mid-30s, is a globetrotting Mod maverick who has played in ’60s-style bands and can’t count the number of weekenders he’s attended in the U.S. and Europe.
He says the Mod revival’s biggest selling point is that it stands out against today’s casual culture. Today’s music and fashion are “not as sharp” as the bright colors, big parkas and “peekaboo” dresses of Mod’s heyday.
“Back in our parent’s generation and before that, you dressed up; you wanted to impress people,” Baptiste told RedEye last week during a road trip from Boston to California. “That has a certain sort of appeal.”
Baptiste plans to be in Chicago for this weekend’s event.
While Mod remains a largely underground movement, it has surfaced in popular culture in recent years. The “Austin Powers” movies caused a brief influx in Mod-inspired fashion with velvet suits, groovy necklaces and go-go boots. Sales of the already popular Vespa scooters are growing due to the rise in gas prices. And of all places, Mod is showing up in the real estate business.
After seeing a demand for architecturally Mod homes, Rogers Park residents Daniel and Sandra Henderson recently started a real estate company called Modernist Dwellings. Daniel Henderson said his clients, like all Mod enthusiasts, want a way to stand out.
“I think we’ve hit a nerve with our business,” said Henderson, adding that he was surprised by the number of people who already had visited his two-week old Web site, modernistdwellings.com. “There is a longing in Chicago for something other than the norm.”
Angeline King said she, too, is most drawn to the Mod scene because it is unique. U.S. culture is turning away from individuality, she said, and pressuring people to “look the same, be the same, listen to the same music.”
“I think what’s important is that everyone, at least once in their life, should try something different,” she said. “It may look silly to some, but if they have an open mind, they’ll enjoy themselves.”
Have a Mod weekend
Hey, you–with the firm, supple seat and the relaxed-knuckle grip. Nice Vespa. Are you headed our way? We know you won’t break a sweat meeting other bona fide bi-wheelers at Our Way of Thinking 5: Maintaining Our Cool, a weekend of MOD Chicago and scooterist events, including an Allez Cats reunion party at Delilah’s, a soul dance party at Sonotheque and an all-nighter at The Note. See metromix.com for details. Thursday-Sunday. Free. 773-472-2771.
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CLINEHAN@TRIBUNE.COM
