Getting under their skins
by Killian Fox
film.guardian.co.uk
Boots and braces: Skinhead style
Dress
Skinheads took the Mod look (Ben Sherman shirts, Levi's jeans) and toughened it with donkey jackets, army greens, Doc Marten boots and braces. Inspiration was also drawn from the long black coats and two-tone suits worn by Jamaican rude boys.
Hair
Early skinheads opted for the short-but-not-bald look, although suedeheads grew their hair longer and combed it, while later skins shaved their heads. Girls wore the Chelsea cut, short on top with fringes at the front, back and sides.
Music
Early skinheads listened to ska and rocksteady by Desmond Dekker, Laurel Aitken and the Skatellites. British bands fusing Jamaican music and punk (The Specials, Madness) were big in the late 1970s before the more aggressive Oi! bands such as Blitz, The Business and Skrewdriver barged onto the scene.
Skins on screen
Made In Britain (Alan Clarke, 1982)
Tim Roth's searing performance as Trevor, a volatile 16-year-old with a swastika on his forehead, became symbolic of the darker edges of skinhead culture.
Romper Stomper (Geoffrey Wright, 1992)
Gritty portrait of a racist gang in Melbourne, starring Russell Crowe, was meant to discourage neo-Nazism but became a skinhead cult classic.
American History X (Tony Kaye, 1998)
After a spell in prison for the murder of two black youths, skinhead Edward Norton struggles to distance his family from the white supremacist group of which he was a leading member.
The Believer (Henry Bean, 2001)
The twist in this riveting film about a violently anti-Semitic New York skinhead is that Danny Balint (played by Ryan Gosling) is himself Jewish.