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Writer's pictureBrent MacGillivray

The Mods & Rockers


A little remember when from the late 60's early 70's. I'm doing a little cultural comparative analysis for today's blog. First lets look at the scene as it was.


Mods and rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early/mid 1960s to early 1970s. Media coverage of mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youth, and the two groups became widely perceived as violent, unruly troublemakers.

The rocker subculture was centred on motorcycling, and their appearance reflected that. Rockers generally wore protective clothing such as black leather jackets and motorcycle boots (although they sometimes wore brothel creeper shoes). The style was heavily influenced by Marlon Brando in The Wild One.[1] The common rocker hairstyle was a pompadour, while their music genre of choice was 1950s rock and roll, played by artists including Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, and Bo Diddley.[2]

The mod subculture was centred on fashion and music, and many mods rode scooters. Mods wore suits and other cleancut outfits, and listened to 1960s music genres such as soul, rhythm and blues, ska, beat music, and British blues-rooted bands like The Yardbirds, the Small Faces, and The Who, who wrote an evocative portrait of the cultures with their 1973 album Quadrophenia.



So where am I going with this mods and rockers theme? Similarily we have fashion statements going on within "Chefdom".


You can find a few more blurbs about chef fashion on my primary blog site; www.professionalchefsfoodnetwork.org


We are familiar with the standard chef attire, "whites" as they are called. White chef coat, check pants, apron, toque and necktie. A very nice look, professional....perhaps a little boring. Personally, I wear a variation on the above theme. I like a little colour, flair and comfort.


The exact origins of the classic chef’s uniform are murky. Amy Trubek, a professor at the University of Vermont and the author of “Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession,” said the outfits were white, like the uniforms of many other professions in the 1800s, because they represented “the 19th-century idea of purity, sanitation and cleanliness.” Even though the clothes — now typically made from stiff, sweaty polyester — were not the pinnacle of comfort or practicality, they remained the standard for nearly two centuries.


If you would like to recreate your cheffy image, have a look at a site I frequently buy uniforms from and go shopping for the new you.


If you find something you like, shoot me an email; macgillb2@gmail.com

I can get you a 20% discount on anything in stock. Cheers, and have a wonderful Tuesday!

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