Skins

Product Information

By the time Gavin Watson had left school at the age of 16, he had already amassed more than 10,000 photographs of his friends, taken at a council estate in High Wycombe, during the time the second generation of British skinheads were coming of age in the late 1970s and early 80s. Nothing has changed. It’s got a lot more solidified. I used to feel isolated about how much bullshit was out there that we saw through at an early age. We had to rebel. I’m glad the next generation woke up and started to piss off these people in power – it’s beautiful!”

Brief History of British Subcultures | PORT Magazine A Brief History of British Subcultures | PORT Magazine

EJ: That’s amazing. I want to touch on music again briefly because it’s such an integral part of your work… Punk lent itself to violence through its embrace of aggressive music and teenage angst. Skinheads reflected this new influence by combining the exaggerated imagery of the original skinhead style with punk. We lived close to Wigan Casino and went as often as we could. The place was a dive, a pit of filth really but boy did they have a great sprung dance floor. I live now aged 60 with a skinhead haircut because its easy to manage. Music isnt played any more and "time will pass you by" is dead right. The second wave arrived in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These skinheads differed from the first generation, in that they were not influenced as much by mod as they were by the growing punk and 2Tone Ska scenes in London. Skinsby Gavin Watson is arguably the single most important record of ’70s skinhead culture in Britain. Rightly celebrated as a true classic of photobook publishing, the book is now reissued in a high-quality new edition under close supervision from the photographer.

Though he didn’t often venture far from his estate growing up, he’s rubbed shoulders with skins further field, like New York, where “you were always welcome”. He also developed an interest in skins beyond the Western world. When he started receiving images from “hardcore, covered-in-tattoos skinheads” in Southeast Asia, he wanted to travel there and photograph the burgeoning scene, but he claims nobody was interested in the idea because it doesn’t conform to what skinhead culture is typically defined as. Gavin Watson: 'This is Tottenham Chris, who featured in the first Skins book quite extensively. He worked at the Fred Perry factory and would steal us shirts, which was quite handy.' It’s incredible that [the far-right] could take something that was so inclusive and weaponise it to divide people’ – Gavin Watson

The original British Skinhead subculture in photographic The original British Skinhead subculture in photographic

Intimate, vibrant and full of character, his new book is a testament to the inclusiveness and diversity that skinhead culture was actually born of, demystifying the stereotypes that skins have struggled to shake off since. Though it wasn’t specifically his intention, the book naturally helps to counter the Neo-Nazi rhetoric it has come to be associated with, and he insists vehemently that real skinhead culture – the kind he experienced growing up – is a world away from the depiction fuelled by mainstream media.

While there is little doubt that North Americans, especially Canadians as part of the British Commonwealth, were exposed to skinhead subculture in the late 1960s and during the initial resurgence of this movement in 1978, it did not take hold as a youth cult in the United States until the arrival of punk. EJ: Skins has become a cultural artefact in its own right, at the time did you ever feel as if you were in the midst of capturing history? However, having a camera in his hand clearly shaped how he navigated his teenage years. “I wouldn’t say I hid behind my photography but it definitely helped me as a shy person,” he explains. He also mentions its role in helping his dyslexia as well as how it gave him a channel to process his teenage frustration: “Instead of just being angry, I did something with it and expressed it.” Images by Gavin Watson from Oh! What Fun We Had Images by Gavin Watson from Oh! What Fun We Had