Link: The images he’s collected for books like Skins & Punks and Raving ‘89 have shown how the smiling, glowering, gurning faces of British youth culture have stretched themselves across decades
Link: Long before the UK skinhead scene was co-opted by right-wing movements it was a culture created by the working class looking to forge a connection across the races. If first emerged on the streets of London in 1969 in response to the self-indulgent pretensions of bourgeois hippiedom. Forged in the council estates and East…
From Skinheads to Fashion: British Photographer Gavin Watson Discusses His Career – Feature Shoot As a young teen from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, British photographer Gavin Watson captured the insular life of the skinhead scene in 1980’s England. Famous for his two books on skinhead life, Skins and Skins and Punks, Watson later ventured into the…
Link: Gavin Watson Chroniques anglaises | Le Journal de la Photographie Born in 1965 in northwest London, Gavin Watson started taking pictures at an early age. By the time he was 14 he was a skinhead, immersed in the world of Madness and Two Tone, and set about documenting the antics of his friends and…
Three years ago Vice Editor Andy Capper brought Gavin Watson out of self-imposed exile and uncovered hundreds of unpublished photos. The pair collaborated to produce a new book called Skins & Punks – Lost Archives 1978–1985, which we’re proud to say has now been released.
From Simon Garfield’s piece, “Getting Under Their Skins,” on UK skinheads, in the Observer: ‘I was so intense about being a skinhead, to me it was final,’ says Gavin Watson, a former skinhead from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. ‘Anybody who grew their hair for work or their girlfriend was severely mentally impaired. I would be downtown…