Skins by Gavin Watson has been argued as being ‘the single most important record’ of 1970s skinhead culture in Britain, who have possibly been one of the most reviled yet misunderstood of the nation’s youth subcultures.” — Daily Mail

Skins - ACC Art Books UK Skins - ACC Art Books UK

As a pro-working class movement, skinhead culture attracted those with nationalist beliefs, including violently racist or neo-Nazi elements. I didn’t want to be a rebel; I wanted to be normal. I was a shy, sensitive child that wanted to be an artist, but I just felt I didn’t have much of a choice in the environment I was growing up in, which was extremely violent. I didn’t want the pictures to show that. I never photographed any fighting or the grief that poverty brings. I didn’t want to photograph the abuse and the violence. It was part of my everyday life. Why would you expose your friends’ darkest secrets? 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.The growth of the right-wing National Front and its recruitment of youth merely increased the amount of conflict present in the skinhead subculture. Punk shows and Ska shows were marred by skinhead violence. Even American newspapers covered the race riots that exploded in London in 1981. 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. 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!” My pictures went unseen until years after when they were discovered in a box amongst thousands at a community darkroom facility which I used to make prints. They were selected for a book about youth culture. And that’s when it all started, my first book was published and I was part of a street style exhibition in the Victoria & Albert Museum. But I wasn’t prepared for any form of success, it all went over my head. Through no desire of his own, Watson eventually became known as one of the most prominent documenters of skinheads, his 1994 debut book Skins having served as primary source material for Shane Meadows’s iconic indie drama This Is England. Watson affirms that the film is more representative of his experience of the subculture than other on-screen portrayals, arguing that “there’s a political narrative with movies like American History X and Romper Stomper” that doesn’t resemble what he knew.

Skins - ACC Art Books UK

As mod split into two in the late-’60s – Small Faces-style psychedelia went one way, ‘harder’ lads the other – a look that combined Ivy League precision with Jamaican attitude and British workwear was born. This was skinhead. And the music that its adherents danced – or at least jumped about to – was ska. In 1989 Gavin and his brother Neville became involved with the newly emerging Rave scene sweeping the UK. His images documented the early D.I.Y. party culture that sprang up around London. 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? EJ: That’s amazing. I want to touch on music again briefly because it’s such an integral part of your work… The skinhead subculture was born in England in the late 1960s as an offshoot of the mod culture. Skinheads were distinct from other British subcultures due to their uniform of boots, jeans, braces (suspenders), and the trademark shaved head.

It’s incredible that [the far-right] could take something that was so inclusive and weaponise it to divide people’ – Gavin Watson