LOOKING FOR TROUBLE: I want all you skinheads to get up on your feet

With commentary by Ingledew throughout, concept and design by Fabrice Couillerot and a foreword by John Swinstead, founder of The Museum of Youth Culture, this book provides a unique perspective into a tribe from the golden age of British youth culture, when punks, rockabillies, teds, new romantics and the mod and skinhead revivals all had their own vibrant scene.

Every youth cult needs great music, great clothing, great footwear and a great haircut. These new skinheads had it all; the boundless energy of The Specials and Madness provided the soundtrack, Ben Sherman, Crombie, Levi’s and Fred Perry the clothes and Dr. Marten’s the boots – a barber’s clippers rounding off the style with a number one, two or three.

The return of young skinheads to the football terraces of West London is pictured along with photographs of the gang of skins that congregated in the West End of London, whose members took the look in an extreme direction with facial tattooing previously only seen in sideshows and U.S. prison yards. John got to know this group and photographed some of them at gigs, on days out, being tattooed and in their homes, as well as when they hung out terrifying the tourists in Leicester Square. He returned to the scene twice more to photograph the skinhead girls of Bristol, and finally the skins passionate about Jamaican music who’d travelled from all over the country to attend concerts by legends Prince Buster and Laurel Aitken, The Godfather of Ska. 

Two previous books of John Ingledew’s photo­graphs have been published focusing on football fans. He has also written three books for photography and design students and is a Visiting Professor at the University of West London. Ingledew’s work is in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery and his photographs have featured in recent major UK exhibitions, Grown Up in Britain - 100 Years of Teenage Kicks (Herbert Art Gallery & Museum) and From the Caribbean to Coventry (Barbican Library).