80s Casuals: The Fashion of an Urban, Working Class Culture, with a Love of Training Shoes and Designer Sportswear

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Above: The Barbour International Small Logo T-Shirt now available at 80s Casuals Classics. SHOP NOW Andy Carrolland future Creamsupremo James BartonDJ’d for the weekend, and Liverpool artist Luke Walsh spent the whole weekend working on an enormous graffiti piece in the venue, while the bands played. Acclaimed Liverpoolphotographer and filmmaker Mark McNultywas brought in to catalogue and capture the mayhem and the madness, and many of his images from the weekend can be found in his book Pop Cultured. Bill Osgerby is an author and professor with a focus on modern American and British media and cultural history — with particular regard to the areas of gender, sexuality, youth culture, consumption, print media, popular television, film and music. Amongst other he has published, Youth in Britain Since 1945 and Biker: Style and Subculture on Hell’s Highway

The label, Eighties Vinyl Records, is only one release in, but already it’s sporting a philosophy that’s close to our hearts: only release the good stuff, do it to the best of your ability, and do it because you love it.! Curiously, the lads won a day in the studio (did they win the GIT award? Oh no...) and The Sand Band obligingly came along for the ride.! Southport is a small seaside resort, not more than 20 miles from Liverpool . During the winter months, the rain and wind swept prom is deserted apart from the odd retiree walking his dog. There isn't much call to pay the town a visit. The Pleasureland fairground is a ghost town and the swimming baths too cold. Come the summer months though and the place comes alive. The baths fill up and the car parks overflow with day-trippers, but best of all the fairground bustles with kids, parents with prams, boys and girls queuing for the rides. Being a half hour train journey from Liverpool , Southport becomes a week-end mecca for scouse teenagers determined to 'have a laugh.' Good question. The main reason the film became a gangster film was because I wanted to set it outside England for the look. I didn't want to make a grey inner city 80's film (as we all remember it) - I wanted to make it look really flash and over the top so I decided to set it on the Costa del Sol, and as we all know there was a big community of gangsters living it up down there in the 80's - so that's why it was a gangster film. I wanted to show the rise and fall of Thatcherism and where better to do it than somewhere that was full of flash people with bundles of cash. My favourite gear from the 80's was both Fila and Sergio. I think the fact they were Italian tennis gear made them exotic. Fila BJ was the holy grail, Terrinda and the Sergio Dallas in light blue and cream was of another planet. I also liked some of the Fila colours from 83/84 when they got a bit nutty with colours, although I think I'd rather shoot myself than wear some of that gear now - but I still have a Terrinda in dark blue (worn by Charlie in the business) a Sergio Dallas and red Fila wham top (white stripes on left arm) in my wardrobe!Everyone knows that if you’re from Liverpool you’ll have a passion for football, fashion and music. With 80s Casuals (which Hewitson owns with Jay Montessori) we get the printing done locally plus the embroidery and any sewing, and for the last eight years we’ve donated clothing to fundraising/ charity nights. It was through one of these nights that the chance to put out a single came about,” he says. Vinyl is an analogue recording, whereas CDs are digital. Analogue captures the original sound, capturing the waveforms accurately, and capturing a truer sound to that played by the bands,” Hewitson explains.!

Friday night saw scally rappers Eat My Dog , performing for the very last time, and I can say with complete confidence (and without offending the band in the least) that they will not be missed.” In the Casual scene music was less important than football. And, as with the Perry Boys, musical tastes could be varied. In Liverpool, however, The Farm became associated with the Casual’s visual style, while the band’s front-man − Peter Hooton − co-founded The End, a local football fanzine that chronicled the vagaries of Casual fashion. Shades of Casual style and attitude also surfaced among the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and other bands associated with the ‘Madchester’ music scene that developed during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In early 1998 to much furore Tommy Hilfiger opened his first flagship store in Europe. London being his Capital of choice. But what significance does this hold with Liverpool and its band of travelling protagonists? Three years earlier New York became the destination of choice as the youth of our city once again needed to quench their appetite for stylistic pedantry. The closest Outlet Mall to Manhatten is Woodbury Common and it was here that besides a Hilfiger store there was also a Lacoste store. Lacoste would become massive in Liverpool over the next 10 years and would eventually open its largest independent UK store adjoining Wade Smith in the city centre. Wade Smith would sell that much Lacoste over the years that the president and owner of the brand Monsieur Lemaire came for the opening of its new store and stated “Liverpool’s a bit like the Lacoste capital of the world and shows no sign of waning.” It could be said that he should have thanked the entrepreneurs who made these trips to New York for starting a trend.The ball, then, was firmly in the court of the recently signed three-piece power pop machine that was Top. This fine trio featured the much-missed Alan Wills, later founder of Deltasonic, on drums, PaulCavanagh, now with Mike Badger’s Shady Trio, on vocals and guitar, together with Wills‘ fellow Deltasonichoncho Joe Fearonon bass. Tophad been lauded and courted by just about every label in the country before finally signing to Island.

Due to the current Covid-19 Pandemic, delivery services may be slightly delayed via Royal Mail & DPD* Above: The Little Book of Casuals: Football Fashion From The 1980s now available from 80s Casual Classics. SHOP NOWThe sleeve in itself is a piece of art,” he says, adding to Du Noyer’s rallying cry. “If you’re going to listen to a piece of vinyl then you’re taking time out from your daily activities to actually remove the record from the sleeve, place it on the turntable and really listen, rather than throwing an iPod or Spotify on and skimming through thousands of songs which generally have no meaning to the listener.” Possibly the NME‘s man on the ground had been a little too ‘on the ground’ that weekend too, his judgementseemingly somewhatflawed. Perhaps he was right. Thankfully, we’ll never know.