Mods in Mags

February 1, 2026

Thankfully today we have some really good social media accounts releasing unseen modernist and street subculture images. Granted the digital accounts scan and take shots of printed analog images but they are seeing the light of day instead of stored in a biscuit tin in the attic. I'm a magazine, zine, pamphlet, flyer hoarder sure but I dig the new breed too.

Of course this wasn't always the case, back at the turn of the century when we were at the mercy of fashion shoots and big kahuna advertising magazines, we paid the money and it was hit or miss for that months printed inspiration, if you were loyal to but one magazine. If shoots were a dud, It wasn't always the stylists fault. There was often a square peg round hole scenario whereby a magazine would have to use a demanding advertisers brand in a fashion story that was nowhere near relevant.

Imagine if you can no Instagram, Youtube and the likes, in a way I think it was better, but I'm not 100% sure, I mean it was so bloody long ago. The magazines below are from 2000-2007 and Instagram launched in late 2010.

In the early 2000's we had a Mod-ish revival by way of big fashion houses, the domino effect was heritage brands re-issuing some pretty good clothing to be fair, at street level prices. Some labels whole heartedly delved into the look and others just gave a smattering of soul stylists on their mood boards, either way you could see it out there.

This selection of magazine shoots starting well and then crashing into a worrying shopping list that perhaps the fashion editors intern must have put together. This is what we had to grapple with. Really I should just tear out the pages of these magazines and glue them into an old fashioned scrap book, I could make some room on the bookcase. You can summon up images in your minds eye of what influences you the most, combining them with other out of sync magazines might just do the trick, scrap book and collage is the existentialist way to go go.

As we all know you don't need a scooter to be Moderne, indeed the toppermost of the top mods get taxis, but the fashion rags really needed them to tell the story. Allstyles scooters down in Portsmouth must have made a pretty penny renting out the Vespa scooter in these magazine shoots. I'd seen this Vespa at various launches and events over the years too, in department stores, theatre lobbies and the like. VCB 160 is the registration of the Vespa GS160 that Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner rode in the 1979 film Quadrophenia. The adorned Vespa was famously flung off the white cliffs somewhere near Brighton by the protagonist Jimmy. Obviously the stunt double scooter got smashed to smithereens and was washed up in the English Channel. Thankfully the log-book and number plate of the two wheeled screen icon lived on and was archived for a good few decades.

The VCB 160 number plate registration sold at auction in the National Motorcycle Museum Solihull West Midlands for £15,000+ back in March 2025. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reg plate is worth more than the scooter itself.

Without further ado, mods in mags before I tear them up and glue them into a scrap book....