Red Deer pub. Croydon, England, 1976

In the 1950s a new youth culture emerged in Britain: working class youngsters adopting the formal and flamboyant tailoring of Edwardian dress. Known as the ‘Teds’ (nodding to the Edwardian era their look was borrowed from) their jackets had wide notched lapels accessorized with a skinny tie or bootlace, and they wore brothel creeper shoes on their feet. As well as a way of dress and a style of music, owing to several high-profile incidents, the Teds were also associated with wayward and yobbish behaviour and public fights that led them to being banned from some venues. Some 20 years later, a second wave of young people began aping the style, music culture and attitudes of their Ted forebears. Chris Steele-Perkins, along with writer Richard Smith, were commissioned by New Society magazine to cover the second wave of the Teds for a story, which grew into a self-motivated study of the British youth movement over several years in the 1970s.