Teens in London Where it’s cool to be a clubber

Press, 21 July 1988, Page 9

Teens in London Where it’s cool to be a clubber

Milly Jenkins, just 16, takes a look around her generation for the “Observer.”

Tania and Kim stand together with Troy and Ryan outside the Mud Club. The girls are 15, the boys 19, and for them life is “safe,” “sweet,” and “hasslefree.” The “Sun” calls them “wild children,” but the cognoscenti know them as CLUBBERS as they stand in their black bomber jackets, cycling shorts, and boob tubes revealing chubby tummies. Peroxide blonde hair gushes from Hottentot knots. Tania and Kim idolise Emma Ridley, a British tabloid-famous, 14-year-old wild-child bride. When they feel like shocking, they take their knickers off on the dance floor.

They stand trying to look hard, tensing their jaws for an ultra-chiselled look.

L. L. Cool J and Troublefunk is their music — the Wag, the Mud, and Paramount City the places. Although black boyfriends and Chinese girlfriends are cool, clubbers come from all races, classes, and backgrounds. Their politics are “Don’t care,” and it isn’t cool to have any ambitions. YOUNG CASUALS Justine and Mark are 16 and 17. They spend all their money on clothes — designer labels and serious quality. They like the cocktail bar ambience — lots of mirrors and potted plants.

They claw at Philip Salon, the Mud Club manager, who pushes them off in irritation.

The boys, Troy and Ryan, are wearing ripped sheepskin jackets with pirate scarfs around .their heads revealing jet black hair.

Doctor Martens with stuck-on labels, red laces and steel caps are in, and Nick Kamen (the pop star who undressed in the laundrette in the ad) is their idol.

Their local is The Studio in Streatham, south west London, where they drink Snake Bites and look for a bit of talent. Mark’s: status symbols are his gold signet ring and chain, for a macho look, with a leather jacket and Lacoste turquoise Tshirt.

For Justine, it’s a gold chain with her Next and Benetton outfits. Hardcore Casuals use slurred jive and rap, totally incomprehensible to eavesdroppers. They call anyone not dressed smart like them “ragamuffins.” Their music is soul —

Whitney Houston and Fatback. Their image is working-class — but a lot of them come from middle-class homes as well.

They vote Tory for materialism, and they want to set up their own businesses one day. BABY PSEUDS

When you pass by a dimly-lit and smoke-filled King’s Road cafe (i.e. The Dome) and peer in, you will usually find some Pseuds seated at a table looking as Parisian as they can. A “Time Out” is on the table, with a packet of Gauloises and a copy of Sartre or Camus placed like a still life. They pretend they’re at university but actually they’re 17 and 18 and still doing A-levels.

Black is the colour. Poseur is the style. The males wear suits and brogues from American Classics. A hat and a newspaper are essential — the “Independent.” The girls wear old silky dresses.

Everything is “profound,” "ironic,” and “banal.” Their music is

The Smiths, Lloyd Cole, and Shostakovich.

They are the A-level arts students, aspiring actors and dancers — usually non-existent workingclass roots are best for street cred.

They would vote Labour if they could. By the time they can, they’ll probably vote Tory or Alliance like their parents. They all want to work in the 8.8. C. JUNIOR SLOANES

Sloane Square is rampaged by Junior Sloanes the minute boarding schools break up and thousands troop into Sloaneville to “live it up” in the hols.

Amanda, Claudia, Julian and Damian are 15 and 16 and they meet up outside Sloane Square Tube to buy a couple of taffetas and new DJs for the high spot of their holidays — the Gatecrasher Ball.

They are pretty unambitious. The girls are taking home economics exams to get jobs as upmarket chalet girls and in London City catering. The boys still think the post-Crash City is waiting

with open arms. (They’re not great on reading the newspapers). Londoners are used to being deafened with their squeals and shouts, that can be heard South of the River (Thames) and beyond Hyde Park. “Oh, grand,” “brill” and “cool dude” they trill, always years behind with their slang. Sloanes feel jolly sorry for anyone who isn’t one of them. The Gatecrasher balls are partly charity balls and cost a fortune. Ball dresses and DJs aren’t essential, but puffy

sleeves and a velvet hairband are usual. Some of the boys have spiky hair to show they’re not really Sloanes. They like Dire Straits — like Princess Diana — and Madonna. These balls aren’t as innocent as they sound. It’s safer to go and see a rock concert than risk drinking LSD-spiked lemonade — “Just one of Piers’s jolly funny jokes.” Daddies picking up Juniors in their Jags have no idea what goes on. SPODS A Spod is what the

others call a square. Spods don’t like going out much, and aren’t interested in what swinging teenagers are supposed to be up to. Tim and Helen, at 16, are really quite “sad,” according to the trendies. But, in fact, they aren’t sad at all. You know you're a Spod when your parents get worried and start to give you lots of money to go out, saying things like “Go on, go to a club and don’t come back till 5 a.m.,” and you refuse. A Spod is quite content

to sit at home in a tracksuit and pick-your-nose collared shirts (collars long enough for nasal use), venturing out in Adrian Mole anoraks, but usually sitting watching “Mastermind” and reading Tolstoy for fun. Spods are not downtrodden. They are proud. They think all forms of trendies are ignorant oafs and fashion victims who will never Do Anything. Spods will be scientists, doctors, chartered accountants, actuaries, and teachers. They know that. But they will achieve it.