The Islington Twins, London. 1980.
“In London in the 1980s, the Islington Twins (Chuka and Dubem Okonkwo) would meet every evening at rush hour at ‘The Bar’ with a crowd of teenage followers. ‘T
(...) he Bar’ didn’t serve food or drink; there was no jukebox or seating. It was just a horizontal pole that stopped cars from entering the road to the local Highbury & Islington Tube station. Always identically and impeccably dressed, the twins played music by bands like Madness, The Specials, and Bad Manners on their boombox, and talked to the commuters and to their friends. They received a small college grant and bought pork pie hats, Crombie overcoats, Sta-Prest trousers, and loafers from a shop in East London. For them, being a mod was more than just clothes. It was the way you conducted yourself and behaved toward others. Chuka said: ‘People began to stop us in the street and ask if they could take our photographs. We had to have the photographers in our fantasy, as it was only when other people noticed us that we would really believe that we looked the way we did. In 1980, Janette Beckman put us in The Face magazine.’”
- Janette Beckman
Copyright © Janette Beckman
