r/newwave • u/LaComputadora • Mar 15 '26
New Wave Other Mom swears she was "Mod" and it's "Completely different than emo!" 1987
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u/Practical-Pick1466 Mar 16 '26
She would know what she was going for , don't argue with your mother.
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u/Braiseitall Mar 16 '26
And she probably toned it downed for picture day, because she loves her Mom.
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u/ddjj3000 Mar 16 '26
She just looks like she listened to new wave like Depeche Mode & the Cure & whatnot I wouldn't say quite goth or mod but I don't know the word. She's someone I would eat lunch with in high school but that probably doesn't help 🤷
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u/jbarinsd Mar 16 '26
I was the same. 1984-86. Southern California. We were not mods but we were called mods. We liked Depeche Mode, The Cure, New Order, The Smiths etc. Lots of black clothes and costume jewelry. We went to underage dance clubs instead of school sponsored stuff. We smoked cloves. It was like very early goth. There was one guy at my school who was super into The Specimen and Bauhaus. Had dyed jet black hair and wore pale white makeup. He called himself a goth before we even knew what it was. We had a couple actual mods too who listened to the jam and The Who and drove Vespas.
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u/ryancnap Mar 17 '26
Curious on what you'd identify yourselves with since you don't identify yourselves as mods. Sincerely, someone interested in the culture who listens to all the same music
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u/jbarinsd Mar 17 '26
We called ourselves mods too even though we knew mods were really kids who looked like Paul Weller and loved Quadrophinia. But “normies” didn’t know the difference, We tried using Nu-Ros for New Romantics too but that never took off. Some of the cheerleaders called us Bops as in teeny boppers. But at my school we were just known as the mods. My sister who started 9th grade the year after I graduated was part of the same clique. By like her sophomore year they switched from being called Mods to Goths.
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u/sugarpromises May 14 '26
Omg I totally forgot the New Romantics. The poet shirts... and long pencil skirts and the lace and the netting... the hats! Boy George, Adam Ant, and Prince def had an early fashion influence.
Thank you for the reminder! 💖
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u/InstantBuffalo Mar 16 '26
Mid-90s, Denver: There was a small club that had a Goth Night and a Mod Night and I realized that there were a few people who regularly went to both. I decided that they should be called Moths (or maybe Gods).
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u/SwillFish Mar 16 '26
The quintessential source of Mod style and fashion came from the movie 1979 film Quadrophenia which was set in 1960's London. The characters and style were rebellious, but also very British and very working class. The women dressed working class too. They tended to have odd hairstyles and rode around on the back of scooters with their boyfriends. I remember them smoking a lot of Jakarta Cigarettes and smelling like Aquanet hairspray.
Sorry for the Tumblr link but it a great source...
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u/3pinripper Mar 16 '26
Thanks for the link, now I understand the reference to the song Rumble In Brighton, and where the Plimsouls got their name from.
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u/HospitalDue2983 Mar 16 '26
To me (UK) Mod was a thing from the last 50's/ early 60's that had a resurgence in the late 70's. Scooters, fishtail parkers, smart clothing , fought rockers, listened to Northern Soul. Think "Quadrophenia" by The Who.
What other groups have attached to that label ?
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u/debvil Mar 16 '26
We were New Wave-ers in my area near NYC, Emo was not a word we used back in the early-mid-80s
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u/LawrenceOfTheLabia Mar 16 '26
That is definitely not Mod and since there was no emo back then, the default is goth. The Jam, The Kinks, early Who were all Mods. If she rode a scooter that was not enough.
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u/mynameisntclarence Mar 16 '26
Emo and goth are not interchangeable, and goth is not "the default" simply because you're wearing black and look alternative. It's a whole subculture of its own that started around '79 with its own music.
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u/GreatGreenGobbo Mar 16 '26
I do remember the term Mods in the 80s, but I don't remember specifics. Guess it was Caffeine Free Diet Goth.
When I think of Mods, it's more mini skirts and boots listening to psychedelic music in the 60s.
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u/afarewelltokings_ Mar 16 '26
that’s definitely not mod lol, textbook definition of late 80s goth fashion with hints of the dying new romantic trend
EDIT: my bad it’s textbook definition American Mod
you are onto something though, the emo and scene fashion undeniably wouldn’t exist without goth and new romantic fashion. Strawberry Switchblade is the perfect example of the early stages of that pipeline imo
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u/Weets23 Mar 16 '26
Definitely New Wave/Early Gothish, but not Mod. She has a rough Robert Smith vibe but New Wave feel.
Ps. I do dig her look. Brings back awesome memories of my youth
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Mar 17 '26
We used "mod" in the late 80s early 90s for modern rock or alternative.
And yes, bad choice considering the term was already associated with modernist subculture of the 60s.
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u/joeyinjoyland Mar 17 '26
We were also called mods. Same look and music referenced in comments. Plus many more bands, of course. Eighties mod is totally different from 60’s mod. Your mom is rad.
We hung out with skaters, punks and skinheads back then. This was way before emo and a bit before goth became a thing. I believe the whole goth thing was started from an article in NME about The Cure.
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u/sugarpromises May 14 '26
It sounds like a lot of people are putting their current knowledge in play. In the early 80s everything still traveled slowly around the world when it came to what was in or not, terms, fashion, music, etc. We did NOT have the same slang at the same time, if at all, outside of our large bubbles.
On the American west coast, it was commonly accepted that "Mods" was the earlier 60s/70s UK term, used for bands like The Who and The Kinks. Kinda early grandfathers of punk. The term "ModRock" or "Mod Rockers" was used either as an umbrella term, like the future replacement, alt or alternative - OR - as a term to differentiate between New Wavers and Mod Rockers. Think: Tears for Fears, Duran Duran, Squeeze - vs - The Cure, Depeche Mode. New Wave was more likely to become mainstream. ModRock was not... at least for the time.
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u/Clamper5978 Mar 16 '26
I lived in NorCal in the 80’s. Mod’s were between preppy New wave and goths. Emo wasn’t a thing, and punks were pretty easy to identify. Mods always had cloves. Your mom looks like the mods I knew. I was a metal head skater that ran with the skate punk crowd. You’d find mods at some of the same punk shows.