Sunday Afternoon Bootboy Sounds

Treating a mild hangover with a few mimosas and some bootboy vinyl. Perfect Sunday afternoon...

Getting Proper Gear In The Late 80s and 90s

These days it's possible to buy proper skinhead gear like DMs, braces, Fred Perrys and Ben Shermans with one-click ordering on Ebay or websites. You need never leave your house or encounter another skin.

In the late 80s and 90s things were a lot different. If you were lucky you lived in a big city like New York or London which featured small boutique-style shops that stocked the gear, sometimes in fairly rough parts of town. You could expect to pay import prices. People did buying trips to places like 99X (NY), Two Tone (NJ), Crash & Burn (Atlanta) and The Merc (London) and stocked up.

All of these spots also had mailorder catalogues, as did mailorder-exclusive sellers like Sluggo. Timing was important as it was always an issue of things being in stock. If you were wise you ordered over the phone with a credit card. Using snail mail and a check or money order meant your gear could take ages to arrive.

It was a struggle to stay properly dressed but this was part of the underground appeal- it's inaccessibility. Dedication was an important part of the skinhead lifestyle!