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49.
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53.
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55.
56. -Shirt, gap / jeanS, apriL 77 / motorcYcLe jacket, juun j. / jeanS, apriL 77 / SuSpenderS, american appareL / ring, harpo / SockS, faLke / ShoeS, repetto. motorcYcLe jacket, kiLLiwatch / Shirt, rrL
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57.
58. motorcYcLe jacket, jean-pauL gauLtier / top and trouSerS, dieSeL / tie, pauL Smith / SockS, faLke. VarSitY jacket, american appareL / Shirt, agnèS B. / jeanS, apriL 77 / Locket, darY’S / BeLt, faith
connexion. Shirt, agnèS B. / trouSerS, BaLLY / SuSpenderS, american appareL / BeLt, Zadig & VoLtaire.
59.
60. jacket and trouSerS, apriL 77 / Shirt, eLiSaBetta franchi / hair cLip, h&m / SungLaSSeS, Linda farrow Vintage / BeLt, richard gampeL / StiLettoS, chriStian LouBoutin. jacket and jeanS, apriL 77 / Shirt,
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61.
62. Shirt, coca-coLa / trouSerS, BaLLY / SuSpenderS, american appareL / BeLt, Zadig & VoLtaire / SockS, faLke / ShoeS, dr marten’S. top, pauLe ka / dreSS, jean-pauL gauLtier.
66. denim jacket, Saint Laurent / Shirt, agnèS B. / jeanS, apriL 77. jeanS, LeVi’S / t-Shirt, american appareL / ringS, StYLiSt.
67.
68.
69. jacket, drieS Van noten / t-Shirt, tommY hiLfiger / jeanS, apriL 77 / neckLace, darY’S. jacket, junn j / t-Shirt, gap / jeanS, apriL 77 / ring, harpo.
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70. jacket, junn j / t-Shirt, gap / jeanS, apriL 77 / ring, harpo / SockS, faLke / ShoeS, repetto. jacket, drieS Van noten / t-Shirt, tommY hiLfiger / jeanS, apriL 77 / BeLt, pauL Smith / SockS,
faLke / ShoeS, repetto. Shirt and SuSpenderS, rrL BY raLph Lauren / jeanS, LeVi’S / SungLaSSeS, raY Ban.
71. Shirt and SuSpenderS, rrL BY raLph Lauren / jeanS, LeVi’S / SungLaSSeS, raY Ban / SockS, faLke / ShoeS, aLden.
72. jacket, drieS Van noten / t-Shirt, tommY hiLfiger / jeanS, apriL 77 / SungLaSSeS, raY-Ban / ShoeS, repetto. prosper: perSonaL cLothing. motorcYcLe jacket, iro / Bra, maiSon cLoSe / Skirt and Scarf,
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73. american appareL / StiLettoS, chriStian LouBoutin . -Shirt, gap / motorcYcLe jacket, juun j. / jeanS, apriL 77 / SungLaSSeS, poLo raLph Lauren eYewear / SockS, faLke / ShoeS, repetto. Shirt, coca-
faLke / ShoeS, aLden. jacket, drieS Van noten / t-Shirt, ami / jeanS, apriL 77 / SungLaSSeS, perSoL / Locket, darY’S / ShoeS, Saint Laurent.
74. jacket, drieS Van noten / t-Shirt, tommY hiLfiger / jeanS, apriL 77 / SungLaSSeS, raY-Ban. prosper: perSonaL cLothing. -Shirt, gap / motorcYcLe jacket, juun j. / jeanS, apriL 77 / SungLaSSeS, poLo
raLph Lauren eYewear. hirt and SuSpenderS, rrL BY raLph Lauren / jeanS, LeVi’S / SungLaSSeS, raY-Ban. jacket, drieS Van noten / t-Shirt, ami / jeanS, apriL 77 / SungLaSSeS, perSoL / Locket, darY’S.
75.
76. jetS and jaguarS, Lake BieL, St. peterSinSeL 1963 romeo (werner Berger), Leader of the reVenger gang, Zurich 1962
Zurich c.1961Lake BieL, St. peterSinSeL 1963
photographS reproduced BY kind permiSSion of the karLheinZ weinBerger eState
77. doCuMENtINg
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77
by PRosPER KEAtINg
IWhen we were planning
this shoot, you
mentioned being
inspired, partly,
by the Zürich
photographer Karlheinz
Weinberger and
his photos of the
‘halbstarke’, of Swiss
years ago.
I think they’re
just extraordinary
pictures. you don’t
see people looking
like this anywhere
else. he went around
with them but he also
put up a little set
in his sitting room,
where they posed
for portraits. And
the pictures where
they are all, like,
hanging out and having
drinks...
pk:
Would you say it’s
fair to describe
your images as
Zürich-meets-hamburg
nineteen-sixty-two?
evu:
If you felt that,
it’s interesting!
But we also did the
mode of today. It’s
the inspiration of
yesterday but it’s
always... Well, you
know, you always get
inspired by something.
pk:
So, you’d say it’s a
homage to yesterday
but in a very modern
way. It’s today.
We didn’t try to
recreate the early
‘sixties. We just
recreated a vibe.
evu:
yeah. Exactly.
pk: Ellen von
unwerth, thank you.
on the Limmat, Zürich 1962 – BY kind permiSSion of the karLheinZ weinBerger eState
nutS’n’BoLtS, Zurich c.1962 – BY kind permiSSion of the karLheinZ weinBerger eState
78. There were other, unsung photographers out
there too, quietly documenting rebel youth,
like the late henry Grant, an unmarried bank
manager from London who hung around venues
frequented by British Leatherboys and rockers
creating a wonderful archive of black and
white and colour images of what these kids
really looked like when nobody else cared.
Like his contemporary Weinberger, Grant was
an amateur photographer and his work was
almost completely unknown before Johnny
Stuart published some of Grant’s images in
his 1986 book ‘rockers’.
Grant and Weinberger were amateur
photographers. however, Weinberger wasn’t a
bank manager. he was a Zürich warehouseman
who led a double life taking photographs
for the underground homosexual magazine
‘Der Kreise’. In the 1970s and 1980s, he
would emerge from the closet, unlike Grant,
whose preferences were obvious only to those
sensitive enough to know. Whereas Grant’s
images tended to show girls as passengers
and accessories, Weinberger treated them
equally, as the touching portraits shot on a
makeshift set in his apartment show.
Along with British and French rockers, German
and Swiss-German youth like the Zürich
‘halbstarke’ whom Weinberger befriended took
American denim and leather street style and
made it their own, in their own way, as
Weinberger’s photographs show. Some of his
‘halbstarke’ friends called their gang ‘The
Jets’ in a rather touching nod to the New
york gang ranged against the Puerto ricans
in the 1961 musical ‘West Side Story’. They
were nonetheless socially alienated kids
ton a passenger ferry might seem rather tame
but on a Swiss passenger ferry in the early
1960s? you don’t need me to tell you how
respectable Swiss people reacted. Just look at
Karlheinz Weinberger’s wonderful photograph
and the faces of the other passengers, trying
hard to pretend it isn’t happening.
Documenting rebellious youth and juvenile
delinquency through books, photographs and
novel ‘Brighton rock’, published by Graham
Greene in 1938, could be described as a
seminal work in this respect although earlier
writers like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain
should not be forgotten. James Farrell’s
American anti-hero Studs Lonigan presented
a stark insight into the realities of life
for teenagers in the poorer districts of
American cities in the 1920s and 1930s.
than documentary. If you want to see what
the boys who inspired Pinkie and Studs
looked like, study the police mugshots of
teenagers executed for murder in the 1930s
in Britain and the united States. Writers
like Greene and Farrell gave them voices,
for those who read the books, as did richard
of the sociopathic Pinky in 1947. Studs
Lonigan had to wait until 1960 but the Jay
Lerner’s adaptation is unremarkable apart
from an early Jack Nicholson performance as
Weary riley.
It was not until the aftermath of the Second
World War, in the 1950s, with fatherless
and orphaned children coming of age, that
photographers and other social documentarists
started focusing on the real thing. We touch
the surface when we look at Don McCullin’s
Teddy Boys and Ken russell’s Teddy Girls of
the 1950s and, across the Atlantic, Danny
Lyon’s outlaw bikers of the 1960s. McCullin
and Lyon now wishes he was as well known for
his other work. At least Lyon actually joined
the Outlaws MC whereas hunter S. Thompson
just hung around with the hells Angels, and
ended up getting a well-deserved beating.
trip oVer to St. peterSinSeL, Lake BieL, 1964 – BY kind permiSSion of the karLheinZ weinBerger eState
79. with darker pasts than the solid citizens
doggedly ignoring them in the ferry image.
The rock’n’roll thing was less shocking in
West Germany than in Switzerland. Germany had
been through the liberalism and libertinism
of the Weimar era, the year Zero effect
of the 1945 defeat and the renaissance of
by the united States. There was also an
anti-authoritarian reaction in West Germany
against the Nazi era and rehabilitation of
middle and low-ranking Nazis to run the NATO
buffer state known as the German Federal
republic. The 1970s would see this evolve
into the murderous violence of the red Army
Faction, alias the Baader-Meinhof Gang, but
in the late 1950s and early 1960s, cities
like hamburg and West Berlin nurtured a more
peaceful kind of youth revolution, along the
lines of their Swiss-German ‘halbstarke’
cousins.
For many British r’n’B bands, a season or two
in hamburg was an essential part of their
evolution, The Beatles being the most famous
case in point. hamburg took post-rockabilly
r’n’B musicians like The Beatles in and
turned them back out as Mods and Tony Boys,
the name given to those who dressed like
Italians with Tony Curtis quiffs. According
to legend, the quiffs were killed off after
Stuart Sutcliffe’s German girlfriend, artist-
cum-photographer Astrid Kirchherr washed the
Brylcreem out of his hair, dressed him in
a weird suit and gave him a pudding basin
haircut.
Some rockers kept the faith. Others grew
long hair and beards, like some of the boys
photographed by Weinberger, who later formed
a Swiss chapter of the hells Angels Motorcycle
Club. Like the British leatherboys, the
‘halbstarke’ style was in a league of its
own, as the photos kindly supplied by Bruce
hackney, co-editor of the 2011 book ‘rebel
youth’, remind us. Ellen von unwerth set out
to evoke the vibe that fascinated Karlheinz
Weinberger and that moment in time when the
1960s bade ‘abschiedgruß’ to the 1950s.
+henrY grant