Mods: The New Religion. 'The kids were alright' says Stuart McGurk in GQ Magazine

One of the defining subcultures of the 20th century, the mod movement had a soundtrack and look that provided style-conscious British men with a blueprint for living. But as Paul Anderson's new opus ‘Mods: The New Religion’ illustrates, it's the youth culture that's outlived every other to stay as relevant today as it was in the swinging Sixties

When was the last time you saw a teddy boy? Probably stumbling out of a snooker hall, drunk at 4pm, sideburns smelling of ash. He probably doesn't even realise he's dressed as a teddy boy; he just hasn't had a wardrobe refresh since 1952. Items are replaced only when others are shot-through, like infantrymen.

Or how about a punk? Sure, maybe a last holdout seen swaying in Camden, drinking to forget John Lydon's Country Life butter ads. Skinheads? Fair to say racism went out of fashion. New romantics? Forget about it.

Nu-ravers? They forgot about it. 

And yet the Mods, they remain. They thrive. And they remain stylish, because they always were. The mod style survives because it rarely stays the same. It's a feeling that binds it together

Take the leading men of the current mod movement. Each, in their own way, icons. Musician Miles Kane, actor Martin Freeman and Tour de France-winning cyclist Bradley Wiggins - not just men at the pinnacle of their professions but, crucially, men who are truly their own men. And, at 27, 42 and 33 respectively, they prove that "mod" was only temporarily a movement; it remains or, rather, has comfortably settled into itself as a lifestyle. Hell, we even have a mod MP, in the form of 63-year-old former Home Secretary Alan Johnson (called, predictably, the Modfather of Westminster). 

To understand what mod means now, you have to look at what it once meant, and this is where Paul Anderson's excellent oral history of Sixties mods - Mods: The New Religion - comes into its own.

Along with the obvious touchstones - that mods, for instance, came about via the new Italian-cut suits bought to England by Cecil Gee, all box-like jackets and narrow trousers, and a growing popularity in jazz clubs - Anderson also lets a cross-section of people from the era tell their own tales, from journalists to band members, to an African-American who happened to get caught in the scene, and then never left.

As Anderson writes, "The beatniks wanted to save the world, went on marches to ban the bomb, read poetry and preached from Ginsberg and Kerouac novels. The modernist wanted that smart mohair number from Ben Harris the tailor, those whip-cord slacks from Vince Man's Shop in Newburgh Street and a copy of Cannonball Adderley's ‘Somethin' Else’ album."

It was, finally, a movement that didn't want to do away with the idea of a gentleman or with tailoring - but embraced it. Made it their own. It was no longer a version of an elder generation's tailoring - as the teds had done with their pseudo-Edwardian throwback - but something truly their own.

It's why it's virtually the only "youth" trend that survives today. The cultural and historical reasons for it may have faded, but the styling remains.