8 pi Dick Hebdige "OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE" (19 88 )

One of the difficulties of sociological discourse lies in the fact that like all discourse, it unfolds in strictly linear fashion whereas, to escape over-simplification and one-sidedness one needs to be able to recall at every point the whole network of relationships found there.

-PIERRE BOURDIEU, LA DISTINCTION, I979

owhere do we encounter "networks of relationships" more famil­ Niar and "material" yet more elusive and contradictory than those in which material objects themselves are placed and have meaning(s). If linearity is an effect of all discourse then the world of things seems especially resistant to coherent exegesis. And one of the central para­ doxes facing those who write about product design must be that the more "material" the object-the more finite its historical and visual appearance-the more prodigious the things that can be said about it, the more varied the analyzes, descriptions and histories that can be brought to bear upon it. In a sense, each essay in Roland Barthes' Mythologies is an equation which depends for its impact on the initial recognition of this perverse formula and Barthes handles the paradox with a relish which alternates between the comic and the macabre ("What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the con­ dition of truth"'). In "The New Citroen," Barthes describes how the "tangible" is made to intersect with the "ethereal," the "material" with the "spiritual" through the convention of the annual motor show where the industry's new product is miraculously "unveiled" before the public. Be refers to the mystique of the object: the dual mystery of its appear­ ance-its magical lines, its "classical" body and the unanswerable riddle (unanswerable at least for Barthes, the aesthete) of how it came to be Illade in the first place-to religious myths and archetypes. Here a set of Contemporary wonders-the transubstantiation of labor power into thinp-" thp r1nmp'Otir-;Jtinn nf thf' "mirClrlr" in lISI':-is intimated by 118 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER T OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE IT ALlAN SCOOTER CYCLE 119 Barthes through the manipulation of a single pun: the Citroen DS J 9 been dubbed the "realist fallacy") is certainly avoided. But the "new" (short for "diffusion Special") is pronounced "Deesee" (Goddess) in position has its own attendant fantasies: when language becomes a mir­ French. ror for the narcissist, other illusions are, of course, possible. We could The essay is, then, a kind of trial by catachresis. It might be argued say that what is "misrecognised" in (this kind of) language is the depth that that is precisely Barthes' "method"; that Barthes would have been of perception (the depth of the reflection). To put it another way, what the first to insist on the validity of constructing an analysis on the is "misrecognised" is the illusory "materiality" of language itself. strength of a single word-on what it evokes and makes possible for For Barthes, the real can only be inserted into language as a "si­ the mythologist. Indeed, for Barthes it is only through"displacements" lence"-"a silence which belongs to fairy tales." But instead of the "si­ of this kind that writing is exalted into Literature: lence" of the object, we might like to stress its solidity, its materiality, ... for the text is the very outcropping of speech, and it is within speech the simple fact of its "being there." And it might be more accurate to that speech must be fought, led astray-not by the message of which it is say that the problem of representing the material world remains para­ the instrument, but by the play of words of which it is the theater ... The mount in Barthes and is depicted in that form-i.e., as the relationship forces of freedom which are in literature depend not on the writer's civil of speech to silence-because that problem is itself material: Barthes person, nor on his political commitment ... nor do they even depend on was, after all, a litterateur. Had he been an engineer or a traveling sales the doctrinal content of his work, but rather on the labor of displacement rep. who yearned to own a car capable of impressing potential clients he brings to bear upon the language ... 2 ("actualising (perhaps) ... the very essence of petit-bourgeois advance­ To be Barthesian, writing is the only practice in which the writer has a ment"6), then the "problem" would have been differently conceived and "presence" in which, about which he or she is qualified to speak: differently presented. And if he had shared the interest in mechanics and "progress" (mechanics as a metaphor for progress) which no doubt in­ The paradox is that the raw material, having become in some ways its formed the ecstatic response of many of the supplicants who filed past own end, literature is basically a tautological activity ... the ecrivain is the Citroen stand in 1955 and wanted, themselves, to possess the God­ one who absorbs the why of the world radically into a how to write ... ' dess, then, no doubt, we too would have been confronted with a dif­ And for Barthes, that writing which would claim to deal with represen­ ferent object, a different alienation. For, far from being silent, the tation, with myth and the "doxa" must satisfy certain conditions. It must number of voices which speak through and for "dumb things" are le­ be self-returning and sensitive to the plurality of verbal signs. It must he gion. The enigma of the object resides for us less in its "silence," its capable of "sarcasm." A pun is therefore valued insofar as it opens up imagined essence than in the babble which proliferates around it. and undermines the strictures of a "natural" (i.e., "bourgeois") speech. So Barthes renders the Citroen back into its "real" premythical compo­ nents. He recreates it using purely linguistic materials. Barthes' "New THREE" MOMENTS" Citroen" is powered on a figure of speech. Nonetheless the subversive The variability of significance rather than the persistence of qualities rationale of this replacement is not necessarily visible to everyone who should be at the forefront of analysis ... picks up a copy of Mythologies. Like the DS revolving slowly on its dais, - FRAN HANNAH AND TIM PUTNAM, the argument is simply "exhibited," turned by a mechanism which re­ TAKING STOCK IN DESIGN HISTORY, BLOCK 3 mains hidden from the wondering eyes of the reader (even, in all likeli­ hood, from the eyes of the reader who appreciates the pun): How then can we hope to provide a comprehensive and unified account of all the multiple values and meanings which accumulate around a It is obvious that the new Citroen has fallen from the sky inasmuch as it single object over time, the different symbolic and instrumental func­ appears at first sight as a superlative object. We must not forget that an tions it can serve for different groups of users separated by geographical, object is the best messenger of a world above that of nature: one can easily see in an object a perfection and an absence of origin, a closure and a temporal and cultural location? The problem Bourdieu outlines and brilliance-a transformation of life into matter ... and in a word a silence Barthes embodies in Mythologies has already been acknowledged: there which belongs to fairy tales. 4 is a tendency amongst those who aspire toward a "materialist" concep­ tion of design to question the adequacy of the object as the basic unit If writing is regarded as a "narcissistic activity'" as Barthes would have of analysis and to substitute instead design practice as a more satisfac­ it, then the gross illusion that language is transparent (what has recently tory point of entry. But this shift in emphasis and the quest for episte­ OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 121 120 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER 1F mological rigour which motivates it carries its own price. For in the case into account the kinds of significance generated as the object passes of design history, there can be no subject without objects. All design through a maze of independent but interlocking frames-drawing back practice has as its ultimate ideal and actual destination a tangible result, at every point to consider the structures in which each individual frame a real set of objects. Indeed, in design the thing itself is the ideal. is housed. How then is it possible to talk simultaneously about objects and the We could trace the passage of the Citroen, then, from its inception/ practices which shape them, determine or delimit their uses, their mean­ conception through the various preparatory stages: market research, ings and their values without losing sight of the larger networks of re­ motivational research, design-engineering, styling (division of labor lationships into which those objects and practices are inserted? The task within the design team; relationship of team to management infrastruc­ becomes still more daunting if we acknowledge first that there can be ture), modifications in conception at design stages, constraints of avail­ no absolute symmetry between the "moments" of design/production and able technological resources on DS design, adaptation of existing consumption/use and, further, that advertising stands between these two Citroen plant to accommodate the new product, production of proto­ instances-a separate moment of mediation: marketing, promotion, the types and models; production (labor relations, labor processes), exhi­ construction of images and markets, the conditioning of public response. bitions and launch of new product, press conferences, press releases and It is tempting when writing about design either to run these three mo­ handouts, reviews in trade press, advertising campaign (target group), ments together or to give undue prominence to one of them so that distribution of finished product: retail arrangements, distribution of for­ production, mediation or consumption becomes the "determining in­ eign licences, provision of servicing facilities, price, sales figures (con­ stance" which dictates the meaning of the object in every other context. sumer profile of target group), formation and composition of the In either case, the result is more or less the same-a delicately Citroen user groups, etc., etc. Finally we would have to place the DS (un)balanced sequence of relationships is reduced to a brutal set of aph­ alongside other cars available in 1955 in order to assess its difference orisms, e.g., masses consume what is produced in mass (where produc­ from equivalent products-the extent of its stylistic and technical "ad­ tion is regarded as determining); desire is a function of the advertising vances" or departures, its potential for "prestige," etc. image (where mediation is regarded as the determining instance); people The "cultural significance" of the Citroen DS 19 might be defined as remain human and "authentic," untouched by the appeal of either im­ ti.e sum total of all the choices and fixings made at each stage in the ages or objects (where consumption or the refusal of consumption is passage of the object from conception, production and mediation to seen as determining). Clearly none of these models is sufficient in itself mass-circulation, sale and use. Nor do the connotations accumulate in though each may seem appropriate in particular circumstances when an orderly progression from factory to consumer. In the production of applied to particular objects. It would be preferable to find a way of significance, time is reversible and each stage in the sequence holding all three instances together so that we can consider the trans­ (production-mediation-consumption) can predominate at different times formations effected on the object as it passes between them. But we are in determining meaning. still left with the problem of constructing a language in which that pas­ For instance, to take a more topical example, the meaning of the Mini sage can be adequately represented. Metro is overdetermined by the uncertainty surrounding its production If we abandon those solutions to the problem which limit the pro­ and the reputation for "bloodymindedness" of the British Leyland duction of significance to the immanent logic of the object itself-as an workforce-a reputation constructed through Press and television cov­ internal organisation of elements or as a latent essence-if, in other erage of industrial disputes. This in turn enables the Metro to function words, we abandon the formalist option and if we also discard the no contradictorily in the news media both as a symbol of "Britain's hope" less abstract language of pure function: "uses," "gratification" and so and as a symptom of the "British disease" (where production hold-ups on, then the criteria for excluding and organising information become and technical faults are cited as evidence of Britain's decline as an in­ increasingly uncertain. We are in a field without fences left with an dustrial power which, to complete the circle, is "explained" by reference intractable mass: "cultural significance." to the "problem" of the British workforce). The entire history of British To reconstruct the full "cultural significance" of the DS Citroen we Leyland labor relations is reified in the Mini Metro's public image. The would have to do more than merely "demystify" its reception in the advertisrng campaign mobilises that history (the memory of strikes hov­ marketplace at the point where, as Barthes would have it, the Goddess ers just behind the copy just as in the Hovis television ads the memory is "mediatised" from "the heaven of Metropolis" and brought within of the Depression looms out of the conjunction of sound and image­ the range of some people's pockets and everybody else's aspirations. If the melancholy strains of a northern brass band, the black and white we were to Drodll\.~ a ,nmnff'hpnl:ivp -:lwl1v~i~ 'UP nrr",lti h"H" t-n t-,,),p illla~f. of "nohle" cloth-carmed workers). The Mini Metro advertising 122 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER ,.,.­ OBJECT AS IMAGE: TIlE IT AllAN SCOOTER CYCLE 12 3 campaign overlays two forms of patriotic optimism-that Britain can of the motor scooter" in this way, some indication of the extent of the make it, that British Leyland can go on making it (and supplying the variability in its significance can be given as "echoes" and "rhymes" spares) across the more generalised faith in the future which purchasing build up within the text. The text itself is "variable" because there is no a new car normally implies. The potential purchaser is invited to make one "voice" speaking through it. The same or similar information may all three investments simultaneously-in the future of Britain, in the be relayed through a different "voice" in a different section, i.e., its future of British Leyland, and in his or her own personal future. And significance may vary according to its placement. In the same way, for newspaper reports make it clear that whenever a dispute threatens pro­ the same reason, any "echoes" which do accumulate cannot be closed duction of the Metro, then all three investments are endangered. In this off, summed up, reduced to a "silence" or amplified into a thunderous way every reader's stake (as a taxpayer) in the British Leyland Motor conclusion. Company is realized in the image of the Metro (the car for little people), What follows is premissed on the assumption-itself hardly novel­ in the image of the Metro in jeopardy and a number of parallel inter­ that the facts do not speak for themselves. They are already "spoken pellations become possible: "you" the readerltaxpayerlconsumer/car­ for" ... owneriBriton/patriot/non-striker. The place of the Mini Metro in the present scheme of things is thus defined by a double address in time­ THE SCOOTER AS SEXED OBJECT: EARLY DAYS back to British Leyland's past and forward toward a dream of trouble­ The first motor scooters were manufactured in Europe in the years im­ free consumption, a purified economy and a disciplined, docile working mediately after the First World War (though there are recorded exam­ class ... ples of machines called "scooters" being sold even earlier than this in That, of course, does not exhaust the "meaning" of the Mini Metro the United States). From the outset, the word "scooter" denoted a small, for all time or for all people. It is merely an attempt to isolate some of two-wheeled vehicle with a flat, open platform and an engine mounted the themes which already in 1981 have begun to congregate around over the rear wheel. The scooter was further characterised by its low what we might term the "official" fixing of the Mini Metro image-a engine capacity: the Autoglider (1921) had a two-and-a-half hp engine. fixing which brings us back to Barthes and myths and second-order Together these features distinguished the scooter from other categories significations. And the degree to which that reading of the Metro image of two-wheeled transport and marked it off especially from its more proves convincing and even intelligible depends on the reader's prior powerful, more "primitive" (i.e., of earlier origin, more "functional" knowledge of and place within a nexus of political issues and cultural and "aggressive") antecedent: the motor cycle. The demarcation be­ codes which are historically particular and lie quite outside the scope of tween motorcycle and motorscooter coincided with and reproduced the the list I compiled in relation to the 1955 Citroen. We come back, then, boundary between the masculine and the feminine. to the original problem: not one object but many objects at different The earliest scooters were designed to meet the imagined needs of the "moments" (the moments, for instance, of design, assembly and usc), female motor cyclist. For instance, it was possible for women to stand at different (real and mythical) times (in different conjunctures in rela­ while driving the Scootamotor (1920) thus preserving decorum and tion to imagined pasts and futures) seen from different perspectives for the line of their long skirts. (How could the designer have predicted the different purposes. How can all these different times, purposes and per­ flattening out of the female silhouette in the women's fashions of the spectives be reconciled so that they can be depicted? One solution might 1920S? How could he have foreseen the vogue for trousers, breeches be to turn from the object to the text in order to find a more fragmentary and strictly tailored suits which, as Lisa Tickner suggests, were to pro­ mode of representation in which the object can be brought back "into vide such provocative metaphors for the emancipation of women??) touch" with that larger, less tangible and less coherent "network of Long before the mass production of Italian Vespas and Lambrettas be­ relationships" which alone can give it order and significance ... gan to threaten the supremacy of the British motorcycle industry in the The rest of this paper consists of a "dossier" on one particular genre 1950S and 1960s, the scooter was interpreted as an alien intrusion-a of commodities: the Italian motor scooter. The sequence of the narrative threat to the masculine culture of the road. It was seen as an absurd corresponds loosely to the progression of the object from design/pro­ omen of a much more general process: the feminisation of the public duction through mediation into use though there is a good deal of cross­ domain (women over thirty were enfranchised in 1918 and one year referencing between different "moments." Theoretical models have been later the Sex Disqualification Removal Act was passed giving women introduced to frame the material and the narrative has been interrupted access to the professions). The machine's lowly status and its vulnera­ at certain points so that sections dealing with larger economic and social bility to ridicule were further reinforced by its visible resemblance to a developments can be inserted. It is QODed that ltv oresentinl! th~ "history child's tov scooter. The Zutoped, for instance, was modelled directly on 12 4 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER r OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE IT ALlAN SCOOTER CYCLE 12 5 the original toy. Despite modifications in design over the years, the over­ ical codes. The first marker of identity is sexual difference. The sexing all conception and placement of the scooter-its projected market, its of the object is the first move in its descent from "the heaven of Me­ general shape, its public image-remained fixed in the formula-motor tropolis" to its "proper" place in the existing (i.e. mortal and imperfect) cycles:scooters as men:women and children. order of things. In advanced industrial societies, the transposition of Scooters were permanently wedded to motorcyles in a relation of in­ gender characteristics onto inanimate objects is peculiarly marked. Typ­ feriority and dependence: ically the qualities and status ascribed to the gender of the "ideal" user are transferred onto the object itself. Paul Willis's study of a Birming­ The scooter is a device that we refuse to grace with the description of motorcycle and which, therefore, has no place in this work. ham motorcycle gang provides an interesting example of this kind of -RICHARD HOUGH, A HISTORY OF THE "anthropomorphisation": WORLD'S MOTORCYCLES, AUEN& UNWIN, I973 The motor cycle boys accepted the motor bike and allowed it to rever­ berate right through into the world of human concourse. The lack of the helmet allowed long hair to blow freely back in the wind, and this, with THE GENDER OF MACHINERY the studded and ornamented jackets, and the aggressive style of riding, The operative value of the system of naming and classifying commonly gave the motorbike boys a fearsome look which amplified the wildness, called the totemic drives derives from their formal character: they are noise, surprise and intimidation of the motorbike. The motorbikes them­ codes suitable for conveying messages which can be transposed into other selves were modified to accentuate these features. The high cartlehorn codes and for expressing messages received by means of different codes in handlebars, the chromium-plated mudguards gave the bikes an exagger­ terms of their own system ... totemism, or what is referred to as such, ated look of fierce power. 8 corresponds to certain modalities arbitrarily isolated from a formal system, This is merely an extreme localised instance of a much more widespread the function of which is to guarantee the controvertibility of ideas between assumption that equates motorcycles with masculinity, machismo with different levels of social reality ... what Barthes has called the "bestiary of power."9 Once it has been CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS, THE SAVAGE MIND sexed, the machine functions as a material sign of (realises) imagined If we start the scooter cycle by following the lead established in 19 62 gender differences: mechanical sexism. by Levi-Strauss we do not approach isolated phenomena as the imagi­ Advertisements adjudicate in the settling of gender differences. Some­ nary bearers of substance and meaning but are driven to focus instead times the object is split, janus-like, into its two opposed aspects: his and on how those phenomena are arranged conceptually and semantically; hers. His: functional, scientific, useful. Hers: decorative, aesthetic, grat­ on what signifying power they possess as elements or functions within ifying. The distinction corresponds to the separation of design functions: codes which are themselves organised into symbolic systems. For the his/engineering; hers/styling. Relations of dominance/subordination structuralist, inscribed in the sexual division of labor are transposed so that engi­ neering is perceived as superordinate and necessary (masculine/produc­ the term totemism covers relations, posed ideologically between two series, tive), styling as secondary and gratuitous (feminine/non-productive). one natural the other cultural . .. [where] the natural series comprises on These transpositions can color critical perception of the broadest so­ the one hand categories, on the other particulars; the cultural series com­ prises groups and persons. cial and economic developments. For instance, the transition from a production (puritan) economy to a consumer (pagan) one is often con­ LEVI-STRAUSS, TOTEMISM (T962) densed in books on economic history into a single image: the image of In "primitive" SOCIetIes, elements from the natural world-flora and General Motors' growing ascendancy from the mid-1920S onwards over fauna-are made to perform these totemic functions. Through the prin­ the Ford Motor Company. The success of General Motors is represented ciples of metaphor and metonymy, they guarantee the controvertibility as the triumph of sophisticated marketing strategies (obsolescence of of formal codes into moral, aesthetic and ideological categories. Ma­ desirability-the annual model; massive advertising; "consumer financ­ chines on the other hand, are for Roland Barthes "superlative object(s)" ing" [the "trade in," hire purchase]; exotic styling) over Ford's more invested with a super-natural aura ("We must not forget that an object sober approach ("honest" competition in terms of quality and price). is the best messenger of a world above that of nature ..."). They are Styling is seen as the key to the popularity of General Motors' products: brought down to earth ("mediatised") by being made to function as Whereas Ford's Model T design remained virtually the same for decades differential elements-as markers of identity and difference-organised ~Ut became relatively cheaper to purchase and produce, G.M. designers into meaningful relations throup;h their location within cultural/ideoloW Introqur,;ed ostentatious styling features to distinguish between markets 126 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER OBJECT AS IMACE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 12 7 on status grounds. The development of the modern advertising industry stalled in universities as a scientific discipline (and seems relatively pro­ is frequently associated either with the increased spending power of the tected from the cuts?); fashion/fashion history is doubly subordinate­ female consumer or with the growing influence which women are felt Tit is only an "applied art"-and is eminently dispensable. to exert over household expenditure. Vance Packard, writing in the late The patriarchal inflection cuts across the entire field of academic dis­ 195as, quotes the chairman of Allied Stores Corporation to "illustrate" course. It is this implicit bias which, at a deep level, orders the marxian women's progressive colonisation of the consumption sphere: distinction between "phenomenal forms" and "real relations." It is no coincidence that Althusser, in his parody of "vulgar marxism," should It is our job to make women unhappy with what they have. We must refer to the "economic base" as "His Imperial Majesty": make them so unhappy that their husbands can find no happiness or peace

in their excessive savings ... <0 ... when the Time comes, (the superstructures) as his pure phenomena ... scatter before His Majesty the Economy as he strides along the royal The "spread of consumerism" is understood by reference to woman's road of the Dialectic ... 13 essential gullibility and improvidence. Packard's triple invective against The Wastemakers (I960)-the Detroit motor industry; The Status­ Hairdrier: motorcyclists' slang for an Italian scooter Seekers (I959)-the new breed of consumer; and The Hidden Persuad­ THE 1946 VESPA ers (1957)-saturation and "subliminal" advertising-is carried along on a series of analogies between the decline of the "real" solid/mascu­ Scooter line!functional aspects of American industrial design which symbolise A machine of less than 250CC engine capacity with body work giving con­ siderable weather protection and having a smart, clean appearance. the pioneer spirit, and the complementary rise of the "fantastic"!femi­ J. SIMMONDS: DESIGN NO 94.,1957 nine/decorative elements which symbolise consumer decadence. The fact that terms taken from women's fashion are beginning to infiltrate the In 1946 and 1947, two new Italian scooters appeared which eclipsed all language of automobile design is cited as evidence of a more general previous models in terms of sales and served to fix the design concept decline in standards: a car parts dealer from Illinois is quoted as de­ of the contemporary scooter-the Vespa (Wasp) appeared first and was scribing a car as a "woman's fashion item" and Packard claims that in designed by Corriando D'Ascanio for Piaggio, formerly Piaggio Air, the professional design argot, product styling is now referred to as the "mil­ company which during the War had produced Italy's only heavy linery aspect" and designing a new car shell is called "putting a dress bomber, the PIOS B. (It was not particularly successful. Mussolini's son,

on a model." I I The sinister nature of these developments is inferred Bruno, was killed piloting an early test flight.) through the connection between General Motors' success and the in­ In 1943, the works at Pontedera were completely destroyed by Allied vestment in styling which is itself indicative of the "feminisation" or bombing and a new factory was built with facilities geared towards "emasculation" of American society. Throughout the book, indeed peace-time production. (Piaggio later diversified into machine tools.) throughout much of the critical writing on product design produced in The scooter was originally conceived as a small-scale project which was the I950S, a certain type of car, a certain type of styling functions to­ intended to make maximum usage of available plant, materials and de­ temically to duplicate category distinctions which are collectively pred­ sign expertise and to fill a gap in the market, supplying the demand on icated on the denial or dismissal of the "female" and the "feminine." the part of consumers deprived during the War years of visually attrac­ Misogynist values are thus relayed mechanically through the medium of tive, inexpensive luxury goods, for a cheap, stylish form of transport objects and attitudes towards objects. The marking out of sexual dif­ capable of negotiating Italy's war-damaged roads. ference moves along a chain which is constantly slipping: man/woman: D'Ascanio, who had previously specialised in helicopter design, in­ work/pleasure: production/consumption: function!form, for example: corporated airplane motifs into the original Vespa. The air-cooled en­ gine and stressed skin framework were commonplace enough in aircraft ... women have escaped the sphere of production only to be absorbed the design but their application to two-wheeled transport was regarded as more entirely by the sphere of consumption, to be captivated by the im­ a major innovation. Equally novel was the idea of mounting the wheels mediacy of the commodity world no less than men are transfixed by the On stub-axles rather than between forks. This made them easier to de­ immediacy of profit ... 12 tach-and thus easier to repair-than motorcycle wheels. D'Ascanio This characterisation of the "masculine" and "feminine" domains and Was said to have adapted the idea from the mountings used on airplane the priorities it encapsulates have been institutionalised in education in landing gear though stub-axles were, of course, a standard feature of the distinction between "hard" and "soft" subjects: engineering is in- Car design. But the spot-welded, sheet-metal frame represented the most 128 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER OBJECT AS IMACE: THE IT AllAN SCOOTER CYCLE T29 noticeable departure from the conventional idea of the motorcycle. The made possible through the phenomenal sales (by 1960, 1,000,000 Ves­ two-stroke engine was concealed behind removable metal cowlings and pas had been sold, and after a slack period in the late 1960s, the oil the platform frame, which was attached to the central spine, extended crisis led to a market revival and in 198o Piaggio were reported to be upwards almost to the handlebars, providing foot support and protec­ producing 450,000 scooters a year [see Guardian, 21 February, 1981J). tion from the weather. Speed was hardly a consideration: the 98cc en­ Domination of the market led to domination of the image: the field was gine (subsequently 130cc) had a top speed of only 35mph but the low secured so effectively that by the mid-1960s the words "Vespa" and fuel consumption (approximately I2ompg) and the ease with which the "scooter" were interchangeable in some European languages. (Traffic gear and clutch controls could be mastered, acted as compensatory in­ signs in Paris still stipulate the times when "Vespas" can be parked.) centives. (D'Ascanio had substituted handlebar controls for the foot pedals favored by the motorcycle industry.) The two-stroke engine THE 1947 LAMBRETTA which was mounted over the rear wheel was chosen for its simplicity In design history, the monopoly exerted by the Vespa design over defi­ and, without complicated valve gear or pump lubrication, driving was nitions of the scooter has tended to obscure the fact that Piaggio were reduced to a basic set of operations which could be assimilated quickly not the only engineering company in Italy to recognise the emergence even by people with no prior motorcycling experience. of the new "mood" and market. When the Vespa was entered for the The design, then, made concessions to the rider's comfort, conve­ 1946 Milan show, it appeared alongside a range of new lightweight nience and vanity (the enveloping of machine parts meant that the scoot­ motorcycles and mopeds and no fewer than seventeen auxiliary motors erist was not obliged to wear specialist protective clothing). In addition, for powering pedal-cycles (see Hough, The History ofthe Motor Cycle). the Vespa made a considerable visual impact. It was streamlined and Moreover, the car industry was just as concerned to make inroads into self-consciously "contemporary." There was a formal harmony and a the revitalised working-class and teenaged markets. By 1953, the Vespa fluency of line which was completely alien to the rugged functionalism was competing against a peculiarly Continental hybrid: the Isetta three­ of traditional motorcycle designs. wheeler, the first of the "bubble cars." D'Ascanio was, then, merely the The Vespa was launched at the 1946 Turin show and was an im­ victor in the race to find a metaphor for the ricostruzione, to develop a mediate commercial success though reactions in the motorcycle trade "popular" commodity capable of translating the more inchoate desire were varied. While the novel styling was on the whole regarded favor­ for mobility and change-a desire associated with the re-establishment ably, at least in design circles, attention was drawn to basic engineering of parliamentary democracy and given a material boost in the form of faults (the suspension was considered too "soft" and the sparking was Marshall Aid-into a single object, a single image. sometimes erratic), and the scooter was criticised on the grounds of In 1947, another scooter appeared which in its basic concept, scale general safety (it was unstable at speed, and the eight-inch wheels were and price, bore a close resemblance to the Piaggio prototype-the Lam­ considered too small to give adequate road grip, especially in wet or bretta produced by Innocenti of Milan. For almost twenty-five years, slippery conditions). Piaggio, for their part, argued that these criteria until Innocenti's scooter section was bought outright by the Indian Gov­ were simply not appropriate: the machine was designed as a small, "gad­ ernment in the early 1970s, the Lambretta range offered the most serious about" vehicle suitable for travelling short distances at low speeds. In threat to Piaggio's lead in terms of international sales and trade recog­ other words, the Vespa was to be presented to the public not as a poor nition. By 1950, Piaggio and Innocenti had between them opened up a relation of the motorcycle but as the principal term in a new transport completely new market for cheap motorised transport. Early advertising category, as a machine in its own right with its own singular qualities, campaigns were directed at two emergent consumer groups-teenagers its own attractions and its own public. and women-neither of which had been considered worthwhile targets D'Ascanio's Vespa established the pattern for all subsequent scooter for this class of goods before the War. A new machine had been created designs and its general shape changed little over the years (the headlamp and inscribed in its design was another new "invention": the ideal scoot­ was later moved from the mudguard to the handlebars but this was the erist-young, socially mobile, conscious of his or her appearance. The only major styling alteration). It combined three innovations-the stub­ SCOoter was defined by one sympathetic journalist as "a comfortable, axles, open frame, and enclosed engine-which were reproduced over nicely designed little vehicle for people who do not care too much about the next twenty years by manufacturers in France, Germany and Britain the mechanical side of things.'" 5 so that, by 1966, one journalist could state authoritatively that "there As the two companies competed for the same markets, the design of is hardly a SCooter built today which does not incorporate two out of Lambretta and Vespa scooters drew closer together until, by the late these three distinctive features." 14 This fixing; of the design concept waS 1960s, they were, in styling; if not in performance and engineering detail, 13 0 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER ~ . . OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIA.N SCOO~ER CYCLE T 31 virtually identical. However, there were marked differences between the . Piatt! deSIgned a scooter for Cyclemaster m the mId-1950S). The extent Lambretta model A and the D'Ascanio Vespa. Once again, the Lam­ to which Continental scooters had penetrated the international motor­ bretta design was a feat of bricolage-the material resources: expertise, cycle market was to lead (for a brief period) to an inversion of the plant and production processes-of the two component firms (Innocenti traditional hierarchy. Motorcycle designers began adopting the "effem­ SpA which specialised in steel tube manufacture had amalgamated after inate" practice of enclosing the machine parts. With the Ariel Leader the War with the Trussi coachbuilding concern) were adapted and di­ the engine at last slipped out of sight ... verted into scooter production. The model A chassis was based on a double steel tube structure (similar to the one used on the earlier British THE PRODUCTION OF CONSUMERS Corgi); the front wheel was carried on a fork, the rear wheel on a stub­ This convergence of form in the designs for machines in related cate­ axle and, as with the Vespa, there was a footboard for the rider. But gories is not in itself remarkable. After all, design innovations are meant the Lambretta differed from the Vespa in that it had a larger (U5cc) to set trends. However, the encasement of mechanical parts in metal or engine and a pillion seat for passengers; on the model A there were plastic "envelopes"-a development associated historically with the footpedal changes for the gears and the clutch, the legshields were emergence of streamlining-signalled more than just a change in the shorter and narrower and, most significantly, at least most conspicu­ look of things. It marked a general shift in production processes, in the ously, the engines of the early models were open. Though for safety scale and rate of capital accumulation, in the relationship between com­ reasons, the gear and clutch controls were subsequently transferred to modity production and the market. The drift towards a more systematic the handlebars, the Lambretta engine remained fully exposed until 1951 "packaging" of objects, itself linked to the growth of the consultancies, when the C and CL models were introduced. On the C model, the dou­ coincided with a much broader development-the rise of the giant cor­ ble tube chassis was replaced by a single tube frame and the prospective porations-the modern conglomerates and multi-nationals with the con­ buyer was confronted with a choice between two different machines: centration of power and resources into larger and larger units, a the "dressed" (CL) or the "undressed" (C) scooter. Demand for the movement which in turn had required a fundamental reorganisation of "dressed" model (which also offered superior weather protection with social and cultural life: the translation of masses into markets. broader, higher legshields based on the D'Ascanio design) was so great The economist Paul Sweezey has outlined some of the changes asso­ that Innocenti were soon forced to withdraw open Lambrettas from ciated with the development of monopoly capitalism in the post-War production. Inevitably, the addition of the sleek, protective side panels period: the automation of the work process; increased specialisation and drew the Lambretta closer to its rival. A pattern of parallel growth diversification (spreading of risk over a wider product range); expansion emerged: the production of a new model by Innocenti would force a of the white-collar sector; control of distribution networks; market shar­ similar design response from Piaggio and vice versa. By 1953, both com­ ing between corporations; price fixing (the self-imposed limitation of panies were offering 125 and 150CC models. During the mid- and late­ growth in productive capacity to keep prices pegged at an "acceptable" 1950s, two factors: the demand for sturdier, high performance scooters level); imperialism (exploitation of Third World resources, domination suitable for long-distance touring and the appearance of powerful of Third World markets); the displacement of competition from the field German machines-the Heinkel, the Bella, the TWN Contessa-Ied to of price to the field of sales promotion; increased expenditure on re­ adjustments in the engine and wheel sizes of both Vespa and Lambretta search, design and "market preparation." All these developments were models: Piaggio introduced the four-speed GS (Gran Sport) and SS (Su­ motivated by need: "the profound need of the modern corporation to per Sport), Innocenti countered with the Lambretta 175cC TV series. dominate and control all the conditions and variables which affect its But throughout, the basic scooter "silhouette" remained more or less Viability." 16 unchanged: the word "scooter" became synonymous with a streamlined It is in this context that the massive expansion of the advertising and shape and legshields. By the end of the 195os, most of the successful marketing industries during the period can be most clearly understood. designs for scooters in the popular 125-1 50CC ranges-the Italian Iso Given the huge costs involved in producing a new line of goods, if crip­ Milano, the French Moby, the German NSU Prima-made clear visual pling losses were to be avoided, the consumer had to be as carefully references to the Piaggio original. When British motorcycle manufac­ primed as the materials used in the manufacturing process. The expe­ turers finally, and with considerable reluctance (see section entitled "The dient was, on the face of it, quite simple: the element of risk was to be Reception in Britain"), capitulated to local demand and began produc­ eliminated through the preparation and control of the market. It was ing their own (resolutely unsuccessful) scooters, they tended to turn to not just the careful monitoring of current market trends that could help Italian models, even, occasionally, to Italian designers (e.g' Vincent 1 to guarantee profits. What was required was a more structured super­ OBJECT AS IMACE: THE IT AllAN SCOOTER CYCLE 133 13 2 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER VISIon of consumer demands according to the principles of what was graphic design into a close proximity and this tendency to merge design i,t functions became even more pronounced as multidisciplinary ap­ later called "want formation." '7 In other words, corporate viability was seen to rely increasingly upon the regulation of desire. proaches-ergonomics and "management science"-emerged to dis­ It was during this period that design became consolidated as a "sci­ place the notion of designer "intuition" (see The Practical Idealists, entific" practice with its own distinctive functions and objectives. From J. P. A. Blake, Lund Humphries, 1969). By the end of the 1950S, the now on, the shape and look of things were to play an important part language of contemporary design, peppered with analogies from cyber­ in aligning two potentially divergent interests: production for profit, and netics and systems theory, was beginning to reflect the preoccupations consumption for pleasure. The investment on a previously unimagined with teamwork, integration and total planning which were to provide scale in the visual aspects of design from the 1930S onward indicated a the dominant themes of the 1960s design boom. The dream of achieving new set of priorities on the part of manufacturers and marked another a perfect symmetry between collective desires and corporate designs stage in a more general (and more gradual) process: the intercession of seemed at last on the point of fruition. An exaggerated formalism took the image between the consumer and the act of consumption. root. The object itself would mediate between the needs of capital and These developments were, of course, already well advanced by the the will of the masses: the consumer would be made over in the image time Piaggio's Vespa appeared on the scene. In America there was a of the object. In an article called "The Persuasive Image," which ap­ thriving, highly-organised advertising industry by the mid- I 9 20S and peared in Design magazine in 1960, Richard Hamilton wrote: advertising personnel were already formulating policy on the basis of ... the media ... the publicists who not only understand public motiva­ sociological and psychological research (according to Stuart Ewen, the tions but who playa large part in directing the public response to imagery work of the early symbolic interactionists which placed the emphasis ... should be the designer's closest allies, perhaps more important in the squarely on the social construction of personal identity was particularly team than researchers or sales managers. Ad man, copy writer and feature 'S influential ). The elaborate cynicism and self-consciously shark-like im­ editor need to be working together with the designer at the initiation of a age of the post-War advertising executive were already fully in evidence programme instead of as a separated group with the task of finding the by the end of the decade. The following passage appeared in 1930 in market for a completed product. The time lag can be used to design a Printer's Ink, the advertising trade journal: consumer to the product and he can be "manufactured" during the pro­ duction span. Then producers should not feel inhibited, need not be dis­ i ... advertising helps to keep the masses dissatisfied with their mode of turbed by doubts about the reception their products may have by an life, discontented with the ugly things around them. Satisfied customers audience they do not trust, the consumer can come from the same drawing are not as profitable as discontented ones.'9 board ... 2' And by 1958, the equivalence between the amounts of money spent on the construction of products and the production of consumers had be­ MEDIATION come so systematised that J. K. Galbraith could present it to his readers as an economic law: Both Innocenti and Piaggio invested in aggressive advertising campaigns supervised by their own publicity departments. By the early 1950s, both A broad empirical relationship exists between what is spent on the pro­ companies were publishing their own magazines (in three or four Eu­ duction of consumer goods and what is spent in synthesizing the desires ropean languages) and had formed their own scooter clubs with massive for that production. The path for an expansion of output must be paved national, later international memberships. Through these clubs they or­ 20 by a suitable expansion in advertising budget. ganised mass rallies and festivals. They mounted exhibitions, sponsored With the pressure on designers to provide "product identity" and "cor­ (sometimes in conjunction with Via Secura, the Italian Road Safety Or­ porate image," a further refinement became possible: a single commod­ ganisation) tours, trials, races, hill climbs, competitions. Against those ity could be used to promote a range of visually compatible objectS interests which sought to discredit the scooter's performance, Innocenti produced by different divisions of the same corporation. An Olivetti and Piaggio set out to display its versatility and range, its resilience, its typewriter or an IBM computer was an advertisement for itself and the androgynous qualities ("feminine" and sleek but also able to climb company which produced it. The form functioned tautologically: it waS mountains, cross continents ... ) a trademark in three dimensions. It "looked its best" in a "totally de­ More than this, by controlling the structures within which the scooter signed environment." Was to be perceived and used, they were attempting to penetrate the Developments such as these brought the practical aims of product and realm of the "popular." The duty of manufacturers to the market was 134 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER r OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 135 to extend far beyond the mere maintenance of production standards, "sports car on two wheels" and a variety of accessories-windscreens, the meeting of delivery dates. Now they were to preside over the crea­ panniers, bumpers, clocks, even radios and glove compartments were tion of new forms of social identity, and leisure, a new consumer rela­ available to lend substance to the luxurious image. Innocenti's promo­ tion to the "look of things." The tests and trials, the spectacles, displays tion policies tended to center directly on the notion of convenience: an and exhibitions, the social clubs and magazines were part of a more international network of service stations manned by trained mechanics general will-linked, as we have seen, to the expansion of productive was set up to cater for the needs of a new class of scooterists who were forces-to superimpose the image of the factory on the world. presumed to have little interest in even the most routine maintenance The four sections which follow deal with public representations of the (though the stereotype of the "effeminate," "impractical" scooterist was scooter. Most of the detail is drawn from material put out by Innocenti resisted by the scooter clubs, which encouraged their members to ac­ during the 1950S and 1960s-promotional films, advertisements, copies quire rudimentary mechanical skills, to carry tool boxes, etc.). The con­ of Lambretta Notizario, etc. This simply reflects the availability of cept of "trouble free scootering" was taken even further in Spain. At sources-Piaggio's campaigns were no less intensive and incorporated the height of the Continental touring craze in the late I 9 50S, Innocenti similar themes. introduced a special mobile rescue unit called the Blue Angels to cope The way in which the material itself has been organised is not en­ with Lambretta breakdowns and consumer complaints. tirely arbitrary: the narrative is ordered according to the dictates of an All these support structures can be regarded as extensions of the orig­ economic principle: the circulation of the Image precedes the selling inal design project: to produce a new category of machines, a new type of the Thing. Before looking at what the scooter came to mean in of consumer. The provision of a comprehensive after-sales service can use, it is necessary to consider how it was made to appear before the be referred back ultimately to the one basic element which distinguished market ... the D'Ascanio Vespa from its competitors-the disappearance of the engine behind a sleek metal cowling. The sheathing of machine parts THE DEMATERIALISATION OF THE OBJECT placed the user in a new relation to the object-one which was more The Age of the Product ended after World War 2 with industrial design's remote and less physical-a relationship of ease. As such it formed part search to disperse, miniaturise and dematerialise consumer goods. of what Barthes described in 1957 as the general "sublimation of the ANN FEREBEE, A HISTORY OF DESIGN FROM THE VICTORIAN ERA, 1970 utensil which we also find in the design of contemporary household equipment"24 - a sublimation effected through the enveloping skin Innocenti's decision to launch the ("dressed") CL and ("undressed") c: which served to accentuate the boundary between the human and the Lambrettas simultaneously in 195 I determined once and for all the di­ technical, the aesthetic and the practical, between knowledge and use. rection in which consumer preferences were moving in the transport The metal skin or clothing added another relay to the circuit linking field. It amounted to an unofficial referendum on the issues of styling images to objects. It was another step toward an ideal prospect-the and taste and the results were unequivocal: the scooter-buying public dematerialisation of the object; the conversion of consumption into life voted overwhelmingly for convenience, looks, an enclosed engine. The style. success of the CL merely confirmed the growing trend in product design The following description of an advertisement incorporates many of toward "sheathing"-defined by one design historian as the encasement the themes explored in the last two sections: of "complex electronic parts in boxes that are as unobtrusive and easy A machine, suspended on a circle of glass, is seen through a shop to operate as possible." 2L window. The voyeuristic relation is now a familiar one, familiar through All these themes were foregrounded in the advertising campaigns and the investment made by commerce in the Image, through the reiteration marketing strategies employed by Innocenti and Piaggio. Scooters were in similar advertisements of the same visual structure. (This is an early presented to the public as clean, "social appliances"2 3 which imposed example of the genre. It is almost quaint. Almost innocent. The con­ few constraints on the rider. Design features were cited to reinforce these ventions have yet to be refined, obscured.) We look at them looking. claims: the panels enclosing scooter engines were easy to remove and We circle around from "her" to "him" to "her," from the "girl" to the the engines themselves were spread out horizontally to facilitate cleaning "boy" to the "mother" (that, surely, is implied). We have all come by and the replacement of spares. The stub-axles made it simpler to remove now to recognise the indirect address: desire by proxy. We are all now the wheels, and by the 1960s most scooters were designed to accom­ visionary consumers. Placed through the geometry of looks in a precise modate a spare. Elegance and comfort were selected as particularly relation to the dream machine-a revelation in mechanical parts, we strong selling points: the Lambretta was marketed in Britain as the gaZe with them from "outside" at "her," the object of desire-the 136 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER ....,.., OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 137 scooter/girl poised on their adjacent pedestals. The girl's posture is clas­ tical and above all else-elegant."). A series of advertisements in the sical. It is Diana, naked, surprised in the wood: the heel slightly lifted, same magazine showed young women seated on scooters in a variety of the mouth slightly open (provocative, ashamed). The model is "un­ contexts: the captions ran "On a Pic-nic," "Shopping," "In the Coun­ dressed." But a pane of glass intercedes between "her" and the boy. Its try," "By the Sea," "In the Busy City," etc. A reciprocal effect is function is to mediate. This, at least, is made perfectly clear because the achieved through the elision scooter/girl: the scooter's versatility is used cleaning fluid masks it, makes it visible, opaque. The boy's hands, to advertise the freedom enjoyed by "modern" young Italian women pressed against the glass, mark it as a barrier. Our glance is directed and vice versa (i.e., look at all the places "she" can visit, all the things around a circle of glass, through the girl, through the glass, through the "she" can do). These two creations-the new Italian woman (an image boy and his "mother," through a reflection of a scooter on a circle of fixed and disseminated internationally by the post-War Italian film in­ glass. All looks are turned at last towards the center of the image where dustry through stars like Anna Magnani, Silvano Mangano and Sophia the engine stands exposed-a still point at the centre of reflection. This Loren) and the new Italian scooter are run together completely in an is the place where we can all meet-"her" and "her" and "him" and article which appeared in the British weekly magazine Picture Post en­ "her" and you and I-the place where we can come into contact at a titled "A New Race of Girls" (5 September, 1954). The two inven­ distance. A place where we can find contentment (where we can find tions-"untamed, unmanicured, proud, passionate, bitter Italian the "content" of the "message"). The transference from "her" to "her," beauties" and the "clean, sporting Vespa scooter"-are together alleged from the object-girl to the fetishised object-has taken place. At last­ to have "given Italians the same sort of 'lift' that the creation of the the object that was lost is found ... Comet gave the British." The article is illustrated by a photograph of The mechanism which motivates our gaze is as naked as the machine Gina Lollabrigida on a Vespa. which motivates the ad. The devices are laid bare: the caption reads: "A The scooter is singled out (along with "beauty competitions and world of dreams is revealed in the shop-window." A historical transition films") as a catalyst in the "emancipation" of the new Italian woman is arrested in the composition of a single image: the dematerialisation ("the motor scooter gave her new horizons" .. , ). And it is held directly of the object, the emergence of what Henri Lefebvre has called the "Dis­ responsible for successive changes in Italian women's fashion since the play Myth": War:

Consuming of displays, displays of consuming, consuming of displays of The pocket handkerchief fashion which swept the women's world in 1949 consuming, consuming of signs, signs of consuming....25 was devised to keep a pillion girl's hair tidy at speed. The following winter, the headkerchief was developed by the Florentine designer, Emilio Pucci, FASHION AND THE FEMININE into a woollen headscarf, Next year, the blown hair problem was solved by the urchin cut. The narrowing of the new look skirt was dictated in Sound: "The air hostess can become the pilot herself ..." order to prevent it getting tangled up with the wheels, The slipper shoe image: air hostess sprints across runway from plane to Lambretta; was created for footplate comfort. The turtle neck sweater and the neck­ sound: " ... and there's plenty of room on that pillion for a friend!" erchief were designed against drafts down the neck ... 27 image: man in pilot's uniform leaps on behind her SEQUENCE FROM TRAVEL FAR, TRAVEL WIDE, PROMOTIONAL FlU,!, The final sentence reads: INNOCENTI FOR G.B., 1954 By such means as this was the Italian girl's appearance transformed, and When Innocenti first began exporting Lambrettas to New York in the her emancipation consummated. early 1960s (a time when, according to Vance Packard, the New York cognoscenti were turning from Detroit to Europe for their cars seeking TOURISM AND THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT that "Continental, squared off boxy 100k"26) scooters were displayed (and sometimes sold) not in car or motorcycle showrooms but in exclu­ The entire world becomes a setting for the fulfillment of publicity's prom­ ise of the good life. The world smiles at us. It offers itself to us. And sive "ladies" fashion shops. They were thought to be a good thing to because everywhere is imagined as offering itself to us, everywhere is more dress a window with, regarded less as a means of transport than as chic or less the same. metal accessories, as jewellry on wheels. ]OHNBERGER, WAYS OF SEEING, T972 Fashion items appeared regularly in issues of Lambretta Notizario (e.g., "one is all-too-frequently tormented by the sight of badly trousered By 1951, Vespas were being manufactured under licence in Germany, women on motor scooters rsicl ... Hats? Any hat-provided it is prac­ France and Britain. Innocenti had a factory at Serveta in Spain and the 13 8 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER r OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 139 motorcycle company NSU held the licence for Lambrettas in Germany A film produced for Innocenti in 1954 (Travel Far, Travel Wide) until 1955. As the domestic market reached saturation point (by 195 6 equates "freedom" with physical mobility, with the freedom to "go there were 600,000 two- and three-wheelers in Italy), Innocenti and where you please." Made against a background of sponsored global Piaggio directed their attention toward Europe and the Third World. marathons and long-distance rallies (one, organised by Innocenti in (Ironically enough, when Innocenti were forced to sell their scooter op­ 1962 went from Trieste to Istanbul), the film was designed to promote eration in 1972 [according to business history sources because of in­ the touring potential of the larger "sporting" scooters. The closing im­ dustrial disputes], it was taken over by Scooters India, a state-funded age shows a group of young scooterists approaching a frontier. The project based in Lucknow which still produces the "classic" Lambretta voice-over reads: models of the 1960s.) By 1977, Vespa were exporting 289,000 scooters a year to 110 countries. A frontier. And on the other side, a completely different way of life. But These new horizons were inevitably translated into advertising im­ whatever country you go to in the world today, you'll find Lambrettas agery. During the late 1950s, Innocenti ran a series of posters entitled and Lambretta service stations. "The Whole World in Lambretta," which showed scooters posed against Buddhist temples or busy London streets. The caption beneath This is the paradigm of tourism (everywhere is anywhere, everywhere is a photograph depicting a group of Ghanaian scooterists in "folk cos­ different) but here it is especially contradictory. On the one hand, the tume" invoked the then-fashionable notion of youth/style-as-a-universal: need for "national markets" and the impetus to travel demand that "Wearing a continental suit or a native dress does not change young national characteristics, "different ways of life" be accentuated. On the people's taste for scooters." It was through strategies such as these that other hand, trouble-free touring (complete with every modern conve­ Innocenti and Piaggio could appropriate new markets and convert them nience) and the construction of homogenous "modern" markets require into visual capital. One promotion ploy exemplifies the process clearly: the suppression of national differences and traditional cultures. "Youth" In 1962, Innocenti mounted a "world wide photographs" competi­ and "progress" mediate between these two demands: it is natural for tion. Entrants were instructed to submit "holiday style" snaps of Lam­ youth to be different, it is the destiny of science to generate change. The brettas in "representative" national settings: scooter serves as the material bridge between different generations, dif­ ferent cultures, different epochs, between contradictory desires. It is a For example: a street in Las Vegas with the signboards of the famous sign of progress. It is for the "young or young at heart." It is a passport gambling houses, a picture of a Lambretta amidst the intense traffic of a to the future. Freedom in space becomes freedom in time: "with a Lam­ street of a great metropolis like London, New York, Paris, etc., or against bretta you're part of the changing scene. "2H a background of forests, exotic countries, natives in their traditional cos­ tumes, wild animals, monuments, and antique vestiges [sic] etc. ... THE IMAGE OF THE FACTORY Other conditions were stipulated: the Lambrettas should dominate the The image of the Innocenti works in Milan appeared as a logo on many frame, be "well centreed ... if possible taken in close up." The "boys of the early Lambretta ads. The image of the factory itself is the final and girls" photographed on or directly adjacent to the scooter should mediation-the moment of production recalled at point of sale. The be "young and sports looking" (sic). All photographs and negatives were photograph, taken from an airplane, reduces an entire industrial com­ to be retained "in INNOCENTI files as documentation" and could be plex to the status of a diagram (the reduction is a display of power in used in any future "advertising exploit considered by INNOCENTI suit­ itself). We are left with an abstract "modern" pattern signifying pro­ able for its purposes." gress, technology, resources: an echo of the image of the scooter. The competition rules layout in a precise, accessible form, the criteria The idealisation of production and production processes and the re­ which shaped Innocenti advertising policy. The scooter was to be loosely lated image of the factory-as-microcosm are not of course confined to located within a range of connotations-youth, tourism, sport-which Innocenti's publicity campaigns. The same motifs can be found in the were so open-ended that they could be mobilised literally anywhere in tradition which led to the development of Italian corporatism under the world. In this way, it was possible to reconcile the different practical Mussolini and to the "progressivism" of Giovanni Agnelli, head of Fiat and symbolic functions which the scooter was likely to serve for differ­ during the period immediately after World War I. They lay behind Ad­ ent national markets. Ultimately Innocenti ads recognise only one col­ riano Olivetti's attempts to establish "factory communities" and worker lectivity: the "international brotherhood" of "boys and girls": they Welfare schemes after World War II; they provided the moral and aes­ interpellate the world. thetic basis for Olivetti's concept of "integrated design." And the images 14 0 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER r OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 14 1 themselves derived originally from Marinetti, Sant'Elia and the futur­ ists ... THE RECEPTION IN BRITAIN A promotion film called We carryon, made in 1966 soon after In­ nocenti's death, clearly draws on this native tradition. (The film won a) The Motorcycle Industry first prize in the non-fiction class at Cannes in 1967. The pressure to Look, here's a beauty for you. She buys a scooter for a hundred and forty enter an impressive ["artistic"] product must have been intensified after pounds and then she wants to know where the spark comes from. 1961 when Piaggio won the same award.) MOTORCYCLE DliALER, QUOTED INJAN STEVENS, SCOOTERING, 1966 ... The slow aerial surveillance of the huge Innocenti plant which Imports of foreign motorcycles and scooters into Great Britain for the first opens the film suddenly cuts to the production area. The camera work six months of 1954-3,318; for the first six months of 1956-21,125. is determinedly "modern" and avant-garde. A scooter is assembled be­ FIGURES FROM]. SYMONDS, "WHERE ARE THE BRITISH SCOOTFRS, " fore our eyes. As it moves along the line each stage in its construction DESIGN NO. 94, 1957 is dramatised through the use of expressionist lighting, jump cuts and skewed camera angles. On the soundtrack, harsh musique concrete fur­ The first Italian scooters appeared in Britain in the early 19 50S. Inno­ ther reinforces the image of inhuman automation and industrial power. centi and Piaggio opted for different distribution strategies. Piaggio The voice-over alternates between the sober recital of statistical facts granted a manufacturing licence to the Bristol-based Douglas Motor­ ( ... "the production line is one mile long and one-third of a mile cycle Company in 195 I and, in the same year, P. J. Agg and Son were wide ...") and "poetic" descriptions of technical processes. The style registered as the Lambretta Concessionaires importing Innocenti's scoot­ of the latter is "futurist baroque":-"The factory is a hothouse in which ers from the Continent. Sales and marketing were also handled differ­ the flowers are pieces of machinery ... the electro-magnetic test bed is ently by the two companies. Innocenti advertising tended to be pitched the altar of destruction on which will be sacrificed the body of a Lam­ more directly at the image-conscious youth market and by 1960 the Agg bretta" ... At one point, there is a montage sequence which recalls the concessionaires had established a nationwide network of over 1,000 ser­ earlier "World in Lambretta" series but the rapid juxtaposition of vice stations and, for the first time in Europe, had secured a market lead shots-a scooter parked near an oasis, in a city street, on a Mediter­ for Innocenti over Piaggio. ranean beach-marks the conjunction of scooter and landscape as By the mid-1950S the Italian scooter was beginning to represent a "bizarre." The contrasts are deliberately violent. (Surrealism in the ser­ threat to the British motorcycle industry which until World War II vice of industry: the film seems to have helped determine the stylistic had dominated the international market. Demand for the traditionally conventions and the "strangeness" of many present-day [prestige] ad­ heavy, high performance machines which British manufacturers pro­ vertising films, e.g., the Benson and Hedges's "desert" series.) After an duced had been declining steadily since 1945. Within ten years, the elegiac tribute to Innocenti (the camera circling respectfully around a trend had become pronounced: at the 1955 Earl's Court Motor Cycle plinth mounted with a bust of "our founder") the film ends with another Show, three motorcycles were on a display competing against fifty new aerial shot as the camera sweeps across the workers' swimming pool scooters. and tennis courts to rest, at last, above the enormous central tower/ British manufacturers were eventually forced into scooter production panopticon. There is a slow final scan along the ranks of completed though the transition from heavy, utilitarian vehicles to light, "visually scooters waiting for dispatch on the factory forecourt ... "machines attractive" ones was never satisfactorily accomplished. (The BSA Dandy, which carry one name and one name only-a name which dominates for instance, had narrow legshields and footboard, and there was none the whole world." The soundtrack is dominated by the wail of a siren of what Stephen Bayley has described as the "beautiful clothing"29 of on top of the tower "calling his [i.e., Innocenti's] people to work.... the Vespa or Lambretta.) However, the initial response was one of scorn He is gone but we shall carryon ..." and dismissal. All the criticisms levelled by the Italian motorcycle in­ dustry in the 1940S were revived. Scooters were defined as "stream­ THE SCOOTER IN USE lined" and "effete." The original sales line-that this was a form of transport which (even) women could handle-was turned against itself. The final sections are designed to explore some of the "cultural mean­ SCooters were not only physically unsafe, they were morally suspect. ings" which became attached to the scooter as it was used in Britain. They were unmanly. They ran counter to the ethos of hard work, self­ sufficiency and amateur mechanics upon which the success of the British 14 2 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 143 motorcycle industry and the prevailing definitions of masculinity-the ability, popularity and visual discretion-the scooter fulfilled all the "preferred readings" of manhood-were based. modern ideals. These objections, formed at least partly in response to commercial At least that was the opinion circulated amongst the "select band of pressure, percolated down throughout the motorcycle producer, retail glossy monthly magazines" which, as Banham puts it, decides "who and user cultures. Motorcycle shops, many of them owned by former shall see what" 52 in the design world. Indeed, the first article in the TT veterans, refused to stock the "gimmicky" new machines, to finance inaugural issue of one of the most influential of the post-War journals service facilities, or to employ mechanics. The reluctance to legitimate was entirely devoted to the "Italian look." Writing in Design (January, scooters and scooterists lingered on within the motorcycling fraternity. 1949), F. K. Henrion compiled a list of tasteful artefacts which "have The scooter remained, for "committed" motorcyclists, a sexed (and in­ together transformed the appearance" of Italian city life. He singled out ferior) object. As recently as 1979, an article appeared in Motorcycle cars, furniture, ceramics and a Gio Ponti coffee machine. But the Vespa Sport which invoked all the old categories and prejudices. The article, scooter-"a virtual institution"-was especially commended: entitled "Is the Scooter Making a Comeback?" consists of an apparently neutral assessment of scooter performance. The writer endorses only the · .. the most important of all new Italian design phenomena is without doubt the Vespa. This miniature motorcycle, streamlined and extremely more powerful machines. The German Maicolette (known in the early pleasant to look at, has become an important factor in Italian village and 1960s as the "dustbin" amongst those British scooterists with Italianate town life. l3 tastes) is praised for "its beefy two-stroke engine. It could romp along at a confident 70mph holding the road like a motorcycle ... it went like Henrion drew attention to the scooter's flexibility in use and its capacity a rocket."lo The author concludes by extracting the "essence" of "mo­ for bridging markets: torcycling sport"-its complexity, "depth," power, its solitary nature­ and contrasting these qualities against the "superficial," "social" "fun" · .. you see businessmen with briefcases, commercial travellers with boxes of samples on the vast floorspace. In the evenings, you see young couples of scootering: "Naturally," the gender of the ideal motorcyclist is be­ · .. at weekends, mother, child and father on picnics. You see these ma­ yond question. chines parked side by side in front of Ministries and it is surprising how 14 ... motorcycling is a much more complex sport than scootering ... the many people afford them at a price equivalent to £80. enjoyment springs from the pure isolation aboard a fast solo when the Finally he placed the significance of the Vespa in the context of an over­ rider, for a brief spell, is beyond authority and is in control of his own all "Italian style," as part of the "second Italian renaissance": destiny. Motorcycling is fun of a multi-dimensional variety. Scootering is pleasure of the more superficial sort.l ' I seemed to sense a similarity of aesthetic values amongst different prod­ ucts-a similarity which, seen from a distance of many years, might be b) Design called the style of the mid 20th Century.35 Somewhere on the lower slopes of clique acceptance was the popular Ital­ Throughout the 1950S and early 1960s, Italy tended to epitomise for ian craze which dominated British taste in the later 1950S and which found young, trendsetting British designers, everything that was chic and expression in the vogue for products like motor scooters ... Olivetti type­ writers ... Espresso coffee machines ... modern and "acceptable," particularly in automobile and (through mag­ STEPHEN BA YLEY, IN GOOD SHAPE, 1979 azines like Domus) interior design. The cult of the individual designer­ as-genius-as a modern Renaissance man blending mathematical skills Those "superficial" qualities which were interpreted negatively by the and artistic flair-seems to have grown up largely around a few Italian motorcycling industry-the social aspects and the look of the scooter­ names-Ponti, Ghia, Pininfarina, Nizzoli, etc. Sometimes the "superi­ were regarded as positive assets by those working in the design field, at ority" of the Italian design is "explained" through its relationship to least by those young enough to appreciate the beauty of a mass­ fine art (e.g., futurism). Ann Ferebee, for instance, compares streamlined produced but "well-shaped" machine. The emergent Modern consensuS Italian products to Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space and in design which was to become dominant during the 19 60s closed more praises "sheathed" Italian transport for its "sculptural elegance."l6 And or less unanimously around the Italian scooter and held it up to British always the "refinement ... and purity ... of line"-in this case of Pin­ industrialists as an example of what a good design should look like. As infarina's 1947 Cisitalia Coupe-is valorised because it sets "alternative an everyday artefact invested with some standards of style and utility standards against the baroque styles [then] emerging in America. "17 All but which still managed to satisfy all the key criteria: elegance, service- these qualities and effects have been attributed at different times to the 144 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE IT ALlAN SCOOTER CYCLE 145 Italian scooter. It has become installed in the mythology of good Italian One of the socially cohesive elements at these events, at least for many taste. It has now become an "object lesson": it is the only entry for of the younger club members, was a shared prediliction for Italy and 1946 in Stephen Bayley's In Good Shape-it stands in for its time. "Italianate" culture. The clubs organised "Italy in Britain" weeks to A clash, then, between two "official" versions of the scooter, between foster the connection. At the Lambretta Concessionaires' headquarters two divergent interests. A "clash of opinion" between, on the one hand, in Wimbledon, an espresso coffee machine dispensed "free frothy cof­ a declining heavy engineering industry with a vested interest in preserv­ fee" for club members who brought their machines in to be serviced.40 ing the market as it stands, with a fixed conception of both product and One of the records played at the Southend rally dances in the early market, with material resources geared towards the reproduction of that 1960s was an Italian hit entitled the "Lambretta Twist" ... market, the production of a particular design genre, with a set of estab­ As more scooters came onto the market (by 1963, there were twenty­ lished cultural values to mobilise in its defense; on the other, a design two different firms selling scooters in Britain), the emphasis shifted on industry on the point of boom, with a vested interest in transforming to the competitive events, which tended to be dismissed by the motor­ the market, in aestheticising products and "educating" consumers, with cycling contingent as "rally-type stuff of an endurance nature."4 1 It material resources geared toward the production of a new commodity­ seems likely that the British scooter clubs were particularly receptive to Image-with an emergent set of cultural values (a new formation of the idea of competition because it offered a means of counteracting the desire) to articulate and bring to fruition. The Italian origins of the stigma (of "effeminacy" and "shallowness") which had been attached scooter function differentially within the two systems. In the first, "It­ to the sport in its earlier "social" phase. Innocenti developed the 200CC alianness" defines the scooter as "foreign competition" and doubles its Lambretta specifically to meet the demands of the Isle of Man Scooter effeminacy (Italy: the home of "male narcissism"). In the second, it de­ Rally which, by the late 1950s, had become the most important event fines the scooter as "the look of the future" and doubles its value as a of its kind in Europe. Quite apart from the racing and the track events, well-designed object (Italy: the home of "good taste"). there were scooter expeditions to the Arctic Circle, non-stop runs from The object splits. And is re-assembled in use ... London to Milan, ascents of Snowdon on a scooter with a side-car: feats of lone heroism which were intended to display the toughness and sta­ mina of both rider and machine. Some of these gestures had a positively THE SCOOTER CLUBS epic quality: one scooterist crossed the English Channel using a Vespa By the mid-1950S, there were British branches of the Lambretta and to operate paddles fitted to floatsY Club scootering became more mus­ Vespa user clubs, co-ordinated from separate offices in Central London cular, scooter runs longer, trials more arduous. Scooter Tours, an ex­ and sponsored by the Douglas Company and the Agg Concessionaires. tension of the Lambretta Club of Great Britain, provided couriers to Both provided monthly magazines (Vespa News, Lambretta Leader, lead "snakes" of up to forty scooters to Switzerland, Austria and Ger­ later Jet-Set). While these organisations were clearly modelled on the many. lines of the Italian clubs and served a promotional and public relations As the demand for scooters began to level out (i.e., around 1959), the function, they tended to be less rigidly centralised and local branches, pressure to win races and break records grew more intense. "Friendly run by amatem enthusiasts, were allowed to organise their own affairs. competition" sometimes gave way to open rivalry and these tensions Moreover, some of the larger branches had their own names-the tended to filter down from the works teams to the ordinary badge­ "Bromley Innocents," the "Vagabonds," the "Mitcham Goons"-their wearing members. The younger, more ardent club supporters began own pennants, badges and colors and, in their informal character, and marking out their loyalties in dress. The "blue boys," for instance, wore strong regional affiliations, they bore some resemblance to the pre-War sharply cut suits in royal blue-the Lambretta club color. These rivalries cycling clubs. In the 1950S and early '60S the mass rallies and organised Were underscored by the distribution policies of the two firms: dealers scooter runs were a major attraction for club members. As many as Were licenced to sell only Vespas or Lambrettas. 3,000 scooterists would converge on Brighton and Southend for the Nonetheless, competitiveness never totally dislodged the frame which National Lambretta Club's annual rally where, at the service marquee, had been imposed upon the sport at its inception: the "social aspects" set, according to one enthusiast, amidst "banners and flags, bunting and with their attendant connotations of health, open air and cheerful ca­ a Carnival atmosphere ... your Lambretta would be repaired and serv­ maraderie. This ideal was reflected in the actual composition of the clubs H iced entirely free of charge." 3 During the evenings, there would be bar­ themselves. Subscriptions were not restricted to a single class or age becues, fancy dress competitions and dances (" ... this was the day of group (though it seems plausible that there was a bias toward relatively Rock and Roll ... Marty Wilde, Tommy Steele) Adam Faith ...").;9 YOunf?i people [i.e. sixteen to thirty-five1 from "respectable" working­ 146 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER 1'" OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 147 class and lower-middle-class backgrounds). Female scooterists figured as ... and even here in this Soho, the headquarters of the adult mafia you prominently as the men, at least on the non-competitive circuit ... I could everywhere see the signs of the un-silent teenage revolution. The Piaggio and Innocenti publicity departments regarded the inclusion of disc shops with those lovely sleeves set in their windows ... and the kids a Vespa or Lambretta in a feature film as a major advertising coup. Film inside them purchasing guitars or spending fortunes on the songs of the directors were solicited to promote the firms' products. Stars were pho­ Top Twenty. The shirt-stores and bra-stores with cine-star photos in the tographed on set (sometimes in period costume) seated on the latest window, selling all the exclusive teenage drag ... The hair-style salons ... The cosmetic shops ... Scooters and bubble-cars driven madly down the scooter model. roads by kids, who, a few years ago were pushing toy ones on the pave­ In the early 1960s, two films appeared both of which were, in a sense, ment ... Life is the best film for sure, if you can see it as a film ... made around the Italian scooter (and Cliff Richard): Wonderful Life COLIN MACINNES, ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS, 1959 (which featured the Vespa) and Summer Holiday (which co-starred the Lambretta). These films articulate precisely the ideal of the "fun-loving" The first wave of modernist youth emerged in or around London in the collective which hovers over the literature, the rallies and the "socials" late 19 50S. Most commentators agree on certain basic themes: that Mod of the early scooter clubs, and they recapitulate many of the themes was predominantly working class, male-dominated and centreed on an encountered in the scooter ads: "tourism," "youth," "freedom" and obsessive clothes-consciousness which involved a fascination with Amer­ "fashion." All these categories were brought together in the image of ican and Continental styles. The endorsement of Continental products Cliff Richard and a group of "zany," "up-to-date" but good-hearted was particularly marked. youngsters off on their scooters in search of a continental coast-line, a The Dean in Colin MacInnes's Absolute Beginners (1959) is a "typ­ holiday romance ... ical" (i.e., ideal) early modernist:

College-boy smooth crop hair with burned-in parting, neat white Italian THE MODS rounded-collared shirt, short Roman jacket very tailored (two little vents, During the mid-1960s, Italian scooters became wedded, at least as far three buttons) no turn-up narrow trousers with seventeen-inch bottoms as the British press and television were concerned, to the image of the absolute maximum, pointed toe shoes, and a white mac folded by his side mods (and rockers)-to the image of "riotous assembly" at the coastal 43 resorts of Southern England. (The marriage has yet to be dissolved: a His (unnamed) girl friend is described in similar detail: feature made in 1979 for the television programme About Anglia on the Lambretta Preservation Society [a "respectable" offshoot of the old ... short hem lines, seamless stockings, pointed toe high-heeled stiletto scooter clubs] began, as a matter of course, with documentary footage shoes, crepe nylon rattling petticoat, short blazer jacket, hair done up into of the clashes in 1964 at Margate and Brighton.) The words "social the elfin style. Face pale-corpse colour with a dash of mauve, plenty of scootering" had formerly summoned up the image of orderly mass ral­ mascara ... 44 lies. Now it was suddenly linked to a more sinister collective: an army But here the absence of precise calibration (no twos or threes or sev­ of youth, ostensibly conformist-barely distinguishable as individuals enteens) pinpoints her position within the signifying systems of both the from each other or the crowd-and yet capable of concerted acts of novel and the subculture itself. In the same way, though her style is vandalism. The mods and the scooter clubs, the "Battle of Brighton," rooted in the Italian connection, derived in all likelihood from the "new 1964, and the Brighton runs of the 1950S, were connected and yet mu­ race of [Italian] girls," this isn't stated. The Dean, on the other hand, is tually opposed. They shared the same space like the recto and verso of defined through a geography of dress. He is English by birth, Italian by a piece of paper. After the "social aspects," the "anti-social"; after Sum­ choice. mer Holiday, My Generation . .. According to sociological and marketing sources, Mod was largely a matter of commodity selection.45 It was through commodity choices that THE "DRESSED" IMAGE mods marked themselves out as mods, using goods as "weapons of ex­ Everyone was trying to look like a photograph, as smooth and as flat as clusion"4 6 to avoid contamination from the other alien worlds of teen­ a page in a magazine ... Everyone wanted to catch the light ... aged taste that orbitted around their own (the teds, beats and later the JOAN BUCK, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE BRITISH MODEL?, rockers). HARPERS & QUEEN, T980 Mods exploited the expressive potential within commodity choice to 14 8 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 149 its logical conclusion. Their "furious consumption programme"_ reaction set in amongst the hard core of stylists-scooters were stripped: clothes, clubs, records, hair styles, petrol and drinamyl pills-has been side panels, front mudguards, sometimes even the footboards, were re­ described as "a grotesque parody of the aspirations of [their] parents"_ moved and the remaining body-work painted in muted colors with a the people who lived in the new towns or on the new housing estates matte finish. 5I These were the last, irreverent transformations. By this the post-War working and lower-middle-class ... 47 The mods con~ time Mod had surfaced as a set of newspaper photographs and Bank vetted themselves into objects, they "chose" (in order) to make them­ Holiday headlines. Fixed in the public gaze, Mod turned, finally, against selves into mods, attempting to impose systematic control over the itself. After baroque, minimalism: the image of the scooter was decon­ narrow domain which was "theirs," and within which they saw their structed, the object "re-materialised" ... "real" selves invested-the domain of leisure and appearance, of dress and posture. The transference of desire (" ... their parents' ... aspira­ THE AESTHETICISATION Of EVERYDAY LIFE tions ...")1 on to dress is familiar enough. Here the process is auto­ It'll be a great day when cutlery and furniture swing like the Supremes. erotic: the self, "its self" becomes the fetish. MICHAEL WOLFF WRITING IN THE SIA JOURNAL, IN 1964 When the Italian scooter was first chosen by the mods as an identity­ 4H marker (around 1958-9 according to eye witness accounts ), it was However, Mod's significance (and influence) stretched beyond the con­ lifted into a larger unity of taste-an image made up out of sartorial fines of the subcultural milieu. It was largely through Mod that the and musical preferences-which in turn was used to signal to others "in demand for more "sophisticated" and autonomous forms of teenaged the know" a refinement, a distance from the rest-a certain way of leisure was expressed. And provision expanded accordingly. By 1964, seeing the world. Value was conferred upon the scooter by the simple the coffee bars, "Shirt-stores and bra-stores" of MacInnes's Absolute act of selection. The transformation in the value of the object had to be Beginners had given way to discotheques and boutiques. There was now publicly marked: a Mod television programme, Ready, Steady, Go (opening sequence: Mod on scooter at traffic lights/voice-over: "The Weekend Starts There was a correct way of riding. You stuck your feet out at an angle of Here ..."). There was a thriving teenaged fashion industry in London forty-five degrees and the guy on the pillion seat held his hands behind based on Carnaby Street and the Kings Road. There were bowling al­ his back and leaned back ... 49 leys, Wimpey bars and no less than six weekly magazines aimed directly Sometimes the object was physically transformed. According to Richard at the Mod marketY Barnes,5 o Eddie Grimstead, who owned two scooter shops in London At a more general level, Mod highlighted the emergence of a new during the mid-1960s, specialised in customising scooters for the mods. consumer sensibility, what Raymond Williams might call a "structure The machines were resprayed (Lambretta later adopted some of Grim­ of feeling," a more discriminating "consumer awareness." It was, after stead's colour schemes) and fitted with accessories: foxtails, pennants, all, during the late 1950S when the term "modernist" first came into mascots, chromium, horns, extra lights and mirrors, whip aeriels, fur use, that the Coldstream Council recommended the expansion of Design trim, and leopard-skin seats. Such features extended the original design Within Higher Education, that Design Departments were set up in all concept organically. the major art schools, that royal patronage was formally extended to Although the scooter imposed no constraints on the rider's dress (this, industrial design,53 that the Design Centre itself opened in the Haymar­ after all, was what had originally made the scooter "suit-able" for the ket, that magazines like Which?, Shopper's Guide, Home and House fashion-conscious mods), a style became fixed around the vehicle-a Beautiful began publicising the ideas of "consumer satisfaction" and uniform of olive green (parka) anoraks, levi jeans and hush puppies. "tasteful home improvement." And it was in 1964 when "mod" became Sometimes French berets were worn to stress the affiliation with the a household word, that Terence Conran opened the first of the Habitat Continent and to further distinguish the "scooter boys" from the rockers shops which, according to the advertising copy, offered "a pre-selected whose own ensemble of leather jackets, flying boots and cowboy hats shopping programme ... instant good taste ... for switched-on peo­ signalled an alternative defection to America, an immersion in the myth pie." 54 of the frontier. The mirrors and the chromium of the "classic" Mod scooter reflected The innovative drive within Mod, the compulsion to create ever not only the group aspirations of the mods but a whole historical Imag­ newer, more distinctive looks was eventually to lead to another custom­ inary, the Imaginary of affluence. The perfection of surfaces within Mod ising trend, one which, once again, seems to contradict the logic of the 'Was part of the general "aestheticisation" of everyday life achieved scooter's appeal. As the banks of lights and lamps began to multiply, a through the intervention of the Image, through the conflation of the 15 0 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER 11'" OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE ITALIAN SCOOTER CYCLE 15 1 "public" and the "personal," consumption and display. In 1966, a Wol­ times referred to girlfriends as "pillion fodder." There were proportion­ verhampton reader of a national newspaper felt concerned enough ately fewer girls driving scooters within the mod subculture than outside about a "decorating problem" to write in for advice: it in the "respectable" scootering community ...

I have painted walls and woodwork white and covered the floors with THE MOD REVIVAL Olive Sullivan's "Bachelor's Button" carpet in burnt oak orange chestnut. The scooter fanatic of eighteen to twenty really doesn't know what it Upholstery is Donald Bros unbleached linen mullein cloth. Curtains are is about. It isn't impossible to be Mod [in 1980J, they just go about orange and in a bright Sekers fabric and I am relying upon pictures, books, it the wrong way-a scooter was a means of transport. You didn't wor­ cushions, and rug for bright contrasting accessories. I have found a winner ship it ... in London Transport's poster "Greenwich Observatory" which I think ORIGINAL MOD QUOTED IN OBSERVER MAGAZINE, 1979 looks marvellous against the white walls. 55 The disappearance of the service stations, the recession, small Japanese The separation of a room into its parts (each part labelled, placed), of motorcycles, compulsory crash helmets, Scooters India, the Red Bri­ a suit into its "features" (each button counted, sited on a map) spring gades: the original "network of relations" transformed over time, and from a common impulse. Together they delineate a new disposition. The with it the object, and the relationship of the user to the object. reader's room in Wolverhampton, the Dean's suit in Soho-both are The scooter is "undressed": all new mods are amateur mechanics. The "integrated structures," designed environments. Both are held in high shortage of spare parts and the collapse of the support structure of ga­ regard. They are subjected to the same anxious and discriminating gaze. rages mean that more scooterists are forced to service and maintain their This is the other side of affluence: a rapacious specularity: the coming own machines. of the greedy I.

BRIGHTON REVISITED REVISITED CONCLUSION In 1964, on the stately promenades of the South Coast resorts, a battle In the Evening Standard (24 February, 1977), a Mr Derek Taylor, "one was enacted between two groups of adolescents representing different of these :lew fashionable middle-management people," explained why tastes and tendencies. The seaside riots provided a spectacle which was he had sold his car and bought a secondhand Lambretta: circulated as an "event" first as news, later, as history (the film Quad­ ... with road tax at £4 a year, insurance £12 and petrol consumption of rophrenia appeared in 1979). The spectacle "just happened" to be nearly Ioompg, I reckon I'm on to a good buy ... I still enjoy my comfort watched (" ... one local paper carried a photo of a man amongst a and want to get to work in a clean and presentable condition ... crowd of boys swinging deck-chairs holding his child above his head to get a better VIew.. .. "5. 6 ) . Fashion remains a significant vector but its significance resides in the According to a survey conducted at Margate, the mods tended to fact that it can be turned in on itself: " ... fashion takes a back-seat, come from London, were from lower-middle- or upper-working-class but the practical scooter man has all the accessories on board (monsoon­ backgrounds and worked in skilled or semi-skilled trades or in the ser­ proof mac ... RAF long johns) ..." (ibid.) vice industries. (Jimmy, the hero of Quadrophrenia, is presented as a The fashion paradigm is punctured by the practical scooter-man. The typical mod, he works as an office boy in a London advertising agency. fuel crisis and the plight of the Evening Standard's "neglected" middle­ ... ) The rockers were more likely to do manual jobs and to live 10­ management have redefined the object (some traces linger ... "comfort callyY Most observers agree that mods far out-numbered rockers at the ... clean ... presentable"). The image falls off into irony. coast. When interviewed, the mods used the words "dirty" and "igno­ On the London Underground, a new poster advertising the "more rant" to typify the rockers. The rockers referred to the mods as "pansy" attractive angular 100k"5 8 of the "New Line" P range Vespa takes its and "soft." place alongside the Suzuki and the Mini Metro ads, the images of The clash of opinion between design and motorcycling interests, be­ Adonis briefs, the Elliott twins and the "This Insults Women" stickers. tween service and productive sectors, "adaptive" and "outmoded" ele­ The Italian scooter cycle kicks off again in slightly higher gear ... ments was translated at Brighton and Margate into images of actual violence. The rocker/mod polarity cannot be so neatly transposed intO options on gender (i.e., sexistlcounter-sexist). Apparently, girls occupied equally subordinate positions within both subcultures. Male mods some- 15 2 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER T OBJECT AS IMAGE: THE IT AllAN SCOOTER CYCLE 153 2.7."A New Race of Girls," in Picture Post, 5 September, 1954· ENDNOTES 2.8.From an advertising jingle used on Australian radio during 1962, sung by 1.Roland Barthes, "Introduction," Mythologies, Paladin, 1972(a). the Bee Gees. 2. Roland Barthes, quoted in ]. Bird, The Politics of Representation, Block 2, 2.9'S, Bayley, op. cit., 1979· 1980. 30.Jack Woods, "Is the Scooter Making a Comeback?," in Motorcycle Sport, 3.Roland Barthes, "Ecrivains et ecrivants," in Critical Essays, Evanston, November, 1979. 1972(b). 3I.1bid. 4.Roland Barthes, "The New Citroen," in Barthes, op. cit., 1972(a). 32.Reyner Banham, "Mediated Environments," in Superculture: American Pop­ 5.Roland Barthes, op. cit., 1972(b). ular Culture and Europe, Paul Elek, 1975, (ed.) C. W. E. Bigsby. 6.Roland Barthes, "The New Citroen": "The bodywork, the lines of union are 33.F. K. Henrion, "Italian Journey," in Design, January 1949· touched, the upholstery palpated, the seats tried, the doors caressed, the cushions fondled; ... The object here is totally prostituted, appropriated: H.Ibid. originating from the heaven of Metropolis, the Goddess is in a quarter of an 35.Ibid. hour mediatized, actualizing through this exorcism the very essence of petit­ bourgeois advancement." 36.Ann Ferebee, op. cit., 1970. 7.Lisa Tickner, "Women and Trousers: unisex clothing and sex-role changes in 37.John Heskett, Industrial Design, Thames & Hudson, 1980. the 20th Century," in Leisure in the 20th Century, Design Council, 1977. 38.Mike Karslake, op. cit., 1974. 8. Paul Willis, "The Motor Cycle Within the Subcultural Group," in Working 39.Ibid. Papers in Cultural Studies (2), University of Birmingham. 40.Personal recollection from Mike Karslake. 9. Roland Barthes, op. cit., 1972(a). 41.Jack Woods, op. cit., 1979. 10.Vance Packard, The Wastemakers, Penguin, 1963. 42.From an article entitled "The Buzzing Wasp" which appeared in On Two I r.Ibid. Wheels. The series also carried an article on Lambrettas called "The Alterna­ 12.T. Adorno, quoted in Colin MacCabe, Godard: Sound Image: politics, BfI tive Society." Publications, 1981. 43.Colin MacInnes, Absolute Beginners, reissued by Allison & Busby, 1980. 13.Louis Althusser, "Contradiction and Overdetermination," in For Marx, Allen 44.Ibid. Lane, 1969. 45.See R. Barnes, Mods!, Eel Pie Publishing, 1980, on which I drew heavily for 14.Jan Stevens, Scootering, Penguin, 1966. the mod sections in this paper; Generation X (eds.) Hamblett & Deverson, 15.Mike Karslake, Jet-Set, Lambretta Club of Great Britain, December, 1974. Tandem, 1964; Gary Herman, The Who, Studio Vista, 1971; S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Paladin, 1972. See also D. Hebdige, "The Style of 16.Paul Sweezey, "On the Theory of Monopoly Capitalism," in Modern Capi­ the Mods," in S. Hall et. al. (eds.), Resistance Through Rituals, Hutchinson, talism and Other Essays, Monthly Review Press, 1972. Peter Donaldson in 1976. Economics of the Real World, Penguin, 1973, provides some interesting sta­ tistics here on the transfer of capital in Britain during the post-war period. 46.Baron Isherwood and Mary Douglas, The World of Goods: Towards an An­ He writes: "Spending on take-overs during the first half of the 1960s was thropology of Consumption, Penguin, 1980. Isherwood and Douglas define something like ten times that of the 1950S ... One estimate is that the merg­ consumption as a "ritual process whose primary function is to make sense of ers movement during the 1960s must have involved the transfer of some the inchoate flux of events.... rituals are conventions that set up visible twenty per cent of the total net assets of manufacturing industry ..." public definitions." Luxury goods are particularly useful as "weapons of ex­ clusion." This idea compares interestingly with Bourdieu's definition of 17.See Vance Packard, The Status-Seekers, Penguin, 1961. "taste": "Tastes (i.e., manifested preferences) are the practical affirmation of 18.Stuart Ewen, "Advertising as Social Production," in Communication and an inevita,?le difference ... asserted purely negatively by the refusal of other Class Struggle, Vol. I, IG/IMMRC, 1979. Also Stuart Ewen, Captains of tastes ... Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture, 47.R. Barnes, op. cit., 1980. McGraw-Hill, 1977. 48.Ibid. 19.Quoted ibid. 49.Ibid. 20.]. K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society, Penguin, 1970. 5o.Ibid. 21.Richard Hamilton in S. Bayley (ed.), In Good Shape: Style in Industrial Products 1900-1960, Design Council, 1979. 5I.lbid. 22.Ann Ferebee, A History of Design from the Victorian Era, Van Nos. Rein­ 52.S. Cohen, op. cit., 1972. hold, 1970. 53.See Fiona MacCarthy, A History of British Design 1830-1970, Allen & Un­ 23· "This exquisite social appliance," a line from We Carry On, Innocenti pro­ win, 1979. The Design Centre opened in 1956. The Duke of Edinburgh's motion film, 1966. Prize for Elegant Design was first awarded three years later; also The Practi­ cal Idealists,]. & A. Blake, Lund Humphries, 1969. 24·R. Barthes, 1972(a). 54.Ibid. 25· Henry Lefebvre, Everyday Life in the Modern World, Allen Lane, 197I. 55.Quoted in F. MacCarthy, All Things Bright and Beautiful, Allen & Unwin, 26.Vance Packard, op. cit., 1963. 197 2 . ',, 154 THE CONSUMER SOCIETY READER

1:1 56.S. Cohen, op. cit., 1972. I::, I 57.P. Barker and A. Little, in T. Raison (ed.), Youth in New Society, Hart-Da­ 'ii: vis, 1966. Peter Willmott gives some interesting figures on patterns of

I1: , scooter and motorcycle ownership in a working-class London borough in Adolescent Boys in East London, Penguin, 1966, during the mod-rocker pe­ 111 riod. Of his sample of 264 boys, one in ten over sixteen owned scooters (mainly in the sixteen- to seventeen-year range) whilst only one in twenty over sixteen owned a motor bike (they tended to be slightly older, seventeen , to eighteen). 58.This comes from a review of the new Vespa P200 in "The Buzzing Wasp," in On Two Wheels. Thanks to Mary Rose Young and thanks especially to Mike Karslake, presi­ dent of the Lambretta Preservation Society, for giving me so much of his time and allowing me access to his collection of Innocenti publicity material and memorabilia.

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