Until around 3 years ago Gavin's images had been held within underground cult status, with his work being brought into the media by Shane Meadows after images from ‘Skins’ Gavin's first book were used as the inspiration and muse for the award winning film "This is England".
He is now recognised and held in great esteem across the globe and as it states on the back of his latest release with Vice and Powerhouse Books, SKINS&PUNKS: Lost Archives even Terry Richardson thinks “he is a genius”. Gavin's natural eye for a moment in time and the stark, brutal honesty of the images he captured have made his collection of work one of the UK’s finest documentary and portrait portfolios.
He has done campaigns for Dr. Martens and Levis, alongside featuring in countless music magazines, album covers, fashion bibles such as Vice, Art Rocker, Arena and The Times. His work has been showcased across the globe at numerous solo shows and exhibitions.
“Watson photographed from the inside, the only member of a provincial and isolated gang with a camera, only occasionally aware that his friends were part of a larger moment…. Some of his photographs are funny, some are tender, some are domestic. Many of them show skinheads smiling, others display a great vulnerability: young boys struggling for their place in an adult world. If there is aggression it is playful and uncertain. And in the background sits an unbeautified England of the 80s, a harsh depiction of extreme disunity.”
—The Observer
“The world Watson depicts is so skillfully captured, giving an undeniable pull to these pictures….” —FHM
Vice Magazine
'Arguably one of the best and most important books about youth fashion and culture ever published'
The Observer Review
'This book has become a cult itself'
FHM
`The world Watson depicts is so skilfully captured, giving an undeniable pull to these pictures, making Skins a ompelling tome. We are sure you will get the picture.'
Record Collector
`A candid, no-punches-pulled profile, a colourful set of motifs for a cultural subsector and crammed with absolutely enthralling images. Thought-provoking stuff.'
The Times
"A modern classic." The Times
Skins & Punks: Lost Archives, 1978-1985
What started off as a small collection of photographs the 14-year-old Gavin Watson would take of his family and friends in Wycombe, middle England, in the 1970s and 80s would grow into one of the most important and influential photographic youth culture books of the last 20 years. Skins, published in 1994 and hailed by The Times of London as “a modern classic,” has shown its influence in such photographers as Terry Richardson, Juergen Teller, and Ryan McGinley, as well as pretty much every kind of “youth” photography popular today.
Last year, having persuaded him to begin working again after a long period of self-seclusion, VICE Books was bequeathed Watson’s lost archives, hundreds of photos reaching deep into the lives of the subjects of his first book. Each photograph reveals an understanding and sensitivity that belies the sometimes brutal subject matter.
Skins & Punks is a singular retrospective complete with commentaries and oral histories. The stories behind the shots are shocking, hilarious, severe, and heartbreaking, and each gets behind what it was really like to be a rebellious workingclass youth growing up in the 1980s. This is documentary photography at its best, a stunningly intimate window into a cultural movement.
Skins
Perhaps one of the most reviled yet misunderstood of all the youth subcultures, the skinhead look and lifestyle has now rightly returned to the very forefront of contemporary youth culture. While celebrities and sportsmen shave their heads for the red carpet, the underbelly of British youth culture has rediscovered the look via acclaimed films such as 2007's award-winning "This Is England". The look is now more fashionable than it has ever been. The single most important photographic record of this unique subculture is Gavin Watson's "Skins", now proudly released as a brand new edition on Independent Music Press, complete with over 30 new and previously unpublished photographs. The scores of black and white shots offer a fascinating glimpse into a skinhead community that was multi-cultural, tightly knit and above all else, fiercely proud of their look. These are classic photographs of historical value.