NEWSLETTER

Sharpies emerged from Melbourne’s suburbs in the early 70s and evolved out of existence by the end of the decade. They wore jeans and tailor-made cardigans, which they would design themselves in an attempt to outdo all the other sharpies. They got their name for the simple reason that they liked to look sharp. We organised something of a reunion with a group of ex-sharpie friends and they gave us the down-low on “the good old days”.


Photographer: Travis Hogg
Stylists: The models

Mick wears Wrangler jeans, original Conte and a Kangol hat.

Michael W John (Skinny Mick) I grew up in West Heidelberg and went to a Catholic school before I met some Sharpies and dropped out at 15. For some reason there were lots of Micks in my group, which is why we all had to have nick-names. I was always skinny so mine is obvious. We used to work every day and drink every night at places like the Fox and Hound and go to dances at places like the Heide Town Hall and Q Club. We were just young kids getting up to no good. We’d go to the football and bash people up or go to the Pizza Hut in Darebin, eat and then leave without paying. We didn’t pay for anything if we didn’t have to and we normally got away with it.

Cliff wears Levi’s, Vans and a vintage crest knit.

Cliff Mitchell I grew up in the commission flats in Jordanville where there was a big Sharpie contingent. Our main rivals were surfies and long hairs rather than other Sharpie gangs. I think the Sharps and Skins were the first of the actual street gangs but it was very different from gangs now. There were no Asians—it was a very anglo culture with a few wogs thrown in. The whole thing started mainly because we wanted to look sharp and clean—dressing like that made you feel you were something. We were really particular and would iron creases into our pants and try to outdo each other with our cardigans. We looked good and the girls liked it, especially the private school girls. Unlike gangs now, we had certain principals that were really important to us; things like when you got into a fight, you could only hit the other guy with your fists, as kicking was considered dirty. We didn’t like drugs either and if we saw someone smoking dope, we’d beat the crap out of them. There were obviously guys who didn’t live by these rules, and drugs definitely became a much bigger problem in the later years, but all my friends lived by these kind of standards.

Chris wears Levi’s, Fred Perry polo, Sharps cardigan available at Fat and adidas runners from Prime.

Chris O’Halloran For me, becoming what you call a Sharpie, was really just a natural evolution. It wasn’t something we consciously did. We just kind of cut our hair and started wearing different clothes. We would wear Levi’s, Lees or Wranglers and the cardigans were hand-made by local tailors like the Conte family. Everyone would come up with their own design and try to outdo each other with the stripes, cables, collars and detail. We’d get new shoes and cardigans every couple of weeks and spend all our money on them. There wasn’t much else to spend it on anyway—most of us had left school to work and still lived at home. The only other things we spent money on were smokes and the $1.90 it cost to get into the dance on Saturday night. We were into lots of local bands like Lobby Loyde, Billy Thorpe, AC/DC and Skyhooks and would also listen to stuff like Deep Purple and Zeppelin. In 1980 at the AC/DC concert at the Myer Music Bowl, there were massive riots when Sharpies descended en masse and just started beating the shit out of everyone and destroying trams and cars and stuff. That pretty much signalled the end of the Sharpie movement. I moved into punk from there, again, just a natural evolution.

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