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Story behind the Mockneck

In the second part of Serious Stories Storm is telling the story behind the Mockneck. About his first trip to New York City and about finding the difference between a regular sweater and a genuine Mockneck with a little bit of help from the legendary Kwikstep.

Quote: I married in a Mockneck by the way.. Didn’t know when to mention it…
Storm

What’s a Mockneck? A Mockneck is basically an ordinary pullover. The term Mockneck derives from its collar, which is a standing collar, other than a turtle neck. The typical bboy Mockneck is made of one hundred percent polyester.

The Story

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In 1991, Swiftrock and me went to New York for the first time and got to know Kwikstep. Kwikstep wore a Mockneck which I didn’t notice by that time, so I told to him, that we were always trying to look like the dancers in Beatstreet, Wildstyle, Style Wars and all the breaking films we were watching about New York. Since we thought that they were wearing turtle necks we went to thrift stores and bought old looking turtle neck sweaters. But when I approached Kwikstep and told him that I own some same turtle neck and he was like „No no! That’s not a regular turtle neck pullover, it’s something really special!“ We used to be already quite happy with the turtle neck type we had. They were made out of wool or cotton and the good thing about it was that they were tight. But with time their color washed out, especially bad were the cotton ones that were not colorfast. So the spots you spinned on turned from burgundy to pink. The woollen fabrics spun really well, but if you washed them wrong just ones, they turned out to small. And when we finally got the real Mockneck, Kwikstep had told us about, it became clear to us, why it was so much in use and why every bboy in New York had to have one like that.

The Mockneck was slim fitting, there were no pockets or zippers like on jackets on which you could easily knock out a tooth. With bruises you had to deal anyways, but there was no need for extra injuries. Those you could wash a thousand times, you could spin on one spot to the thousand times, the colour didn’t change. So now there was the demand: every bboy wanted a Mockneck. When we found the Mocknecks in 1991, only a few stores had them left in their storage since they were not produced anymore. You could literally count them, there were only a few hundred left and quickly sold out. Then someone tried to reproduce the mockneck, but having a worse quality then the original.

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It was likely to happen that by some time, we would produce the Mockneck ourselves. Bboy culture is a tradition-conscious culture, so in fact, every bboy wants a Mockneck in his closet. For more than 30 years we are rooted in bboy culture, but until today, there is no brand, that produces special garments for dancers, that look decent and have a functional value at the same time. And since we were still unsatisfied with current offers of Mocknecks, we knew, that if we ever produce one, it has to be exactly the way we imagine it to be.

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