T-Rex pop icon Marc Bolan is the focus of a exhibition in Hackney about the 1960s Mod movement in Stamford Hill where he grew up.

Stamford Hill Mods - The Genesis of Marc Bolan, which launches at Hackney Museum this Wednesday November 7, explores the story of early modernist culture, fashion and music through photographs, early 45 vinyl records, Mod magazines and people’s memories.

A copy of the original Town Magazine is on display, with a photo of 15-year old Mark Feld and his friends in Stamford Hill, taken in 1960 by international war photographer Don McCullin.

Three years later Feld changed his name to Marc Bolan and went on to garner worldwide fame with his band T-Rex.

Miki Simmonds, one of the Mods pictured with Bolan said: “It’s the year 1960 and I’d just turned 18.

“We were full of energy, youth was eternal and life was yet to be, we thought we were going to live forever.

“We were Mods. Ace Faces. We were the Stamford Hill boys - this was our meeting place, our turf.”

Local people have contributed to the exhibition with their accounts of handmade suits, bum freezer jackets and old Mod hang-outs, like the ten pin bowling alley and the amusement arcade in Stamford Hill.

Special additions to the display will include an original 1962 Bilgorri suit and a 1962 two tone Vespa GS160 scooter personalised by Eddie Grimstead, the scooter dealer to all the mods in East London.

The free exhibition runs at the council-run museum in Reading Lane until January 26 2013.