Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewellery, and body modifications of the punk counterculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like the Exploited to the dressed-down look of North American hardcore. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including glam rock, skinheads, greasers, and mods have influenced punk fashion. Punk fashion has likewise influenced the styles of these groups, as well as those of popular culture. Many punks use clothing as a way of making a statement.
The early, pre-fame work of designer Vivienne Westwood helped pioneer the look of early British punk with her scene-establishing clothing shops Sex and Seditionaries in the mid-1970s, co-run with Malcolm McLaren who managed the Sex Pistols. Westwood was asked by then-partner McLaren to outfit the Sex Pistols, and Westwood's designs found a canvas on Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious. Her early work with Sex and the Sex Pistols helped to establish her as one of the most influential British designers of the 20th century.
Punk fashion has long been commercialized, with fashion designers like Zandra Rhodes,Multiple sources: Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, Stephen Sprouse, and Anna Sui using punk elements in their production and the first punk-influenced fashion spreads appearing in mainstream fashion magazines as early as 1976.
History 1970s
Punk rock was an intentional rebuttal of the perceived excess and pretension found in mainstream music (or even mainstream culture as a whole), and early punk artists' fashion was defiantly anti-materialistic. Bands that had been at the forefront of the wave of rebellion, like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, had become 'respectable', having achieved worldwide renown and subsequent wealth. Arena rock groups of the early 1970s, with long, drawn out songs rooted in the psychedelic movement, were viewed as out-of-touch by fans who were much less economically successful. A desire for music to reflect their values of dissatisfaction and alienation began to develop. Generally unkempt, often short hairstyles replaced the long-hair hippie look and the usually elaborate 1970s rock and disco styles. In the United States, dirty, simple clothesranging from the T-shirt/jeans/leather jacket Ramones look to the low-class, second-hand "dress" clothes of acts like Television or Patti Smithwere preferred over the expensive or colorful clothing popular in the disco scene.
In the United Kingdom, 1970s punk fashion influenced the designs of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren and the Bromley Contingent. Mainstream punk style was influenced by clothes sold in Malcolm McLaren's shop, artdesigncafe. McLaren has credited this style to his first impressions of Richard Hell, while McLaren was in New York City working with New York Dolls. Hell is credited as one of the first to help popularize the stereotypical 'punk' look, spiking his hair and wearing t-shirts that were held together with safety pins. Punk fashion aimed to provoke and challenge middle class culture, often through vulgarity, illicit iconography, and sexual innuendos, among other means. Deliberately offensive T-shirts were popular in the early punk scene, such as the DESTROY T-shirt sold at SEX, which featured an inverted crucifix and a Nazi Swastika. Another offensive T-shirt that is still occasionally seen in punk is called Snow White and the Sir Punks, and features Snow White being held down and raped by five of the seven dwarfs, whilst the other two engage in anal sex. The image's origin is as part of The Realist magazine's Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster in May 1967, although the T-shirts made the scene more explicit. These T-shirts, like other punk clothing items, were often torn on purpose. Other items in early British punk fashion included: leather jackets; customised blazers; and dress shirts randomly covered in slogans (such as "Only Anarchists are pretty"), blood, patches and controversial images.
British punks also used fashion as a means to criticize the monarchy; Westwood's God Save the Queen shirt featured an image of Queen Elizabeth II alongside text reading "She ain't no human being", taken directly from the Sex Pistol's single of the same name. While the band has denied that the single was produced specifically in reaction to the Queen's Silver Jubilee, the song and Westwood's design were viewed as an affront to British values of patriotism and the monarchy.
Many early punks wore swastikas and used Nazi imagery in their dress. As a means to provoke people, the symbol retained great power to alarm. Key examples of punk usage of Nazi symbols can be identified in Westwood's DESTROY t-shirt which was worn by members of the Sex Pistols, or a dress shirt which featured striping similar to those on the uniforms worn by prisoners in concentration camps. Sid Vicious wore a t-shirt featuring a swastika while he walked through a Jewish neighbourhood in the film The Great Rock and Roll Swindle. With the resurgence of Britain's National Front, those who wore the swastika discredited the anti-racist values of the movement.
Other accoutrements worn by some punks included: BDSM fashions, fishnet stockings (sometimes ripped), spike bands and other studded or spiked jewelry, safety pins (in clothes and as body piercings), silver bracelets and heavy eyeliner worn by both men and women. Many female punks rebelled against the stereotypical image of a woman by combining clothes that were delicate or pretty with clothes that were considered masculine, such as combining a Ballet tutu with big, clunky boots. Female exemplars of early punk style included Pamela Rooke aka Jordan, Siouxsie Sioux, Soo Catwoman, and Gaye Advert.
Punk clothing sometimes incorporated everyday objects for aesthetic effect. Many outfits were made out pieces of clothing that were readily available, either from secondhand stores or whatever kids had on hand. Emphasizing a DIY ethos, many punks utilized jean and leather jackets as canvases for pins, paint, and spikes. Purposely ripped clothes were held together by safety pins or wrapped with tape; black bin liners (garbage bags) became dresses, shirts and skirts. Mohair, PVC, and other odd, anachronistic elements of fashion were utilized in outfits. Other items added to clothing or as jewellery included razor blades and chains. Leather, rubber and vinyl clothing have been common, possibly due to their connection with transgressive sexual practices, such as bondage and S&M. Provocative imagery referencing sexual practices and deviant forms of sexuality were utilized, such as in Vivienne Westwood's Two Cowboys shirt, which featured an illustration by Jim French of two cowboys naked from the waist down, one of them fixing the other's neckerchief. Its depiction of homosexuality was provocative within a middle-class British culture that was hostile to sexual relations alternate to heterosexuality.
Preferred footwear included military boots, motorcycle boots, brothel creepers, Puma Clydes (suede), Chuck Taylor All-Stars and later, Dr. Martens boots. Tapered jeans, tight leather pants, trousers with leopard patterns and bondage pants were popular choices. Other early punks (most notably the Adicts) imitated the Droogs from A Clockwork Orange by wearing bowler hats and braces. Hair was cropped and deliberately made to look messy, and was often dyed bright unnatural colours. Although provocative, these hairstyles were not as extreme as later punk hairstyle.
Keen designers, much like Westwood, had been able to draw inspiration from the punk style found on the streets, translating its anarchic frustration and resistance to the runways. Zandra Rhodes utilized rips, tears and safety pins in her 1977 'Conceptual Chic' collection; similarly, Claude Montana presented 12 models in "black leather jackets, caps, and pants in 1977. As it gained popularity on the runway, many designers viewed its origin on the streets as 'trashy' and that it no longer served as a source of fresh inspiration. Fashion designers ended up creating a standardized palette where the punk look was, more or less, essentially uniform. Spiky hair, jeans or bondage trousers, leather jackets with slogans, pins, and patches on them, T-shirts, studs and chains all became hallmarks of the look, undermining the individuality that had been essential to the movement.
1980s
In the 1980s, new fashion styles developed as parallel resurgences occurred in the United States and United Kingdom. What many recognize as typical punk fashions today emerged from the 1980s British scene, when punk underwent its Oi!/street punk and UK82 renaissance. The US scene was exemplified by hardcore bands such as Black Flag, Minor Threat, and Fear. The 1980s American scene spawned a utilitarian anti-fashion that was nonetheless raw, angry, and intimidating. However, elements of the 1970s punk look never fully died away.
Some of the following clothing items were common on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and some were unique to certain geographic areas. Footwear that was common in the 1980s punk scene included Dr. Martens boots, motorcycle boots and combat boots; sometimes adorned with bandanas, chains or studded leather bands. Jeans (sometimes dirty, torn or splattered with bleach) and tartan kilts or skirts were commonly worn. Leather skirts became a popular item for female punks. Heavy chains were sometimes used as belts. Bullet belts, and studded belts (sometimes more than one worn at a time) also became common.
Some punks bought T-shirts or plaid flannel shirts and wrote political slogans, band names or other punk-related phrases on them with marker pens. While this was not without precedent in the 1970s, the depth and detail of these slogans were not fully developed until the 1980s. Silkscreened T-shirts with band logos or other punk-related logos or slogans were also popular. Studded, painted and otherwise customised leather jackets or denim vests became more popular during this era, as the popularity of the earlier customized blazers waned, somewhat.
Hair was either shaved, spiked or in a crew cut or Mohawk hairstyle. Tall mohawks and spiked hair, either bleached or in bright colors, took on a more extreme character than in the 1970s. Charged hair, in which all of one's hair stands on end but is not styled into distinct spikes, also emerged. A hairstyle similar to the Misfits' devilocks was popular. This involved cutting a mohawk but leaving a longer tuft of hair at the front of the head. It is still popular to this day in the horror punk scene. Body piercings and extensive tattoos became very popular during this era, as did spike bands and studded in chokers. Some hardcore punk women reacted to the earlier 1970s movement's coquettish vibe by adopting an androgynous style.
Hardcore punk fans adopted a dressed-down style of T-shirts, jeans, combat boots or sneakers and crewcut-style haircuts. Women in the hardcore scene typically wore army pants, band T-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts.
The style of the 1980s hardcore scene contrasted with the more provocative fashion styles of late 1970s punk rockers (elaborate hairdos, torn clothes, patches, safety pins, studs, spikes, etc.). Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris described early hardcore fashion as "the...punk scene was basically based on English fashion. But we had nothing to do with that. Black Flag and the Circle Jerks were so far from that. We looked like the kid who worked at the gas station or submarine shop." Henry Rollins echoes Morris' point, stating that for him getting dressed up meant putting on a black shirt and some dark pants; Rollins viewed an interest in fashion as being a distraction.