The Effects Social and Political Changes Had on Fashion in the 1980’s

In this essay, I will be discussing about a social group that took fashion to the next level and create a huge impact in British history were the punks culture during the late nineteen seventies. The punk cultures were to rebel against the government during the great depression and were all about the attitude of the younger generations. During the late nineteen seventies was the time of unemployment and social unrest, a lot of the young white kids felt outcast from the British culture, foreseeing their lives with little prospect and so called “no future”. It was also a DIY “Do it yourself” movement. Younger generation that adopted the punk look often create their own garment by wearing safety pins,

Chicanx people heavily populated these areas and their communities were affected deeply. Due to the economic downsizing and deindustrialization, the punk movement emerged. Punk is an empowering and critical discourse for Chicanx artist and it appeals to working-class Chicanx who experienced racial and economic

From the view of an average spectator, the dress code of a punk might look dirty and disorganized with no thought put into it, but this poor and torn clothing is carefully put together and arranged. The idea of what some people call insulting or indecent is the reason why punks wear this type of clothing. They want to look offensive and dirty to the normal eye. Their clothing was modified with everyday objects to have that aesthetic look and style that everyone else would hate.

Music, in the past, has often spelled bad news to society at large. It can challenge norms and invoke a sense of hype in places that modern culture may be uncomfortable with, such as sex, sexuality, and drugs. Personally, when I think of punk music, I see a genre that stands to be individualistic, aggressive, and rebellious. Phrases such as ‘anti-establishment’ also come up. This notion comes from many aspects of punk subculture, including dress, music, performance, and my interpretations.

The attitude common in the subculture is the resistance to selling out, which means abandoning one’s values and changing in musical style toward pop to embrace anything that’s mainstream capitalist culture in the exchange for money, status, or power. Punk rocks’ common thinking wasn’t only anti-authoritarism, and not selling out but also non-conformity, direct action, and a DIY ethic. The DIY attitude was pointed towards stepping forward and speaking without any restraint. To fight with warrior qualities to achieve what you were striving for. The kind of thinking and motives for punk rock subjects was to not settle for what society made acceptable and standard but to think and work outside of the box that was holding them in.

However, the way punks expressed themselves was new to their society. They created a punk fashion, that Baldwin could describe as a fever. The youth of the 70s in Britain and United States was listening to punk rock, wearing leather jackets and torn jeans, and dyeing their hair in vivid colors. Fever is contagious just like fashion. However, punk fashion was not only about crazy looks and loud music, but also about alcohol and drugs. As Baldwin mentioned, fever could be fatal. Punk culture was indeed filled with alcohol and drugs, that killed a lot of young people, who had punk

     The time was in the mid-seventies, there was a void in the music industry that needed to be filled. This need for a new sound was aptly filled by punk rock, a new type of sound that had evolved from mostly rock and a little pop music. The focus of this paper is on punk rock and it’s ample beginnings, early pioneers of the new sound, punk rock listener’s cultural background and their ideas as a whole, bands influenced by the punk rock movement, and the state of punk rock today.

Punk has always been about more than just the sound of the music people were making during that era, although the sound was a huge factor and played an interwoven part of the entire ordeal. Punk split itself from the traditional rock of its time, sonically, by deciding that clean guitar riffs, processed vocals, and any sound product that didn’t come straight out of the instrument/artist wasn’t “real enough”. Hanner stated in “Unpopular Culture…”: “Musically, punk and hardcore are characterized by short, strident, up-tempo songs performed with consistent, straightforward instrumentation, meaning a lack of synthesizers, guitar effects, or post-production audio modification.“ As a result Punk became the gritty, noisy, dirty and unique sound that everyone can instantly recognize. Punk was also an ideology. It was something people lived by and something that had a very blatant and in your face message of being anti-government, anti-establishment, and basically anti-authority all together. This exact sentiment is described in the same article by Nathan Hanner in “Unpopular Culture…”:

As a teenager growing up in 1970s Washington D.C. one might rise out of bed in the morning, squeeze into their bell bottoms and skin-tight t-shirts, not expecting that that would be the day they ran into a group of kids dawned in black with clothes pins in their shirts, who called themselves punks and were looking to make a change in DC music history. In a time where the country was divided by political beliefs, a raging war, and racial tensions, smack dab in the center of Washington D.C. came the punk scene. It was said that the hippie scene majorly influenced the punk scene, some would say that the hippies were “the real punks”(Punk: Attitude, 3:12). The punk scene consisted of kids who opposed hippies, so in retrospect the hippies are what

Like clothing, the 1920‘s also took a great tole on women’s accessorization, the use of cosmetics, and tanning. Some popular accessories girls wore were long strand of pearls, bangles, dangling earrings and furs. The strands of pearls were normally looped a few time around the neck. Long straight fur coats without curves became very popular (Women’s Fashion Accessories). Women began getting their eyebrows thinned to emphasize a younger face. They started wearing make up around the eyes to make them look larger. Lipstick became popular to accent the upper lip and depth of the lower lip. Because women wanted to change their look with makeup, the makeup market started booming during this decade. Although you could buy makeup, few women still made their own makeup. They used soot for eyeshadow and petroleum jelly mixed with soot for mascara. Women began to wear heels, the most popular being the ankle-strap cuban heeled shoe. They wore brimmed hats, such as a cloche hat to finish their look. Later in decade, more headbands with feather were being worn instead of brimmed hats. This look coming from the

Change is a theme that is ever-present in our culture and society. Often this change is reflected in the dress of its people. From the fashionable silhouettes of the 1920’s to the colorful 60’s, hip-hop look of 90’s up to the modern twist of today, social change and change in fashion has, in theory and practice, been linked. According to ask.com, Fashion can be defined as a prevalent style by a particular group at a particular time, and, therefore, may be linked to a specific cultural and historical context in which there is general acceptance of a given style or look

“As rock 'n' roll became bigger and bigger in the '70s, it was time for another revolution - a return to a basic, raw, three-chord sound, namely, punk. From the streets of New York City and London, punk rock reverberated around the world and turned the rock 'n' roll status quo on its head.”(Open Directory Project)

For many people, the word punk brings to mind similar images of grungy looking teenagers who are wearing dark, ripped clothing held together with safety pins and chains which displays some sort of offensive symbol or saying. They are probably also wearing a leather jacket and Doc Martens, sporting an unconventional hairstyle such as a brightly colored Mohawk or spikes, and listening to loud music. For the most part, the images people think of as associated with the word punk are a pretty accurate representation of how people who were part of the punk movement looked. Though most people can describe what punks are supposed to look like, most cannot explain the purpose of the anti-fashion trend that most punks followed.

The punk subculture was one of the influential revolutions on the 20th century, which originated in in the 1970s and spread across countries that included the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia. This subculture was based on a loud, aggressive genre of music called punk rock, and it intended to gain individual freedom for the working class. This essay explains the journey from the evolution and widespread of the punk subculture in the UK in 1980s. As the title suggests, punk fashion has been ruptured, tweaked and re interpreted by individuals and fashion designers over and over again, and its style has been re adapted to juxtapose on contemporary trends.

The Years between the 1950’s and 1960’s was an explosive time in fashion. The 50’s represented an out coming of the new generation. People began to gain their own personal style and appearance, influenced by films and singers (“Vintage Fashion”). Their styles incorporated leather, jeans, corduroy, and the ballet shoes for the girls. Men’s wear began to drastically change. Men would wear a leather jacket, with jeans that narrowed at the bottom, and a simple t-shirt (Peacock 210-211). This was the first time in history that jeans were not just worn by the working class but by all men (“Brief History”). The man’s lust for flesh grew during this time, so women’s skirts began to get shorter and the bikini was invented. Clothes were made to glorify the female body and emphasize every curve. It wasn’t until the Barbie doll was created in the late 50’s that young girls began to have a separate fashion from their mothers. Young girls would wear sweaters with full skirts or pants