Image via Complex Original
Written by James Harris (@Dr_TacoMD)
In the '70s, a new culture of music and fashion exploded out of NYC and soon spread to London. Punk's fast, violent, DIY sound and look spit in the face of everything that came before it, forming a completely new attitude toward clothing and style. Punk style changed over the decades, but its initial genesis and subsequent evolution were so shocking and furious that a bunch of awesome factoids, tidbits, and trivia were left in the dust.
On May 9, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in NYC will open an exhibition titled "PUNK: Chaos to Couture." The show highlights how early punk fashion influenced and still inspires luxury designers to this day—but it won't cover the bits of knowledge about punk style that have slipped through the cracks.
Mick Jones of the Clash said that punk in its purest form only lasted 100 days, and whether you agree with him or not, it's quite clear that the culture's style has left behind an insane legacy. If you thought punk style was only about mohawks and safety pins, then read on for 29 Things You Didn't Know About Punk Style.
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"Punk" was first used to describe the subculture's sound and fashion in 1971.
Punk's original definition in the 16th century was "prostitute." It then came to mean "homosexual" in the early 20th century, then "kid," and then "young criminal." The magazine Creem started using the term "punk rock" in May 1971 to describe the fast, violent music and fashion associated with the sound.
Punk style borrowed from Teddy Boys, skinheads, greasers, the Victorian era, and their own childhood school uniforms.
Like all fashion movements, punk took cues from earlier styles and subcultures. Some punks, like the Clash, wore their hair in pompadours like the greasers of the ’50s. Brands that were originally the favorites of Teddy Boys and skinheads, such as Fred Perry, Doc Martens, and Ben Sherman, were adopted by numerous punks.
In the movement's early days, a lot of punks put their own DIY spin on the dandy suit, which originated with the likes of Oscar Wilde and Beau Brummell in the Victorian era. Many punks even remixed the old jacket-and-tie school uniforms from their childhood closets.
Everyone thought the Ramones only wore Chuck Taylors, but they actually preferred Keds.
The Ramones created the basic uniform for punk fashion: motorcycle jacket, shrunken T-shirt, torn-up skinny jeans, and sneakers. It is well-known that their jackets were Perfecto jackets by Schott and their jeans were Levi's. However, it's an urban legend that the Ramones only liked Chuck Taylors. On their first album cover in 1976, the group wore their preferred sneaker brand: Keds. But when that particular style of Keds went out of production in the U.S., the Ramones were forced to switch to the cheap and readily available Chuck Taylors.
Johnny Ramone wore Reeboks for his high arches.
Here's more evidence that the Ramones weren't as into Chuck Taylors as everyone thought. Johnny Ramone always wore Reeboks because he had high arches and Chucks didn't give him the arch support he needed. After the Ramones disbanded in 1996, Marky Ramone switched back to wearing Jack Purcells because Chuck Taylors gave him blisters.
Richard Hell was the O.G. of punk style.
Richard Hell from Richard Hell and the Voidoids is widely considered to be the first person to rip up his T-shirts and close the tears with safety pins. One of the New York-based musician's infamous creations was a T-shirt that he stenciled with "PLEASE KILL ME."
Hell considers his haircut to be his most influential style legacy. A lot of punks were reacting to the hippie, glam-rock, and disco generations that preceded them, including Hell. In response to the trend of androgynous long hair, Hell lopped off his locks and gave himself a choppy haircut that was very obviously DIY. It was a style that many punks, including the Sex Pistols, would copy.
Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's store was the central launching pad for British punk fashion.
Malcolm McLaren spent the winter of 1974-75 in New York, where he first saw the stirrings of what would become punk. He returned to London and, partnering with Vivienne Westwood, opened a shop on King's Road in Chelsea. What began as a small record shop called Back of Paradise Garage, where McLaren and a friend sold vinyl records, memorabilia, and magazines became ground zero for British punk style. The shop underwent numerous name changes, and at various times was called Let it Rock; Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die; Sex; Seditionaries; and Worlds End. The Sex Pistols were formed from several young punks who hung around the shop, and McLaren managed the group.
McLaren and Westwood gained infamy with their shocking T-shirts.
McLaren and Westwood gained notoriety in London and the rest of the world with their controversial T-shirts. Examples included a design that incorporated the notorious serial killer known as the Cambridge Rapist; Mickey and Minnie Mouse having sex; cowboys with their penises out; and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth with a safety pin through her lip. These T-shirts and the styles that they spawned were meant to shock and disturb—and they were definitely successful. McLaren, as the manager of the Sex Pistols, made sure that the band was always wearing clothes that Westwood designed.
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McLaren and Westwood used McLaren's son's stencil kit to add slogans and text to their designs.
Using plain shirts, the two would use various techniques to alter and switch up anything they wanted to. Buttons were swapped, patches sewn on, shirts were hand-painted, and different dying techniques were used. This iconic "Only Anarchists Are Pretty" shirt is now owned by the Japanese streetwear legend Hiroshi Fujiwara, and is the piece that Damien thought he was buying when he forked over nearly $7,000 for a fake version.
Before the Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious was a shopboy.
Sid Vicious worked at Sex before the formation of the Sex Pistols. According to Boy George, Sid "was a sweet boy in those days, goofy in Hawaiian shirts and fifties pegs."
Punks wore swastika symbols to shock and disturb the WWII generation.
The swastika armband, safety pins, and torn shirts originated in NYC, but quickly made their way to London. An employee of Sex named Alan Jones was beaten up in Notting Hill for wearing a swastika armband. Still, punks were largely undeterred. When explaining why she wore the Nazi symbol, Siouxsie Sioux explained, "It was an anti-mums and dads thing. We hated older people always harping on about Hitler, 'We showed him,' and that smug pride. It was a way of watching someone like that go completely red-faced."
British punk style and New York punk style were very different.
Soon after punk fashion's genesis, differences arose based on geography and philosophy. After a few years, British punks were dressed colorfully and were a diverse mishmash of various styles and subsets. The New York version of punk, on the other hand, typically meant dressing in all black. The evolution of the varying styles was a reflection of the different ideologies of British and New York punks.
In London, punk was about openly rebelling against a very entrenched class system. The brighter, bolder, and more shocking the clothing, and the more of a disturbance it made, the better. In New York, the punk scene was more of an artistic movement, and stuck with the tried-and-true all-black everything. Regional twists included safety pins, intentional distress and destruction, and a DIY element.
Johnny Rotten used to wear trash bags.
In the late ’70s, strikes by London trash collectors left large piles of garbage on the street. Johnny Rotten began to wear the trash bags, later saying: "That was a perfect, perfect item of clothing. Yo'ud just cut out a hole for your head and your arms and put a belt on, and you looked stunning."
Sid Vicious used to buy Vogue to copy the looks.
According to Johnny Rotten: "Sid was an absolute fashion victim—the worst I'd ever known. It was appalling...He'd buy these ridiculous Vogue magazines to study them and copy people. It was just terrible...He'd wear nail gloss and think of himself as being very dainty...He'd wear sandals in the snow with no socks when he wanted to show off his nail varnish." Rotten claims Vicious was inspired by David Bowie, saying that he would "hang upside down in the oven to get his hair to stand up like Bowie's."
Sid Vicious was a fashion victim to the very end. On a scrap of paper found in his pocket after he died of an alleged suicide, Vicious asked that he be buried in his leather jacket, jeans, and motorcycle boots.
Punk was first seen in a haute couture collection in 1977.
In 1977, Zandra Rhodes became the first couture designer to put punk on the runway. Her "Conceptual Chic" collection incorporated safety pins, black jersey, and fabric tears.
Punks’ preferred tartan plaid has always been Royal Stewart Tartan, the personal tartan of Queen Elizabeth II.
Royal Stewart Tartan was a popular pattern for the fashionable upper crust of British society in Victorian and Edwardian times. Its subsequent association with the aristocracy meant the pattern denoted civility and authority. Punks reappropriated the plaid, and wore the pattern in torn-up strips, as bondage wear, and other unconventional means. This was yet another way to give the middle finger to the established rulers of British society and showcase punk's dissatisfaction with the way things were.
It took only a few years for punks and their style to become a tourist attraction.
Punks in full punk regalia became a tourist attraction on King's Road by the late ’70s. Tourists would walk by and photograph punks and their clothes while they hung out in the Chelsea neighborhood.
In the early ’80s, Adam Ant was Westwood's muse. He became an early and avid collector of punk-era clothing.
After the demise of the Sex Pistols, Vivienne Westwood turned her attention to Adam Ant, lead singer of Adam and the Ants. Westwood used him to display her latest creations, which came to be known as New Romanticism. Even though he was at the forefront of this fashion movement that rejected punk's filth and fury, Adam Ant was an avid collector and archivist of punk-era clothing. He never doubted that the clothes that defined punk had tremendous historical value. Numerous pieces that will be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art were purchased from his private collection.
Punks in the ’80s popularized mohawks and studded leather vests.
In reaction to the perceived artistic pretensions of the first wave of British punk, in the early ’80s the culture developed a style championed by working-class youth who sought to do away with the corruption of "professionalism" and "musicianship." The style from this era embodies the modern-day image of "punk." These were the punks who rocked mohawks, studded leather vests and jackets, and patches with political slogans and band names stiched onto their clothes.
Punk rockers weren't the first musicians to have mohawks.
Several jazz musicians in the ’50s sported mohawks well before the style caught on with punks in the late ’70s and ’80s. Sonny Rollins famously had one in the late ’50s. His reason for rocking one was very punk: "It was sort of a statement—outside of the box behavior."
Hardcore punk of the '80s preferred simple, utilitarian style because it was better for moshing.
Hardcore punk bands of the '80s and their fans preferred a simple, dressed-down style as opposed to the increasingly flamboyant dress of punk's first wave. As a genre that claimed to be by and for working-class youth, hardcore punk rejected the theatrical punk outfits that developed in the late '70s.
T-shirts, workwear, and short hair were the general outfit of choice. Jewelry, spiky hair, and studded clothing were discouraged, as they could do serious damage to the wearer and others while moshing. Keith Morris, the founding vocalist of Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, said that "the L.A./Hollywood punk scene was basically based on English fashion. But we had nothing to do with that." Instead, "We looked like the kid who worked at the gas station or submarine shop."
Ian MacKaye, the frontman of Minor Threat and Fugazi, explained that hardcore was trying to move away from punk rock and what he called "a fashion thing." In his eyes, "We were really trying to differentiate between what people were calling punk rock, which was this really Sid Vicious kind of New York or London, kind of posie kind of fashion...That was punk rock...something hardcore wanted to get away from."
Henry Rollins, the face and voice of the hardcore scene, was even more blunt about his thoughts on fashion. To him, "Getting dressed up means wearing a black T-shirt and some really basic dark pants...Fuck clothes. The more time you spend worrying about clothes, the less time you have to grab life by the balls. You ever see a cheetah obsess over scarves and pocket squares? No. You see a cheetah bolt 70 miles an hour to take down a gazelle and shred it to fucking pieces. Be the cheetah."
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MacKaye cut off his long hair using a pair of dog-grooming clippers.
The Minor Threat and Fugazi frontman worked at a pet store with Henry Rollins in Washington, D.C. After seeing The Cramps play, he sheared off his long locks using the resources available.
Mike Watt started wearing flannel shirts at age 13 to emulate John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival.
As young kids, Mike Watt and bandmate D. Boon were quick friends. The reason why Mike Watt wore the flannel shirts that eventually became his signature look as the bassist of Minutemen is actually a very sweet one. In Watt's words: "At that time the only rock band [D. Boon] knew was Creedence Clearwater Revival and when his ma put me on bass and I tried to learn those tunes, for the life of me I couldn't hear what was going on. So I thought if I wore John Fogerty's shirts he would still like me."
In 2012, Watt teamed up with Altamont Apparel to recreate his signature flannel shirt, which appears on the cover of the Minutemen album Double Nickels on the Dime.
Grunge was influenced by punk's anti-fashion ideals.
Grunge developed in the early ’90s and heavily borrowed from punk culture's stance on image, "prettiness," and style. Just as punk DIY and shock fashion was a direct response to hippies, grunge's utilitarianism and uncleanliness ran counter to the otherwise flashy aesthetic of the ’80s. Kurt Cobain wearing a T-shirt with a handwritten "Corporate magazines still suck" on the cover of Rolling Stone was a move that seemed straight out of punk's early days, when musicians scrawled political commentary on their clothes.
Similarly, by being so anti-fashion, both punk and grunge ultimately and ironically trickled up to influence high-end fashion. Elements from both subcultures can still be seen on catwalks around the world.
The Suicide Machines recorded an ode to Vans in 1994, establishing them as the preferred shoe for the era's pop-punk bands.
In 1994, the Suicide Machines released the single "Vans Song." The track dismissed Doc Martens, Birkenstocks, and any other brand that wasn't "just a crummy old pair of chukka boots." The song was an already widely accepted declaration that Vans were now the preferred sneaker of choice for the punk and pop-punk bands that revived the genre in the mid-’90s and continued to enjoy popularity into the ’00s.
Contemporary luxury designers are still directly influenced by punk style.
Numerous luxury designers are still directly influenced by punk fashion and iconic photographs from early punk culture. For a movement that, according to Mick Jones of The Clash, lasted 100 days in its purest form, punk has had a remarkably long legacy. Several haute couture brands have based items or entire collections on the clothing of punk's early era. Punk also created the notion that clothes didn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.
After Zandra Rhodes first put ripped-up clothes on the runway in 1977, Rei Kawakubo redefined the notion of shape and form in the mid-’80s with punk influence. Haute couture has continued to borrow from the movement ever since. Elizabeth Hurley wore a now-famous Versace dress in 1994 with large slits held together with safety pins. Every model in Fendi's AW13 runway show sported a mohawk hairstyle. And in a move that circles back to Johnny Rotten wearing trash bags in the ’70s, the final look at Gareth Pugh's AW13 show was a dress made from shredded and reconstructed trash bags.
Damien Hirst got swindled when he purchased what turned out to be fake punk clothing.
In 2008, Damien Hirst paid a clothes dealer £80,000 for a collection of punk-era original designs by Vivienne Westwood. Malcolm McLaren took one look and told the famous artist that they were all fakes. The incident brought attention to the number of replicates, bootlegs, and fraudulent clothing that dealers claimed were authentic originals from the punk era.
Supreme's SS13 T-shirt was inspired by Vivienne Westwood
In addition to the Misfits collaboration, Supreme's SS13 collection had a very obscure punk reference. The NYC-based brand's "Fuck Bones" T-shirt is based on Vivienne Westwood's Perv bones T-shirt. The original T-shirt was inspired by Bryan Gregory of the Cramps. The bassist used to wear chicken bones every day.
Andrew Bolton, curator of the Met's Costume Institute, realized the punk and haute couture connection while at a Thom Browne show.
Andrew Bolton, the curator of the exhibition "PUNK: From Chaos to Couture," is currently dating Thom Browne. Bolton told The New Yorker that "Seeing Thom's menswear show in Paris...crystallized my thinking about punk." The qualities and aesthetics of Browne's collection "reminded me of films I'd seen of punks walking down the King's Road in very tight trousers and tight T-shirts. The connection between haute couture and punk really became clear to me when I saw Thom's show."
Malcolm McLaren thought punk fashion was more important than punk music.
Punk culture was all about subverting the established sense of normalcy. People have since argued whether the movement's fashion or music was more successful in doing so. Malcolm McLaren, the most powerful force behind both components of the culture, once stated that "fashion was much more important than the music. Punk was the sound of fashion." In other words, the visual and aesthetic disruption that punks created was the foundation of the culture, and the music was merely the voice articulating what the clothing and style already expressed.
There's no way one aspect could have existed without the other, and the coexistence of the two allowed punk's legacy to continue beyond its immediate context. The style and the music were both creative outlets that rebelled against mores that had settled over a complacent society, and taught youth once and for all that they could live by independent political, creative, and aesthetic rules—an ethos later manifested in hip-hop. It's no accident then, that Malcolm McLaren went on to become one of hip-hop's biggest and earliest proponents in England.