No Such Thing as a Punk Fad: The effects of mainstream fashion borrowing from subculture style

i don't remember which trend really irked me first, the faux-hawks suddenly sprouting up on runways around the world, over half a decade ago or taking my then-toddler into a cheap, accessories shop and discovering that I could buy just about anything covered in skulls and crossbones. there was a time, just before this exasperating discovery, when old women would scoot over a few inches away from me when i sat down on the subway because i had both an actual mohawk and wore skulls and crossbones on my clothing. and we'll get into the studs in just a moment, we will. 

it's normal for whole decades in fashion to be brought back with very little tweaking but, since the aforementioned elements have popped into the mainstream, it seems like we're constantly seeing design and/or style elements hijacked from one subculture or another. 

as someone whose anarcho-punk and death rock roots once kinked with anger at the thought of mainstream fashion, i feel that, over the last few years, i have grown out of the "black sheep" groove i had firmly and quite resolutely wedged myself into as a teen. i have not forgotten where i come from and evidence of these beginnings can be seen on my person most days but i guess that somewhere along the way, i just grew up and stopped hating everything that wasn't marginal.  that said, the one thing that is still guaranteed to get me riled up this particular phenomena and, seeing as i will always be a punk and death rocker at heart, in some way, i'm coming at this from a much different angle than most fashion bloggers. basically, when it comes to punk, goth, rockabilly and psychobilly and even skinhead and mod elements being integrated into mainstream fashion, i know my shit and 90% of the people that go on about it don't. 

let us briefly touch upon the studs and spikes that started to emerge onto the main stage a few years ago and are absolutely rampant, right now. once a staple of the punk uniform or sometimes of a rocker's accessories, nowadays we can easily see the average, two-step-dancing-hand-clapping-on-the-dancefloor-top-forty-listening-boom-boom-blasting-out-of-their-car girl (or even guy) covered in what appears to be hundreds of studs and/or spikes. 

i found this photo on mystyle.com and, along with it, this cringe-inducing blurb.

you're "over" the studded belt? well then good for you and screw almost forty years of punk rocker and rocker fashion, in general, because you're done with this "trend". this is where my main issue with this lies. 

secondly, yes! if we're going to talk about the studded belt coming from somewhere, let's talk about sex in the city. wait. what?

you see these ladies? 

they (or their boyfriends) worked hard to hammer and screw each and every stud you see in their jackets. this simple yet defining fashion element was pure punk and sometimes rock 'n' roll until now. you might want to check out the brief history of punk that came along with this photo. 

to put it simply and to speak on behalf of most punks out there, if you don't know who this guy is...

...then you should maybe do a little bit of research, out of respect for a subculture that has no doubt influenced you in more ways than one, if you're drawn to studs and spikes in the first place. 

although in this case it is a bit more difficult than in others, i am trying to remain objective. i'll prove this to you with a short list of cons and pros for integral fashion elements being yoinked by mainstream designers.

cons

• they are taking something timeless and, in its own right, classic, using it up and then spitting it out, rendering it passé.
• this erases the lines between subculture and mainstream, when the two are very, very different things. especially in the case of punk. if you follow all the rules and shuffle along with normal, mainstream society, then you kind of have no business wearing punk clothing. period. it means something.
• it's confusing. ten years ago, if you saw a dude walking across the street and his arms were covered in tattoos, you knew he was a bad-ass. that guy listened to rock n roll or metal or punk rock and he probably had a lot of really interesting things to say. chances are, you might already know him. now, everybody and their dog is inked and suddenly it's all, "yeah, i have tats, too, man," and "cool tats, bro," (p.s. it is never okay to say "tats". never. it's douchey. don't do it). it may seem like i'm digressing but i'm not. the woman across the street who gets up in the morning and dresses more and more like a punk but listens to rihanna and can't name one clash or sex pistols song and who was wearing whatever the hell was trendy last season and will wear whatever the hell is trendy next season is confusing. 
• there is nothing punk rock about buying clothing that is already decked out. we sew our patches and put in our own spikes. that's a huge part of what punk rock is. johnny rotten (please know who he is) used to cut up the suits his parents bought him and reconstruct them with the use of safety pins and large stitching. that is punk rock, not buying the thing already cut up or studded or whatnot. 

pros

• the punk rock kid at school who gets bullied is now a trend setter. (sadly, chances are that if he is a punk kid, he's probably as annoyed by this as i am, though...)
• that's it. the other pros i had listed were in relation to the clothing being readily available and cheaper but then i'd be contradicting my last con so there you have it. i can't actually come up with pros that adhere to punk rock values.

we are so far from seeing the end of this phenomenon. notice everyone's spring/summer 2013 "mod" collections? marc jacobs, escada, colourblocked dresses in dillard's ads? i have a whole other piece to write on the mod scene, though. we'll be seeing more mainstream pieces with goth elements, as one of the forecasted trends for fall/winter 2013-2014 is "dark romance". 

luckily, some well-known people in the fashion industry occasionally step up to the plate. they either create original punk rock wear, like vivienne westwood (alexander mcqueen was also pretty bad-ass and kept up a certain theme, throughout all of his collections) or at least defend subcultures. my favourite moment on project runway canada (wtf happened to that show, btw? we're loaded with talented designers, up here!) was when iman called montréal contestant, marie-geneviève cyr on her shit. she had created some horribly cliché, "halloween goth" outfit (i think that's what iman actually called it) and iman challenged the other judges, who somehow loved this cheesy, unimaginative mess of lace and vinyl. she was very clear and told them straight-up that goth is a culture and not some costume theme. i applauded and iman immediately became my favourite model ever. 

now a friend of mine just brought a really great point when she blamed part of this problem on one person. mainstream fashionistas are not entirely to blame when they are being lead by people who are the exact opposite of punk but claim to be so. people like, say, avril lavigne, who when asked if her influences were bands such as the sex pistols and the clash, responded with, "no. more, like, punk". if you don't grow up in a household that opens your mind to subcultures, your friends are mainstream and then this person comes along with a studded belt and a pair of chucks and proclaims that she is punk rock, what the hell are you supposed to believe, right?

it can't be stopped but i do wish people would educate themselves. you don't have to be married to david bowie to know this stuff, either. if you go through the trouble of wearing something as trendy as studded boots, you obviously don't just throw on whatever you found on your floor that smelled good so take that extra step and learn about what you're wearing and where it came from. please and thank you. 

photo sources:

studded boots-- theberry.com

sid vicious-- fanpop.com

addendum: i've heard so many rockers and punks blame the demarginalization of several style elements on hipsters. this is far more widespread. today i sat in an office and almost fell off my chair when a 60-something-year-old business woman with pink streaks in her bleached hair walked in wearing a sheer, leopard print top, a skirt with a large, vinyl panel integrated into it, a belt with a giant skull-and-crossbones buckle, chevron-print tights and studded ankle boots. i'm willing to guess she was neither a punk rocker nor a hipster. ;-)

Posted in: goth,history of punk,iman,johnny rotten,mainstream fashion,marie-genevieve cyr,posers,punk,sex pistols,spikes,studded,studded boots,studs,subculture,tattoos,trends,vivienne westwood