Wouldn't You Know It?: A Whole Exhibit Focused on What I Write About Most!

Want to know my thoughts on this? Check this out.

'Guess I'm going back to New York, this summer...

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Roots. Part Three: Annelie et La Poire

once we'd moved to gatineau, i was sent to saint-aloysius elementary school for three years. it was horrible. in addition to the verbal abuse and general mental fuckery i was dealing with at home and to the the constant bullying from neighbourhood kids because i chose to speak english on a regular basis, i also had to deal with mainstream, suburbanite brats at school. every single day was a struggle and no amount of money in this world would be enough for me to go back and relive any of it, without the confidence and knowledge i possess, today. no way.

 there are no english high school in gatineau or aylmer so all the anglo kids from those two towns join the ones in hull, where there are two, d'arcy mcgee and philemon wright. before heading to the former, though, i was part of the second last grade to go to junior high in the district (since then, like with most of québec, kids finish grade six and go straight to high school, which is grade seven). anyhow, about one-hundred-and-twenty of us occupied the second floor of an elementary school in hull and learned how to switch from class to class, start calling "recess" "break" and go to experience the thrill of leaving school grounds at lunch. 

i immediately tried to find friends that i hadn't previosuly known and found the most common ground with a girl named kim. she was the closest thing to a real grunge kid that i'd ever met, wearing oversized cardigans and sweaters over band t-shirts with baggy corduroys or jeans that were frayed at the hems. she wore very little make-up, if any at all, and her blonde hair hung in straightened but nonetheless messy strands, usually covering one of her eyes. we walked around at lunch, talking about music and boys. i talked about the boy i was "in love" with but had moved to québec city over the summer and she talked about her eighteen-year-old boyfriend she had sex with several times a week, smoked weed and got drunk with. we were twelve. i enjoyed her company a lot but felt juvenile around her and often felt embarrassed after describing what i'd done that week-end (which was usually biking to the library, borrowing thirteen books and biking back home to read them in my room). i would say things like, "i wish we could study shakepseare" and she would say things like, "i'd like to give my boyfriend a big, wet, french kiss."

within about three months, another girl, annelie, sometimes joined us for lunch or sat with us during gym. she had blue hair, piercings, twenty-hole docs and a patched up perfecto and she wore plaid or combat pants. annelie also had sex with her much-older boyfriend on a regular basis. she talked about bands that i had never heard of and soon had me drawing up posters and stickers of their logos. before i looked any of this up, i was drawing an actual skinny puppy beside that band's name. a few other girls who knew and loved the sex pistols, ministry, the dead kennedys, gwar and a bunch of these other then-strange bands saw what i was doing and asked for art of their own. i had screwed myself by pretending to know all about punk and industrial music and so i couldn't now go back and ask annelie to let me hear examples on her walkman. it wasn't until i got to high school, the next year, that i managed to hear snippets, started browsing through other people's music magazines and listened whenever anyone spoke about any music i had yet to hear. it was annelie who started all of this, in grade seven, though and, to this day, i am grateful to her.

by the time the new year had rolled around, some of the popular jocks had noticed, through kim's curtain of hair and beyond her baggy sweaters that she had beautiful blue eyes, a clear, creamy complexion and really large breasts. we started to get invited to the mcdonald's, down the street, for lunch, with the popular crowd. we were only invited because half of us was kim. i got pushed out quickly enough and, before i knew it, kim was wearing what everyone else was wearing, tying her hair back, wearing make-up and sending the same nasty looks my way that most of the other girls did.

the only time i ever asked for anything specific for my birthday was when i asked for a pair of ten-hole docs. the only time i ever got what i wanted for my birthday was when my parents picked up the aforementioned boots for me in chicago, while on their way back from a trip to texas. i got these just a little over a year after meeting annelie and, had i been allowed to wear patches, torn clothing and military garb and to shave and dye my hair, i would have done so at that time, too.

by the time we all got to grade nine, kim was sporting fake tans and wearing pastels. one of the outfits she wore more frequently was comprised of pear green, flared dress pants, a white and pear green, floral, short-sleeved blouse and silver, open-toe, high-heel sandals. this oufit gained her the nicknames "la poire" (the pear, in french) and one i came up with,"malibu what-the-fuck-is-she-wearing barbie", among a slew of other ones. she was, of course, a cheerleader and was known as one of the dullest tools in the shed but people tried to look passed that because of how heartbreakingly spaced out she actually was.

three of my best friends, at the time, playing around in front of the school. 

this was the committee for the trip to europe, which i don't think anyone even ended up going on. i'm the one in the middle, sitting on the floor. the beautiful asian girl seated at the bottom right was one of the only people to ever stick by side through whatever anyone threw at me. sadly, she passed away when we were twenty.

here's a group shot of the decorating committee, which should have been named another-excuse-to-get-out-of-class-as-often-as-possible committee. i'm in the top row, second person (sort of), with the bob and the cream, angora sweater (even then in the 90's, i knew how to dress). with some of the haircuts and clothing in this photo, i wonder how, in the name of hell, i got picked on for the way i looked. wow. 

la poire is in this photo...

i guess i'm also grateful to kim. she showed me what i never wanted (or want) to be. my vintage shopping experiences, my insane stepmother and the general douchebaggery that took place every day at my high school bred within me a pure disdain for conformity but "la poire" became a symbol of this for me and, no matter how mean her friends were to me, whenever she was present at the time of bullying, i just couldn't take it as seriously.

in two-thousand-three, i became a dj. before i knew it i was spinning ministry, skinny puppy, front 242, frontline assembly and a whole bunch of other bands annelie had made known to me, back in nineteen-ninety-two. she was just being who she was and not giving a shit about what everyone else thought, when were just kids. it took me many more years to be that confidant and to proudly wear whatever i felt like wearing. and i do believe that i would have eventually found my way to punk rock but she definitely planted that seed for me.

my daughter took this photo of me nineteen years after i met annelie. another lifetime, for sure, but that t-shirt says "strummer 77" on it, there's a misfits patch on the back of that vest and i was wearing plaid, tuk sneakers. this is the type of outfit i wear when i go to a punk show... or sometimes just to the market, like on this particular summer day. wherever annelie carron may be: big ups, girl. you made a difference to me.

(and even though i vowed to never ever turn this into a series of photos of me standing around in my backyard wearing whatever it is i'm wearing, like so many other style blogs out there, i do have to share photos of myself with you from time to time! note that the side of my head is no longer shaved and that, while it is still two-toned, the proportions are different.)

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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. ;-)

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