♫ I am a poseur and I
don't care
I like to make people stare ♪
I like to make people stare ♪
- I Am A Poser, X-Ray Spex
Someone recently suggested
to me that, presumably, I don’t dress as a punk for ‘aesthetic reasons’.
I was wearing my trousers
covered in band patches and my hoodie covered in band patches (and an Adventure
Time patch).
I’ve always felt like my
love for wearing band t-shirts and patches of bands was to turn myself into
something of a cloth-billboard. To
represent and give a platform for the bands that I appreciated. Iwrote a blog about it some three years past.
Clothes have always been
an integral part of certain parts of punk.
The Ramones uniformity in their leather jackets helped further the myth
they were all brothers, and helped stylised the ‘family’ aspect of their music,
attracting the weirdoes, outsiders and misfits to their mutant pop. Of course McLaran and Westwood using punk to
plug their SEX wears is well-documented in the history of the Sex Pistols. The Clash also enjoyed the sloganeering on
their clothes. And this style filtered
into the scene, who donned the array of safety pins, piercings, spiky hair and
ripped clothes which then rebounded back into the music when those fans became
bands.
The next wave of UK82 punk
fitted the generic pattern of painted leather, Mohawks, piercings and patches. So
what you get is a circular pool of style that rotates round. The style evolves as bands inspire fans who
become bands to inspire fans.
There are bands that take
their costumes to extended lengths. Devo’s
post-punk discordant music is the soundtrack to their bizarre boiler suit appearance. Aquabats present as a super-hero squad, and
the late great Frank Sidebottom playing all his gigs adorned with a gigantic
head like a warped crown. Famously the
Dead Kennedys lampooned the music industry with ties and shirts that portrayed
$ signs. Nowadays bands like Yorkshire’s
Snakerattlers and Nosebleed perform in Americana blues get-ups to reflect their
musical sound.
There is also something
interesting about a rejection of a costume. The Undertones local lads look of jumpers,
parkas and jeans reflected their simple, but beautifully effective,
pop-punk. This uncomplicated honest
presentation seems the opposite end of the spectrum to the star-spanglyness of
rock and prog bands of the late 70s. No
time for glitter, go to pop down the park for a kick about.
Onstage, punks costume can
signify unity and camaraderie (The Specials, The Ramones) or a spiky hotchpotch
of influences and personalities (Rancid, The Clash). It can be a fierce don’t-fuck-with-me-ness
using the body with unflinching agency (Bikini Kill, G.L.O.S.S.) or invoke
other styles and ideas (Mischief Brew’s romantic troubadour visage). And of course, that is echoed outside of gigs
in the ‘real world’.
The look becomes part of
the act, it becomes visual as well as aural.
It becomes a whole parcel of identity.
When I got into punk, I
remember owned about 5 t-shirts I loved dearly for a good period of time. I didn’t put any patches on anything, I had a
leather jacket and my love for the Ramones and desire to keep something clean
and pure (like books) meant I didn’t want to paint it.
Eventually I went through
a good few years really enjoying customising my clothes. I have a hoody devoted to queer and feminist
bands (adapted from an Against Me! Hoody).
I have a ‘nerd punk’ hoody, and folk-punk trousers. Just like my love for exploring genre and
eras, I do like defining my clothes.
The confidence of this
look comes from championing these bands (and politics). There’s a confidence that the Petrol Girls
patch and Clash t-shirt and Sonic Boom Six hoody mean that the music has your
back. Quite literally, it’s on your
back.
Though I’m very fortune
and privileged to have never been verbally or physically assaulted, I do feel
like my clothes attract attention. I
want this to be positive, as people clock some bands to check out. But, of course, this attention can also be
negative. Let’s never forget the tragic
death of Sophie Lancaster
in 2007.
These days, punk fans tend
to stick simply jeans and a t-shirt.
There’s other aspects, beards and converse, but it’s often simple a sea
of black with the odd colourful logo at the centre of your stitching.
There’s a layer of scorn
in the punk scene if you don’t dress as a punk outside of a punk/gig
context. As if you’re not maintaining the
belief, the scene, the style. You’ll
only wear your heart on your sleeve when your heart’s in it. But I like the relief of not always being in
a turning-heads Punk Mode. A privilege not
everybody has, but one I do exploit when I want to be ‘unpunk’.
There’s a toxicity to
fashion, and we should always be wary of peer pressure to dress and present a
certain way. But sometimes I just like
black jeans and a classic t-shirt and some anonymity. Sometimes I like to be a watching quilt of
bands. And actually, that choice is empowering
and gives me confidence I have options and not just an uninspiring narrow blueprint.
