Punk is a state of mind and was a fashion. It had a greater impact on Western popular culture-from music to fashion, from graphic design to politics- than any other youth movement since the Hippies in the 1960's. "Do it yourself!" was the Punk's clarion call, referring to both the making of music and clothes. The orginators, the most inventive "doers", were three teenagers: Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious of the seminal punk band, the Sex Pistols, and Jordan a shop assistant at Seditionaries who became the female punk icon celebrated in Derek Jarman's film Jubilee (1978). Punk was spawned in a small, highly stylized shop, in West London, which was owned by a young woman named Vivienne Westwood and a young man named Malcom McLauren. These creative youths achieved a look which instantly communicated all the pain and anguish of lost adolescence. This look centered upon self-mutilation, damaged and asexual clothing, a violent rejection of prettiness or naturalness.
Punk was the birth of a powerful partnership between music and fashion. This partnership still remains an influence in today's DIY generation of designer's, musicians and artists.
Source: Icons of Fashion, The 20th Century. The photo above is from Vivienne Westwood, "Seditionaries" collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment