Elanso

In the middle of 70’th after the Second World War, under the circumstances of economic recession and special social and political background, among young adults of lower level in Britain, there was an anti-traditional “Working Class Subculture”------ Punk Group, which were participated by the unemployed people and students who dropped out schools. They showed their characteristics by their unique outfits that indicated the difference between main stream culture and other teenager subculture circle. They rejected authority, and advocated eliminating hierarchy, and upheld “Sex and Subversion”, whose influence is not only on the traditional music, but also is a fashionable and trendy resist and rebellion that lead a new fashion ------ Punk Style.

They advocated D.I.Y(do it yourself), they mixed cheap clothes and cotton materials that makes it a rough style. They liked use dog chains as accessories, and wore clothes with large safety pins that had splits sewing and been tore or smudged on purpose, with tearing edging and printed dirty words, violent or porn picture, fishnet stocking, Doc. Martens footwear…. Hair style was another focus, they made high hairs as much as possible, dyed various colors such as Mohican (one branch of Indians in North American) hair. They spread eyes black, and took cat-eye and smoky make-up, with lipsticks of dark tones, with piercing in ears, noses, on chins and mouths and other parts with safety pins and shoving nails, and had tattoos on their bodies, acting alternative to fight against the society with diverse ways. These normal activities and fashion clothes in today was very abnormal at that time.

It is popular to pierce with nose studs, tongue nails and other things, and wear black T-shirts or black blast-cap sports suits, jeans, low-price flatties, and to hang small accessories and wear clothes with different logos of various designs and characters, hence to express their inner feelings, which have never been influenced by mass fashion trend. Until the later 20’th century and the early 21^st century, a fresh punk style emerged that mingled the styles of 80’th with 90’th, wearing shoes of Converse, All-Star and other brands, and tartan trousers, tight T-shirts, shoving-nails belts, stretchy glovers that exposing fingers, and colorful sports jackets.. All these were accepted and imitated by the public and became popular and therefore be influential until today. 

It became a true success after Vivienne Westwood that punk became a clothing fashion, who was considered as one of the most innovative designers in the 20’th century, whose style was abundant and varying, and she has introduced subcultures and some punk elements which made her “the Mother of Punk”. Through her works, she has challenged the old fashion clothes, and crushed the traditional aesthetics; and it is the despise and abandon of old fashion clothes and traditional aesthetics that happened to make these anti-fashion and anti-trends patterns become another new way and fashion, and hence punk clothing style has a great reputation in the world and became a classic style. Even until now, it is still charming for most people.

There was another British women clothes designer who was called Zandra Rhodes has modified punk clothing, and also absorbed some punk elements in her designs, and made the punk style presented an exquisite and elegant style through utilizing several shining colors, which made them accepted and identified by more rich people and more famous people, and however it also made the impact force of punk style less than before. She jointed the laces and other slight parts and some holes that tore intentionally with golden safety pins and golden chains, and then stitched the edges of these laces with gold threads with decorating fancy embroideries.

The early punk style processed with addition and deduction has become another fashion element, which Versace has applied large safety pins as the decoration on women clothes. Take movie star Liz Hurley for instance, in the movie “Four Weddings and A Funeral” she had wore a black tight evening dress that was made of cotton gauze and Lurex weaving cloth with golden safety pins.

The emerge of punk style at that time was supposed to be anti-fashion and anti-conservative, but now its unique designs and patterns have converged into the main stream fashion concepts that are quite normal in today’s life. Punk style is even the inspiration of haute couture designs, which makes the main stream fashions integrate with street style together. On Paris S/S Fashion Week in 2001, John Galliano has used camouflage patterns for the design of Christian Dior Spring and Summer Collection, which made comparison and combination of plastic, leather, denim or printing silk, traditional tartan and other fragments, and a integration of punk style and street elements. John also has added some punk and street styles in the clothes on Paris A/W Fashion Week in 2003. Vivienne Westwood used doodling and displacement and some other creation techniques in her issue meetings, which are interpretation of punk spirit. 

Nowadays teenagers dye hairs, make differentiate smoky make-ups, tattoos on their bodies, and make various hair styles, such as Beckham’s “Mohican” style, or pierce serial even a line of ear holes with metal rings, slip wide and slender metal bracelets on wrists or different weird rings such as skulls or other shapes, and wear metal necklaces around their necks and wear black vests… These are parts of punk culture; some other people sew and hang accessories on their clothes, and process their dressings, which are influenced by the D.I.Y spirit of punk.