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Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewellery, and body modifications of the punk counterculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like the Exploited to the dressed-down look of North American hardcore. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including glam rock, skinheads, greasers, and mods have influenced punk fashion. Punk fashion has likewise influenced the styles of these groups, as well as those of popular culture. Many punks use clothing as a way of making a statement.
The early, pre-fame work of designer Vivienne Westwood helped pioneer the look of early British punk with her scene-establishing clothing shops Sex and Seditionaries in the mid-1970s, co-run with Malcolm McLaren who managed the Sex Pistols. Westwood was asked by then-partner McLaren to outfit the Sex Pistols, and Westwood's designs found a canvas on Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious. Her early work with Sex and the Sex Pistols helped to establish her as one of the most influential British designers of the 20th century.
Punk fashion has long been commercialized, with well-established fashion designers like Zandra Rhodes, Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, Stephen Sprouse, and Anna Sui using punk elements in their production and the first punk-influenced fashion spreads appearing in mainstream fashion magazines as early as 1976.
In the United Kingdom, 1970s punk fashion influenced the designs of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren and the Bromley Contingent. Mainstream punk style was influenced by clothes sold in Malcolm McLaren's shop, artdesigncafe. McLaren has credited this style to his first impressions of Richard Hell, while McLaren was in New York City working with New York Dolls. Hell is credited as one of the first to help popularize the stereotypical 'punk' look, spiking his hair and wearing t-shirts that were held together with safety pins. Punk fashion aimed to provoke and challenge middle class culture, often through vulgarity, illicit iconography, and sexual innuendos, among other means. Deliberately offensive were popular in the early punk scene, such as the DESTROY T-shirt sold at SEX, which featured an inverted crucifix and a Nazism Swastika. Another offensive T-shirt that is still occasionally seen in punk is called Snow White and the Sir Punks, and features Snow White being held down and raped by five of the seven dwarfs, whilst the other two engage in anal sex. The image's origin is as part of The Realist magazine's Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster in May 1967, although the T-shirts made the scene more explicit. These T-shirts, like other punk clothing items, were often torn on purpose. Other items in early British punk fashion included: leather jackets; customised ; and dress shirts randomly covered in slogans (such as "Only Anarchists are pretty"), blood, patches and controversial images.
British punks also used fashion as a means to criticize the monarchy; Westwood's God Save the Queen shirt featured an image of Elizabeth II alongside text reading "She ain't no human being", taken directly from the Sex Pistol's single of the same name. While the band has denied that the single was produced specifically in reaction to the Queen's Silver Jubilee, the song and Westwood's design were viewed as an affront to British values of patriotism and the monarchy.
Many early punks wore swastikas and used Nazi imagery in their dress. As a means to provoke people, the symbol retained great power to alarm. Key examples of punk usage of Nazi symbols can be identified in Westwood's DESTROY t-shirt which was worn by members of the Sex Pistols, or a dress shirt which featured striping similar to those on the uniforms worn by prisoners in concentration camps. Sid Vicious wore a t-shirt featuring a swastika while he walked through a Jewish neighbourhood in the film The Great Rock and Roll Swindle. With the resurgence of Britain's National Front, those who wore the swastika discredited the anti-racist values of the movement.
Other accoutrements worn by some punks included: Fetish fashion, fishnet stockings (sometimes ripped), spike bands and other studded or spiked jewelry, (in clothes and as ), silver bracelets and heavy eyeliner worn by both men and women. Many female punks rebelled against the stereotypical image of a woman by combining clothes that were delicate or pretty with clothes that were considered masculine, such as combining a Ballet tutu with big, clunky boots. Female exemplars of early punk style included Pamela Rooke aka Jordan, Siouxsie Sioux, Soo Catwoman, and Gaye Advert.
Punk clothing sometimes incorporated everyday objects for aesthetic effect. Many outfits were made out pieces of clothing that were readily available, either from secondhand stores or whatever kids had on hand. Emphasizing a DIY ethos, many punks utilized jean and leather jackets as canvases for pins, paint, and spikes. Purposely ripped clothes were held together by safety pins or wrapped with tape; black Bin bag (garbage bags) became dresses, shirts and skirts. Mohair, PVC, and other odd, anachronistic elements of fashion were utilized in outfits. Other items added to clothing or as jewellery included razor blades and chains. Leather, rubber and vinyl clothing have been common, possibly due to their connection with transgressive sexual practices, such as bondage and Sadomasochism. Provocative imagery referencing sexual practices and deviant forms of sexuality were utilized, such as in Vivienne Westwood's Two Cowboys shirt, which featured an illustration by Jim French of two cowboys naked from the waist down, one of them fixing the other's neckerchief. Its depiction of homosexuality was provocative within a middle-class British culture that was hostile to sexual relations alternate to heterosexuality.
Preferred footwear included military boots, , brothel creepers, Puma Clydes (suede), Chuck Taylor All-Stars and later, Dr. Martens boots. Tapered jeans, tight leather pants, trousers with leopard patterns and bondage pants were popular choices. Other early punks (most notably the Adicts) imitated the Nadsat from A Clockwork Orange by wearing and Suspenders. Hair was cropped and deliberately made to look messy, and was often dyed bright unnatural colours. Although provocative, these hairstyles were not as extreme as later punk hairstyle.
Keen designers, much like Westwood, had been able to draw inspiration from the punk style found on the streets, translating its anarchic frustration and resistance to the runways. Zandra Rhodes utilized rips, tears and safety pins in her 1977 'Conceptual Chic' collection; similarly, Claude Montana presented 12 models in "black leather jackets, caps, and pants in 1977. As it gained popularity on the runway, many designers viewed its origin on the streets as 'trashy' and that it no longer served as a source of fresh inspiration. Fashion designers ended up creating a standardized palette where the punk look was, more or less, essentially uniform. Spiky hair, jeans or bondage trousers, leather jackets with slogans, pins, and patches on them, T-shirts, studs and chains all became hallmarks of the look, undermining the individuality that had been essential to the movement.
Some of the following clothing items were common on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and some were unique to certain geographic areas. Footwear that was common in the 1980s punk scene included Dr. Martens boots, motorcycle boots and ; sometimes adorned with Kerchief, chains or studded leather bands. Jeans (sometimes dirty, torn or splattered with bleach) and tartan or skirts were commonly worn. Leather skirts became a popular item for female punks. Heavy chains were sometimes used as belts. Bullet belts, and studded belts (sometimes more than one worn at a time) also became common.
Some punks bought or tartan flannel shirts and wrote political slogans, band names or other punk-related phrases on them with . While this was not without precedent in the 1970s, the depth and detail of these slogans were not fully developed until the 1980s. Silkscreened T-shirts with band logos or other punk-related logos or slogans were also popular. Studded, painted and otherwise customised leather jackets or denim vests became more popular during this era, as the popularity of the earlier customized blazers waned, somewhat.
Hair was either shaved, spiked or in a crew cut or Mohawk hairstyle. Tall mohawks and spiked hair, either bleached or in bright colors, took on a more extreme character than in the 1970s. Charged hair, in which all of one's hair stands on end but is not styled into distinct spikes, also emerged. A hairstyle similar to the Misfits' was popular. This involved cutting a mohawk but leaving a longer tuft of hair at the front of the head. It is still popular to this day in the horror punk scene. Body piercings and extensive became very popular during this era, as did spike bands and studded in . Some hardcore punk women reacted to the earlier 1970s movement's vibe by adopting an androgynous style.
Hardcore punk fans adopted a dressed-down style of T-shirts, jeans, combat boots or sneakers and crewcut-style haircuts. Women in the hardcore scene typically wore army pants, band T-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts.
The style of the 1980s hardcore scene contrasted with the more provocative fashion styles of late 1970s punk rockers (elaborate punk hair, torn clothes, patches, safety pins, studs, spikes, etc.). Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris described early hardcore fashion as "the...punk scene was basically based on English fashion. But we had nothing to do with that. Black Flag and the Circle Jerks were so far from that. We looked like the kid who worked at the gas station or submarine shop." Henry Rollins echoes Morris' point, stating that for him getting dressed up meant putting on a black shirt and some dark pants; Rollins viewed an interest in fashion as being a distraction.
Jimmy Gestapo from Murphy's Law describes his own transition from dressing in a punk style (spiked hair and a bondage belt) to adopting a hardcore style (shaved head and boots) as being based on needing more functional clothing. A scholarly source states that "hardcore kids do not look like punks", since hardcore scene members wore basic clothing and short haircuts, in contrast to the "embellished leather jackets and pants" worn in the punk scene. In contrast to Morris' and Rollins' views, one scholarly source claims that the standard hardcore punk clothing and styles included torn jeans, leather jackets, spiked armbands and dog collars and and DIY ornamentation of clothes with studs, painted band names, political statements, and patches. Another scholarly source describes the look that was common in the San Francisco hardcore scene as consisting of biker-style leather jackets, chains, studded wristbands, pierced noses and multiple piercings, painted or tattooed statements (e.g. an anarchy symbol) and hairstyles ranging from military-style haircuts dyed black or blonde, mohawks, and shaved heads.
Crust punks sometimes sew articles of clothing with found or cheaply bought materials, such as dental floss. Pants are sometimes held up with twine, hemp, or vegan-friendly imitation leather. This fashion has also been used by Folk Punk fans and musicians, notably Days N Daze, Blackbird Raum, and The Psalters.
Plain working class dress and short hair (with the exception of dreadlocks) are usually associated with hardcore punk. Mute colors and minimal adornment are usually common. Elements of hardcore clothing include baggy jeans or work pants (such as Dickies), or cargo pants, athletic wear, tracksuits, cargo or military shorts, band T-shirts, plain T-shirts, muscle shirts, flannel or Tartan shirts, and band . The and denim jackets associated with punk fashion remain common in hardcore punk, though hardcore punk also prominently features and unlike other punk fashions. Common sneakers include classic Adidas Originals, Asics, Converse, New Balance, Nike, Pony, Puma AG, Reebok, Saucony and Vans. Boots are also somewhat common, especially Dr. Martens.
Hardcore skinheads, sometimes known as "American punk skinheads," are characterised by some of the same items as British skinhead fashion, but hardcore skinhead dress is considerably less strict than Trojan skinhead or oi! skinhead style.
Oi! , sometimes known as skunks or punk-skinheads, fuse Trojan skinhead style with street punk fashions. The look is characterised by Dr. Martens boots (or similar boots made by a different brand), suspenders, and tight rolled-up jeans, sometimes splattered with bleach. Other common items are T-shirts (featuring band names, political beliefs or other text and images relevant to skinhead culture) and denim jackets or . These jackets are sometimes decorated with buttons or patches, and in the case of the denim jackets, sometimes splattered with bleach. Hair is typically shaved shorter than with Trojan skinhead. Other items from traditional skinhead fashion (e.g. Fred Perry and Ben Sherman shirts) and, to a lesser extent, punk fashion items (e.g. short mohawk hairstyles, metal studs on jackets) are also sometimes worn.
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