Days of Punk | Fashion
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Like previous youth revolutions that embraced a new and different soundtrack, Punk Rock gave birth to a new wave in art, theory, philosophy, fashion, and lifestyle. The raw driving primal sound of the Punk soul born of the disaffected and determined to do it their way in a DIY ethos gave birth to a corresponding new wave of fashion.

Punk as music embraced a stripped-down driving beat with primal lyrics that spit in the eye of the sellout of rock. Punk was and is a response to the elaborate album production and arena rock shows spawned by the corporatization of the financial profits of a counterculture gone mainstream. Hippie fashion that was birthed in the anti-war psychedelic rebellion of the college middle class was mass-produced for sale at every mall and corporate clothing chain around the world.

The Punk Symbolism of Torn and Shredded Fashion

Coincidence, fortuitous, or determinative early punk fashion reflected the ideology of the sound.  The torn and shredded fashions of the early punk days mirrored the driving, primal synthesis of remedial rock accented by the sounds of voices rebelling against the status quo. Punk was a rebellion that was determined to tear apart the exploitation of music for corporate profits. Punk as a music, philosophy, art, fashion, and lifestyle were taking dead aim at shredding the homogenization of rock.

Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics photographed by Michael Grecco

Customization was a do-it-yourself fashion statement, ripped, torn, studded, and pinned was the unique look that although similar among the punks was different for each. Torn t-shirts and frayed seams were embraced throughout the punk scenes from Boston to New York, to LA to Detroit, across the Pond to London, and over to Berlin.

Politics and the messages of divergent societal norms became dominant features of the shock of punk. In Europe unlike America, the symbols of the Nazis were at once ultimately offensive and intimately expressive of a society gone awry. Punk fashion embraced the symbols of political slogans no matter how shocking.

Commercialism Hot on The Trail of Punk Fashion

Punk as a clothing style was a statement that screamed out that the standards of consumerism beauty were as meaningless as the overproduced music of the masses. When any movement is discovered beyond the gates of the founder’s garden its essence is tainted. Consumerism was infiltrating the purity of punk from its self-produced records turned mass produced, to its fashion and embrace of revolution.

The hallowed clubs of punk neighborhoods from the Bowery in NYC to Camden in London, the identity of punk was being infiltrated by the corporate structure which it hated so much.

In London, Vivenne Westwood was quick to embrace the new fashion of the new wave of Punk. Along with her partner Malcolm McLaren, they were quick to design a brand for the Sex Pistols. They opened and ran a London boutique, SEX which became a mecca for the London punk fashion scene. Its successful popularity was quick to commercialize the look of punk. The fashion was wildly popular, and some questioned what drew new fans to the fashion fads of punk or punk rock.

London boutique, SEX, by Vivenne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren (photo credit: Gata Magazine)

Captured in Black and White

Overnight the Sex Pistols, Television, The Clash, Dead Kennedy’s, Talking Heads, Human League, David Bowie, Billy Idol, Joan Jett, and Johnny Rotten were transformed from punk revolutionaries to pioneering fashion statements.

The cameras and lenses of Michael Grecco were a constant from the earliest DIY punk fashions of the Boston to the New York scene. A masterful artist of understanding the interplay of shadows and light reflected in the Days of Punk,  through the progression across the globe of Punk, Post Punk, and New Wave, Michael Grecco memorialized the nuances of Punk and the iconic fashions and styles of rebellion.

The Color of Post-Punk

Entering the 1980s with punk, post-punk, and new wave weaving from black and white to eclectic designs and colors, Pam Hogg, a Scottish Designer took the stage. Launching her first collection in 1981 title, Psychedelic Jungle, Ms. Hogg brought eccentric colors, irreverent styles, and materials to break through the black and white of Punk fashion

Pam Hogg at the Pam Hogg show during London Fashion Week SS14

Along with fashion shows that made museum venues, Pam Hogg became a brand as a performer on stage and screen. She befriended and dressed post-punk, new wave artists that included Ian Asbury, and Debbie Harry. An early supporter of The Pogues, Ms. Hogg melded art into art, fashion, music, and performances while touching the careers of Anita Pallenberg, David Soul, and Daryl Hannah.

The daring colors and irreverent treatment of traditional royal cuts of the Punk, Post Punk, and New Wave fashions of Pam Hogg put color film into the Michael Grecco photographic collection.