Authenticity vs Aestheticism
THE ORIGINAL ‘ALT’
London in the 1970s has its own pride and joy to boast about their creation of the ‘PUNK’ subculture. The subculture went through its practices of activism through public protests, to the drip down galore in metals and leather belts paired with tartan materials and banging sounds through speakers comforting the streets of Camden High street. Punk has been able to trickle its way down to our current day having popular designers and names to forever influence its concept, such as Vivienne Westwood, artists like David Bowie etc. The description of ‘alt’ also has its derivatives from all parts of the world, for example SCENE in the US in the early 2000s is one of the big creations 2000s America is known for. The term is characterized by its combination of extreme skinny jeans and the bright blue toned aesthetic and deep side parted hairstyles.
Emos are usually stereotyped to be a social group of individuals by assumption that they are usually sad or “depressed”. This assumption has resulted in the prominent isolation of this subculture group, becoming outsider in school culture and antisocial amongst other “normal. students”.
I’ve felt prompted to talk about this main topic of being alternative since it’s popular resurface from 2020 post COVID lockdown. As an avid TikTok watcher I watched the transition of aesthetics happen seeing which aesthetics became popular and how they morphed into different mini versions of themselves. Specifically now that I’m talking about emo and punks formerly how they have created micro trends now known as “Opium” and “alt”.
Practice what you WEAR?
Going back into the original punk subculture there was also a huge sense of what the individuals would practice such as protesting, purposefully standing out and very little woild even go to the extreme embedding the aesthetic into their beliefs analysing satanism and other very opposite worshipping. Touching on this topic uncovers a lot of truth behind the way these people used to dress, yes, some of them would have just seen it as an escape to c,informing to normalities but others wanted to project what they truly felt within through their outfits because they might’ve been too afraid to speak up about what they felt and confidence only seeped through their dark attire.
Because of the immense amount of importance social class had back then in the late 1970s the youths of punk culture were motivated to provoke the media and society through their creative instincts using lyricism and vandalism in an attempt to politicise British history. “The band’s records, such as ‘Anarchy in the UK’ (1976) and ‘God Save the Queen’ (1977), provoked controversy and helped distinguish punk as an overtly politicised youth culture.” A ton of aesthetics that have been derived from original subcultures, these days fail to represent the backstories and traditions of the way, in this case, youths were being productive and acting on their morals.
I think there is so much more complexity to dressing now than it was before. With this fairly new term of an aesthetic it is very difficult for the average teen let’s say to distinguish what they are by a few words and a handful of images on Pinterest.Whilst these two can exist at the same time,the public circulation of the term aesthetic has been popularised so much on platforms like TikTok and instagram surpassing over 10 million uses of the hashtag at 44.2mill and 145mill it’s become a norm for the society around the age of 18 to feel obligated to put themselves into these boxes even if different styles are accumulated by that one person it doesn’t fail to be labelled as “blank aesthetic”.
Besides touching briefly on the alternative style which currently still holds its high potential of dominating the fashion scene, I think it’s also so interesting to see how a lot of the popular styles recently feature a simultaneous essence of the punk and alternative fashion such as the relevant “opium” style.
which has been prevalent in all types of media other than fashion, again sharing similarities with punk using creating a more refined music genre, a specific way of editing photos and bringing more awareness to brands like chrome hearts, Rick Owen’s and Vetements.
XOXO, The Fashion Stock Market
Editor: Felicity Field
