Article for Clothes Show Live young journalist 2010

Here is my attempt of writing an article for the competition this year, to be honest I did find it quite hard to write about the subcultures as I wasn't too familiar to any of them! It's so bad I know but once I research about the certain ones I wanted to write about it was interesting how it has all helped to change our fashion to give people an identity.

How has youth subculture has influenced fashion over the past 40 years?

How did youth subcultures change our fashion world?

I would have to say it has made a big impact on how people feel. People have their own opinions on the all the different styles that there are in the world and it can give people an identity as youth subcultures separates into a mixture of groups such as hippies, mods and rockers etc.

Every designer is inspired from previous experiences and then develops them into contemporary designs. A lot of our fashion came from different events around the world and we just modify them to our own original designs.

The most stylish and ‘unusual’ subculture that caught my attention would be the punk subculture, why? Well of course it has to be the dress style inspired around sexuality and just showing the sexual side of people who wear tight fitted, ‘kinky’ leather shorts and tops. They also personalized everyday objects to create their fashion style, such as ripping clothing held by safety pins, customizing with embellishments and even transforming a bin liner into a dress! Which strongly tells us nothing is impossible and by recycling materials we can produce something new and unique to us. Since the late 1940’s leather has been associated with gays and lesbians and with a deeper meaning it relates with bondage, dominance and masochism. But with the modern trends and styling of leather it has been altered and made to be more ‘wearable’ and less revealing! Vivienne Westwood played a big roll of bringing the modern punk into fashion, where she started of selling her outrageous designs in a boutique in London. Even though her designs were so dramatic and created many different political views, we are still admiring her work to be so daring and influential. It probably plays a bigger role in women’s fashion as it builds up masculinity in us and to prove to everyone else that we’re all equally to men.

A pair of leather shorts and body hugging tops it helps us women to show off our amazing body and to love our body no matter how. All the different subcultures are not all about clothes and how people were dressed they also focused on political views, equality and the media of arts around that period of time. Try and be different, don’t hide behind shadows and be the one under the spotlights then you will be a role model to the younger generations!

By Wing Lai
Coventry University