How does music influence fashion? Why do we try to recreate the look of what we love to listen to and the artist's style? Well.....cause music makes the world go round!!! That's always been my view on music since I was young because I truly believe it does. What the hell would we do if we had nothing to sing and dance too, to cry to, or to just go nuts to? It would be a very dull world but what I would like to propose is that fashion and music go hand in hand. It's like peanut butter and jelly. It just works.
So let's begin with the early 80's. Wow bad bad bad fashion there! But I totally rocked it out with my bad ass little self. I thought I was Madonna so I usually dressed like her when I was little. Outfits from "like a virgin", and "material girl" were my favorites. But the best part is is that EVERYONE dressed like Madonna. She literally changed the world of fashion in her day. It's soo awesome if you think about it. She originated these crazy outfits and everyone just followed. Lace gloves, bustiers, black lace leggings, puffy chiffon skirts, and tons and tons of pearls!!!! Michael Jackson did a good job with the boys as well. Here's to the king and queen of pop!
And then came the New Kids on the Block phase. I call this the "lets see how many neon colors we can put on at one time" phase!!! Neon yellow, hot pink, neon green, and electric blue were a must have in your wardrobe. Along with side ponytails, scrunchies, and neon nail polish. And we all would pile it on and go hit up the NKOTB concerts with our mothers in tow. Us kids thought we were just wayyyyy "to cool for school" haha! All the little boys wore there leather jackets and tried to be like Joey. Ohh those were great years. The bangs were teased and hair was crimped as well. Rock it out!
The next phase was the one my parents truely wanted to murder me. We went from wanting to look like pretty girls and boys to dirty undone girls and boys. The grunge phase. We shopped at goodwill, adorned black nails, had crazy hair colors, and only wore Converse or Doc Martin sneakers. Or the classic Billy Corgan "ZERO" tee. A typical outfit in this time matched EXACTLY what we were listening to. It was the great days of Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Bush, R.E.M, Hole, etc, ect! And we LOVEDDDDD it all. Flannel shirts, angora men's cardigans, band tee's, a different color in my hair every day by dying it everynight with Kool-Aid(by the way that was awesome!), corduroy pants, and black converses. We sang to the music of SP's "today", and cried for a week when Kurt Cobain had died. And I hate to say it but after this music started to go downhill.
For 9th and 10th grade it was all about techno and raves, psychedelic drugs, and strobing lights. Jenga jeans, van sneakers, bright colored toped, and huge hoodies. We also started to experiment with insane looking tights. Just like the ones that we are wearing this year. Colored fishnets, pink opaque, and orange....I remember wearing a lot of orange tights. Silver mini skirts, the Delia's catalogue(don't act like you didn't order everything from that thing!), and mary janes with striped knee socks. Awesome man! I had red hair at this time as well. I had a friend color it perminitly and came home and was grounded for weeks but it was cool because I thought I looked freaking sweet!
Just a side note-For the past phases, Grunge and Techno, I was in schools for the Creative and Performing arts. We were dramatic people so we did everything over the top and very drastically. We owned the way we dressed and let it speak for us. It was art.
Okay now the next phase, I know every normal teenage girl went through. The Pop Princess phase. Just think Britney, Christina, and Jessica. Whatever they wore, we wore. That plain and simple. From the belly tops to the rhinestone body jewelry. It was hot and we were young and thought we looked mega hot as well. My senior photos were quite a crisis as I look back. One of the outfits consisted of white jeans, nike sneakers, and a XOXO top that was white and pink chiffon that I made into a belly top. And my pose was right out of the "Sometimes" video. Wow!!! haha. Now unfortunetly I copied every look that Brit did up until the end of college. BUT.....we also can't forget that around that same time it was also really cool to wear Baby Phat, Sean John, and all those other rap labels. The days of Juvenile, Nelly, and Eminen. Pretty cool people dudes to steal their style from.
As I am all grown up, I have developed my own personal style. But I do have a an itch to dress like Lady Gaga from time to time which I must admit, I do it quite well. That is about all but I would love to hear what your huge influences were! Pearl Jam? Weezer? Hole? Lil' Kim? Jay-Z? N'SYNC? Aaliaya?
And this is why music makes the world go round! Now go grab an old school album and go through the times.
Peace & Love
S
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