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the Men’s Fashion Reader
00MensFashion_3rdpass.indd 1 5/15/08 1:49:29 PM

Edited by
Andrew Reilly, Ph.D.

U n i v e r s i t y o f H a w a i ` i a t M ā n o a
Sarah Cosbey, Ph.D.

Northern Illinois University
Fa i r c h i l d B o o k s , I n c .
N ew Yo r k

THE Men’s Fashion Reader

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007943509

ISBN-13: 978-1-56367-536-2
GST R 133004424
Printed in The United States of America
CH14, TP18
Credits for previously published essays: From Chapter 1: Banner, Lois. 1992. The fashionable sex, 1100–
1600. History Today 42 (4): 37–44. From Chapter 2: Breward, Christopher. 2003. Masculine pleasures:
Metropolitan identities and the commercial sites of dandyism, 1790–1840. London Journal 28 (1): 60–72;
Morra, Marisa. 1985. Silent informers: Men’s coats from a 19th century period of transition. Dress
11:68–76; Martin, Richard. 1982. Post-modern menswear: Irony and anomaly in men’s attire of the 1980s.
Dress 8:36–41. From Chapter 3: Barber, Nigel. 2001 Mustache fashion covaries with a good marriage
market for women. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 24 (4): 261–72; Entwistle, Joanne. 2004. From catwalk
to catalog: Male fashion models, masculinity, and identity. In Cultural bodies: Ethnography and theory,
eds. H. Thomas and J. Ahmed, 55–75. Oxford: Blackwell; From Chapter 4: Cross, Robert J. 1998. The Teddy
Boy as scapegoat. Doshisha Studies in Language and Culture 1–2: 263–91. From Chapter 5: Lynch,
Annette. 1999. “It was style with a capital ‘S’”: Versions of being male presented at the Beautillion Ball.
In Dress, Gender, and Cultural Change: Asian American and African American Rites of Passage, 97–112.
Oxford: Berg. From Chapter 6: Robinson, Dwight E. 1998. Fashions in shaving and trimming of the beard:
The Men of the Illustrated London News, 1842–1972. American Journal of Sociology 81 (5): 1133–41.
From Chapter 7: Tyler, Bruce. 1994. Zoot-suit culture and the black press. Journal of American Culture
17 (2): 21-33; Duggan, Scott J., and Donald R. McCreary. 2004. Body image, eating disorders, and the drive
for muscularity in gay and heterosexual men: The influence of media images. Journal of Homosexuality
47 (3/4): 45–58. Chapter 9: Kuchta, David M. 1990. “Graceful, virile, and useful”: The origins of the three-
piece suit. Dress 17:118–26.
Illustration Credits can be found on page 542.

Contents
Introduction xi
Chapter 1| Men’s Fashion and Meaning Through History 1
Introduction 3
The Fashionable Sex, 1100–1600, L o i s B a nne r 6
Discussion Questions 17
Something Borrowed: Masculine Style in Women’s Fashion,
S a r a h C o s bey 18
The Ubiquitous Necktie: Style, Symbolism, and Signification Through
Transitions of Masculinity, K a t hleen H uun 33
Chapter 2| Men’s Fashion as Zeitgeist 53
Introduction 55
Masculine Pleasures: Metropolitan Identities and the Commercial Sites of
Dandyism, 1790–1840, C h r i s t o p he r B r e w a r d 58

Silent Informers: Men’s Coats from a 19th-Century Period of
Transition, M a r i s a M o r r a 75
The Leisure Suit: Its Rise and Demise, P a t r ici a A.
C unnin g h a m 84
Post-Modern Menswear: Irony and Anomaly in Men’s Attire of
the 1980s, Rich a r d M a r t in 101
Chapter 3| men’s fashion as Masculinity and Sexuality 109
Introduction 111
Mustache Fashion Covaries with a Good Marriage Market for
Women, N i g el B a r be r 115
From Catwalk to Catalog: Male Fashion Models, Masculinity,
and Identity, J o a nne E n t w i s t le 126
Goth Boys in the Media: Femininity and Violence,
C a t he r ine S p o o ne r 145
Chapter 4| men’s Fashion as Defiance 161
Introduction 163
From Cool to Hot to Cool: The Case for the Black Leather Jacket,
M a r ilyn De L o n g a n d J uye o n P a r k 166
Men’s Fashion and Politics: “. . . A Son of Liberty Will Not Feel
the Coarseness of a Homespun Shirt . . .” Su s a n N o r t h 180
Punk Male Fashion and the Aesthetic of Entropy,
J o s é B l a nc o F . 199
vi | contents

The Teddy Boy as Scapegoat, R o be r t J. Cross 214
Chapter 5| men’s Fashion as Culture and Identity 231
Introduction 233
“It Was Style with a Capital ‘S’ ”: Versions of Being Male
Presented at the Beautillion Ball, Anne t t e Lynch 236
It Won’t Stop: The Evolution of Men’s Hip-Hop Gear,
Rebecc a J . R o bin s o n 253
Dressing Up Italian Americans for the Youth Spectacle:
What Difference Does Guido Perform?
D o n a l d T r ic a r ic o 265
Butch Queens in Macho Drag: Gay Men, Dress, and Subcultural
Identity, Sh a un C o le 279
East Meets West: The Aloha Shirt as an Instrument of
Acculturation, L in d a B o yn t o n A r t hu r 295
Chapter 6| The male Body as Fashion 311
Introduction 313
Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard:
The Men of the Illustrated London News, 1842–1972,
D w i g h t E . R o bin s o n 316
Body Art and Men’s Fashion, L le w ellyn N e g r in 323
Fashioning Men’s Bodies: Masculinity and Muscularity,
Tim o t hy S . F r e s o n a n d L in d a B o yn t o n A r t hu r 337
contents | vii

Body Image and Self-Presentation Among Gay Men,
N a ncy Ann Ru d d 355
Chapter 7| men’s Fashion and the media 375
Introduction 377
Zoot-Suit Culture and the Black Press, B r uce Tyle r 381
Constructing the Columbine Shootings as an Appearance-Linked
Social Problem: An Interpretive Analysis, J ennife r P a ff O g le ,
M o lly J . E ckm a n , a n d C a t he r ine Am o r o s o L e s lie 393
Body Image, Eating Disorders, and the Drive for Muscularity in
Gay and Heterosexual Men: The Influence of Media Images,
Sc o t t J . Du g g a N , p h . d . , a n d D o n a l d R . M c C r e a r y , p h . d . 410
Chapter 8| men’s Fashion as Role Dress 423
Introduction 425
Uniforms and Men’s Fashion: Tailoring Masculinity to Fit,
J ennife r C r a ik 429
Male Civil War Reenactors’ Dress and Magic Moments,
K imbe r ly A . M ille r - S p illm a n 445
The Evolution of Western Style in Menswear,
L a u r el E . Wil s o n 465
Modern Armor: A Study of the American Football Uniform,
Rebecc a J . R o bin s o n 480
viii | contents

Chapter 9| The Fashion of the man’s Suit 493
Introduction 495
“Graceful, Virile, and Useful”: The Origins of the Three-Piece Suit,
D av i d M . K uch t a 498
Dress Code for Assemblymen: The Political Implications of the Suit
in South Korea, Y o o n - J un g L ee 512
Fashion Cycles in Men’s Jackets, Dress Shirts, and Slacks,
An d r e w Reilly 525
Contributors 538
contents | ix

I n t roduc t i on
T
his book came about as a result of the shortage of literature we
believed to exist on the topic of men and dress. As instructors, we
were often faced with the challenge of achieving more balanced
discussions “gender-wise” in our respective courses, whether they
dealt with the history of costume, the social psychology of dress, cultural
aspects of dress, or clothing aesthetics. Existing scholarship tends to
focus on women and dress, perhaps due to the fact that there is a predomi-
nance of female scholars in the textiles and clothing discipline. As dis-
cussed below, the subject of dress traditionally has not been considered
“manly” in nature, and this may have discouraged male scholars generally
from pursuing the topic. The overall elaborate nature of women’s fashion
compared with men’s fashion over the past two centuries may also account
for this focus on the feminine. However, the result is that the subject
of men and dress—particularly Western men’s dress from a sociocultural
perspective—has not received the attention it deserves among scholars of
textiles and clothing, and this may well contribute to a distortion in our
understanding of men’s relationship with dress and appearance.
No one book can comprehensively address the topic of men’s dress.
However, it is our intention that, by focusing consistently on men’s experi-
ence of such traditionally “feminine” territory, we might help the reader
discover ways in which the study of menswear supports established themes
in the study of dress while offering insight into the male viewpoint on
the subject.
| xi

Common Assumptions about Men and Dress
In Western culture, we have grown accustomed to certain ways of thinking

about men and their orientation toward appearance and dress. These ideas
may be grouped into two related categories. Firstly, we generally don’t think
of dress as “a man’s subject.” To be more specific, we assume that men are
not particularly concerned about personal appearance, at least not to the
extent that women are. As long as men appear to have met some basic stan-
dard of personal grooming, it seems they are satisfied with the way they
look. It follows, then, that men are also generally believed to be uninterested
in fashion. Traditional thinking has placed fashion in the domain of women;
it is too trivial a topic for men to be bothered with. Why this difference in
our views on men’s and women’s interest in dress, respectively?
Much of this thinking may be traced back to the gender-role ideologies
that formed during the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution. As
this subject is explored in some of the readings that follow we will state
only briefly here that, during this time, men’s roles became associated
with public or economic activity and women’s roles became associated with
domestic activity. In addition, clothing was designed to facilitate men’s
and women’s roles, respectively. Men’s dress became more practical and
subdued to meet the needs of activity, business, and other “serious mat-
ters.” Women’s dress retained its decorative nature as they continued to
display the economic and social standing of the family. The genteel wom-
an’s role thus became one of “conspicuous leisure” and “conspicuous con-
sumption,” and impractical, elaborate dress was key to fulfilling this
function (Veblen 1899).
In this way, Victorian codes for gender behavior clearly aligned preoc-
cupation with appearance and dress with the woman’s role. Despite years
of progress in the emancipation of women, this traditional way of think-
ing still seems to retain some hold over us. While men were and are cer-
tainly not exempt from maintaining presentable appearances, the need to
be decorative and alluring seems to be more of an enduring pleasure or
burden of women. If a man does express interest in dress his masculinity
is often called into question, which further underscores the gender divi-
sions in attention paid to matters of dress. The common assumption is
that the only men who are interested in fashion are gay, because no “real
man” would take an interest in something so feminine.
Kaiser (1997, 89) described the difference in ideologies about men’s
and women’s roles as a “ ‘doing’ versus ‘being’ ” dichotomy, which she points
out is “artificial” in the sense that it is an oversimplification of reality.
This dichotomy provides that men fill an active (doing) role in society
whereas women occupy a passive (being) role. Subsequently, being beauti-
xii | introduction

ful becomes central to woman’s role and is largely irrelevant to man’s role.
Man, on the other hand, must prove himself by doing things that will help
him achieve worldly success. Kaiser (1997) linked this dichotomy to
sources of power in the sexes. Woman’s source of power is hedonic in that
it comes from the ability to attract attention through personal beauty and
therefore is indirect in nature. Man’s power is of the agonic type, however,
and results from direct, active force (Freedman 1986; Morgan 1972).
The second category of assumptions relative to men and dress is con-
sistent with the first, and may be described by the notion that “men’s fash-
ion” doesn’t really exist, at least not in the sense that women’s fashion
does. After all, how long has the basic suit been the prevailing costume for
men? Whereas women search endlessly for clothes that flatter and are in
step with fashion, men’s only problem in matters of dress seems to be
whether the occasion calls for a suit (which, by the way, is usually tailored
to fit their figures)! Consequently, at any given business or formal event,
the ladies will display a diversity of appearance styles, while the men ap-
pear comparatively uniform in their suits. Davis described 19th-century
women has having an “elaborated code” of dress compared with men’s “re-
stricted dress code” (1992, 39). In describing more contemporary gender
dress, McCracken wrote that the stereotypical (North American) view is
that “women should dress . . . with greater elaborateness” (1985, 47) com-
pared with men. Therefore, homogeneity seems to be associated with
men’s dress, both within and across periods of the last two centuries.
We hope the collection of readings in this text provides the reader with
the opportunity to critically reevaluate these traditional assumptions
about men and dress, and to form a clearer view of the roles that dress and
appearance have played and continue to play in men’s lives.
Organization and Substance of the Book
The book comprises 33 readings that have been grouped into nine chap-
ters based on themes that systematically reappeared in the literature on
men’s dress or that we identified as being particularly relevant to the
study of dress in general. Most of the readings suitably could be placed in
more than one chapter, and we encourage the reader to think about other
themes illustrated by each reading in addition to that of the chapter in
which it appears. The authors of the various readings approach the sub-
ject of men’s dress from diverse disciplines and perspectives (see contrib-
uting author biographies), thus illustrating the topic’s relevancy to an
array of academic fields.
Generally speaking, two main types of readings are included in this
book. The first of these consists of research based on existing information
introduction | xiii

in the form of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources of infor-
mation originate from the time period in question, whereas secondary
sources of information are created after the fact. Academic authors usu-
ally consult various secondary sources in relationship to a topic, often in
the form of books written after the event or events under study occurred.
However, they may also consult such primary sources as—in the case of
a fashion-related topic—newspaper or magazine advertisements, advice
books, or surviving garments that were created during the time period of
interest. If the topic doesn’t date too far back in history, the author may
even draw upon his or her own firsthand memories of the era.
The other general type of reading reports a research project wherein in-
formation was generated through data collection and analysis, and the
findings interpreted to see how they add to the existing body of knowledge
on the particular topic. Data may be quantitative (numerical) or qualitative
(non-numerical) (Babbie 2007). Another way of differentiating between
these two types of data is to describe quantitative data as continuous
(capable of having a range of values) and qualitative data as categorical
(capable of being classified as having or not having a characteristic) (Ker-
linger 1986). For example, suppose a researcher is interested in the percep-
tions people have about the personal characteristics associated with those
who wear a certain style of dress (i.e., what personality traits people who
wear the style possess). He or she might interview a group of people on the
subject, record what they say, and then organize this information into cat-
egories of characteristics associated with the style of dress (e.g., someone
wearing X style of dress is perceived to be approachable, helpful, and knowl-
edgeable). Alternately, the researcher might have a group of people evalu-
ate the extent to which someone wearing the style of dress would possess
certain characteristics using a questionnaire. In this case, the respondents
might refer to a picture of the style of dress (i.e., the stimulus), and respond
by selecting a numerical rating on a scale that reflects the extent to which
they think the wearer would possess the characteristic. After gathering
the data and calculating some basic statistics, the researcher could obtain
some idea of which traits are most associated with the style of dress in
question based on the averaged group scores for each characteristic. Al-
though these are simplistic examples, the main idea is that both quantita-
tive and qualitative information may be used to investigate a topic. Both
methods are used in the readings contained in this book.
Important Terms and Concepts
In colloquial language people often use terms such as fashion, clothing,

apparel, costume, and dress interchangeably; however, in the scholarly
xiv | introduction

study of dress, these terms have specific meanings. Fashion refers to a
social process involving collective consumer acceptance of a newly intro-
duced style (Sproles 1979). Fashion may also refer to a style popular at a
certain time (Horn and Gurel 1981; Kefgen and Touchie-Specht 1986).
Clothing is a general term referring to “any tangible or material object
connected to the human body” (Kaiser 1997, 4), whereas apparel refers to
garments made of fabric (Sproles 1979). Costume describes clothing of a
specific historical era (e.g., Renaissance doublet) or culture (e.g., grass
skirts worn by Hawaiian hula dancers) as well as dress associated with
rites of passage, rituals, or performances (Kaiser 1997). Dress is the most
inclusive of these terms, and encompasses that to which all the previous
terms refer. As defined by Roach-Higgins and Eicher (1992, 2), dress in-
cludes not only apparel but also “body modifications” (e.g., hairstyle, phy-
sique, tattoos) and “body supplements” (e.g., jewelry and other accessories).
The readings in the book more or less adhere to the definitions of these
terms as presented here, although the term fashion is used rather broadly
and sometimes refers to the style of dress and appearance of cultural or
subcultural groups of various sizes.
Postmodernism Defined
The concept of postmodernism and dress as an element of postmodern cul-

ture reoccurs in several readings within this book. Therefore, we believe it
deserves some discussion in the introduction. Postmodern is a term used
to describe the cultural climate associated with postindustrial society
(Baudrillard 1983, Gitlin 1989, Kaiser 1997). Therefore, postmodern quali-
ties may be found in various cultural components, such as music, architec-
ture, film, and fashion.
One of the ways in which fashion reflects the postmodern sensibility is
the “questioning” of traditional ways of dressing and challenging of guide-
lines previously used in dress (Damhorst 2005, 76). Disparate styles are
combined into a single look in a way that once would have been consid-
ered mismatched or nonsensical. For example, a designer might combine a
soft, flowing, “romantic” shirt with a pair of black leather pants and cow-
boy boots. Styles traditionally associated with different occasions or lev-
els of formality, such as a tuxedo jacket and a pair of faded jeans, may be
worn together. Formal fabrics, such as satin and velvet, may be used in ca-
sual dress; casual fabrics, such as denim and jersey knit, may be used in
formal wear. Styles, patterns, or techniques associated with the dress or
textiles from different parts of the world may be put together to form a
multicultural look. Furthermore, fashions that originate from subcultural
groups defy the “trickle down” theory of fashion change, which holds that
introduction | xv

new styles originate from the elite classes (Simmel 1904). Morgado (1996)
associated these fashion trends with the postmodern concepts of the “re-
jection of authority” and “decentering” in which traditional rules are chal-
lenged and that which has previously been paid little or no attention is
brought into focus, respectively.
Postmodern fashion also has a tendency to borrow from previously es-
tablished clothing styles and signs, “suggesting the end of original design
inspiration” (Morgado 1996, 46). Styles of previous eras (e.g., the 1970s) or
associated with established philosophies (e.g., punk style) are utilized for
their aesthetic value and not necessarily to identify with the era or ex-
press solidarity with the philosophy. This practice has been referred to as
simulation (Baudrillard 1983) and parallels the “death of progress” con-
cept of postmodernism, whereby the term progress is no longer assumed
to indicate improvement, only what is new (Morgado 1996). Simulation
also occurs in creating artificial versions of “the real thing,” such as man-
ufactured versions of genuine or natural materials or even surgical en-
hancements to achieve the cultural ideal of beauty (Damhorst 2005).
The overall result of these trends is another important characteristic of
postmodern fashion—eclecticism, or the incorporation of diverse styles
into individual looks (Damhorst 2005; Kaiser 1997). According to Kaiser,
Nagasawa, and Hutton (1991; 1995) the availability of a diversity of styles
in the marketplace collectively mirrors the cultural ambivalence associ-
ated with postmodernism. Cultural ambivalence refers to mixed emotions
or feelings of uncertainty about the ways in which society classifies its
members based on gender, age, social status, and so on (Davis 1992; Mc-
Cracken 1988). Davis (1992) argued that ambivalence was a primary impe-
tus for fashion change as individuals experience an ongoing struggle to
define their social identities. New styles that become fashionable express
these ambivalences on a collective level.
The array of different styles that the postmodern marketplace provides
delivers unclear messages to consumers about what is in fashion (Kaiser
et al. 1991). Thus, the opportunity arises for consumers to employ dress as
a means to define their social identities by combining various style ele-
ments of their own choosing. Through the do-it-yourself process of brico-
lage, or the mixing together of different style components, individuals
(and designers) participate in the creation of new looks and identities
(Kaiser 1997; Kaiser et al. 1991; Lévi-Strauss 1962).
Many of the readings within this text touch upon styles of men’s dress
associated with specific historical and cultural contexts that have since
become incorporated into recent mainstream fashion through postmod-
ernism’s predilection toward recycling what has gone before, multicultur-
alism, and eclecticism. Understanding of the postmodern culture and its
xvi | introduction

relationship with dress is key to understanding the nature of current
fashion and how it differs from the nature of fashion of previous eras.
References
Babbie, E. 2007. The practice of social research. 11th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Baudrillard, J. 1983. Simulations. Trans. by P. Foss, P. Patton, and P. Beitchman. New York:
Semiotext(e).
Damhorst, M. L. 2005. Dress as nonverbal communication. In Meanings of dress, eds.
M. L. Damhorst, K. A. Miller-Spillman, and S. O. Michelman, 2nd ed., 67–80. New York:
Fairchild.
Davis, F. 1992. Fashion, culture, and identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Freedman, R. 1986. Beauty bound. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Gitlin, T. 1989. Postmodernism defined, at last! Utne Reader, July/August: 52–61.
Horn, M. J., and L. M. Gurel. 1981. The second skin. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Kaiser, S. 1997. The social psychology of clothing. 2nd ed. New York: Fairchild.
Kaiser, S. B., R. H. Nagasawa, and S. S. Hutton. 1991. Fashion, postmodernity and personal
appearance: A symbolic interactionist formulation. Symbolic Interaction 14 (2): 165–85.
————. 1995. Construction of an SI theory of fashion: Part 1. Ambivalence and change. Cloth-
ing and Textiles Research Journal 13 (3): 172–83.
Kefgen, M., and P. Touchie-Specht. 1986. Individuality in clothing selection and personal
appearance. 4th ed. New York: Macmillan.
Kerlinger, F. N. 1986. Foundations of behavioral research. 3rd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston.
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1962. The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
McCracken, G. D. 1985. The trickle-down theory rehabilitated. In The psychology of fashion,
ed. M. R. Solomon, 39–54. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books/D.C. Heath.
————. 1988. Culture and consumption. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press.
Morgado, M. A. 1996. Coming to terms with Postmodern: Theories and concepts of contem-
porary culture and their implications for apparel scholars. Clothing and Textiles
Research Journal 14 (1): 41–53.
Morgan, E. 1972. The descent of woman. New York: Stein and Day.
Roach-Higgins, M. E., and J. B. Eicher. 1992. Dress and identity. Clothing and Textiles
Research Journal 10 (4): 1–8.
Simmel, G. 1904. Fashion. International Quarterly 10: 130–55. Reprint, American Journal of
Sociology 62 (May 1957): 541–58.
Sproles, G. B. 1979. Fashion: Consumer behavior toward dress. Minneapolis: Burgess.
Veblen, T. 1899. The theory of the leisure class. New York: Macmillan.
introduction | xvii

4
Chapter
men’s Fashion as
Defiance

i n t roduc t i on
I
n 1993, when Erica Kane was blackmailed into remarrying Adam
Chandler on All My Children, she did not don the usual white wedding
dress. Rather, she wore a black dress and veil. The solemn black color,
quite the polar opposite for a Western wedding, revealed the charac-
ter’s contempt for her situation; although she was forced into a disagree-
able marriage, her wardrobe revealed her defiant attitude.
Defiance is the rejection of authority, which may come in the form of
another person, a group of people, or a tradition. It is a reaction against
someone or something that holds (oppressive or abusive) power over an-
other. Dress—the things we choose to wear and not to wear—enables us to
show the extent to which we embrace or wish to distance ourselves from a
situation we find ourselves in or a role we are asked to fulfill (Goffman
1961; Kaiser 1997). In the case of Erica Kane, her attire was mute testi-
mony to her role as Adam Chandler’s bride. The relationship between dress
and roles is explored further in Chapter 8.
An example of an individual rejecting the authority of another person
might be the rebellious adolescent who tests the limits set forth by a par-
ent. One way for adolescents to defy their parents is to wear something of
which their parents disapprove. Teenagers can often attest to hearing the
phrase “You’re not going out looking like that” exclaimed by a concerned
parent. Parents have de facto authority over children and set guidelines
and limits as to what they expect of them. These limits may include
restricting which types of fashion they can adopt. Certain protocols
may be expected—such as wearing attire deemed appropriate for certain
| 163

occasions. For example, young girls are often forbidden from wearing
makeup until a certain age and boys are expected to wear the traditional
suit and tie to religious services or for other solemn occasions. Rejecting
such ideas is a form of defiance, specifically challenging the notion that
the parent knows what is best, and is typical of adolescents as they de-
velop their own identity. DeLong and Park’s essay, “From Cool to Hot to
Cool: The Case for the Black Leather Jacket,” details the evolution of the
black leather jacket, including its use in the 1950s and 1960s as a visual
form of rebellion. At the time, the black leather jacket was synonymous
with a fast and dangerous lifestyle. Adolescents were copying their screen
idols and wearing the jacket as a form of rebellion against the authority
figures in their lives, such as parents, teachers, and even law-enforcement
officers. It communicated that the world of their parents’ adolescence was
different from their own; they had to find their own way, and the black
leather jacket validated that it was their time and their struggle.1
F i g u r e 4 . 1 . Colonists
Defiance can also come in the form of rejecting the authority of a group
donned Native American
of people, such as one’s peers or a ruling regime. For example, among those
who were raised in the United States, one of the best-known acts of defi-
dress when destroying tea
ance is the Boston Tea Party, which children learn about in grade school.
in Boston Harbor.
Considered by many to be one of the events that
led to the American War of Independence, the
Boston Tea Party was a colonial American reac-
tion against the British government’s Tea Act,
which effectively gave the British East India
Company a monopoly on the sale of tea in the
colonies, despite the added parliamentary tax.
Colonists responded by donning Mohawk Indian
dress and throwing newly imported tea directly
from the ships into Boston Harbor (Figure 4.1).
The use of Native American dress could be read
as an attempt to disguise the men who partici-
pated, although reports suggest the costume
was far from an effective cloak. The colonists’
use of Native Indian dress may have identified
the former with the new national identity devel-
oping in the North American colonies, which
was distinct from that of the mother country,
England. It may also have symbolized a concur-
rent, parallel relationship between the Native
Americans and the colonists; paradoxically, the
colonists held the positions of both the oppres-
sors and the oppressed. The subject of dress dur-
ing times of political upheaval is explored
164 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce

further in the reading “Men’s Fashion and
Politics,” by Susan North.
Defiance can also come in the form of re-
jecting tradition, or the accepted way of doing
things. In the 1960s, when the Beatles ex-
ploded on the entertainment scene, gender
norms dictated that men wear their hair cut
short while women could wear their hair in
various lengths. The Beatles’ signature “mop
top” coiffures defied this tradition, although
by today’s standards they would not be con-
sidered that long (Figure 4.2). Two readings
in this chapter examine how fashion was used
F i g u r e 4 . 2 . The
to defy social expectations. First, José Blanco F. writes about defiance of
Beatles’ hair was consid-
tradition in “Punk Male Fashion and the Aesthetic of Entropy.” He exam-
ered long for the early
ines the evolution of punk style and its reaction against social norms. Sec-
ond, Robert J. Cross examines how the Teddy Boys used dress to subvert 1960s and inspired many
the established class codes in England in “The Teddy Boy as Scapegoat.” rebellious adolescent boys
Although fashion by definition depends on conformity, it is, in part, the to grow their hair longer
allure of the new and different that propels fashion forward (Kaiser 1997). than usual.
Consequently, fashions initially considered to be “defiant” may become al-
luring to a wider population as their novelty fades (Fiore and Kimle 1997).
As the readings in this chapter attest, styles that were once viewed as
being radically different at a given time and place were eventually adopted
by a broader population whose aim was not to defy authority but to look
stylish. In Blanco’s reading, the question is raised whether it is still possi-
ble to create a defiant look in the eclectic postmodern era, which, to a cer-
tain extent, is defined by a “chaotic” blend of different styles.
Note
1. Blumer (1969, 289) recognized the “collective adjustment” function of fashion, an-
choring individuals to the present amid ongoing societal change.
References
Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Fashion: From class differentiation to collective selection. Sociologi-
cal Quarterly 10:275–91.
Fiore, Anne Marie, and Patricia Anne Kimle. 1997. Understanding aesthetics for the mer-
chandising and design professional. New York: Fairchild.
Goffman, Erving. 1961. Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. Indianapo-
lis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Kaiser, Susan. 1997. The social psychology of clothing. 2nd ed., rev. New York: Fairchild.
i n troductio n | 165

F rom C o ol to H ot to C o ol
the case for the black leather jacket
Marilyn DeLong and Juyeon Park
A prominent department store recently featured on the cover of a sales

circular a young female model looking aloof, self-confident, and even pro-
vocatively defiant. The leather jacket she was wearing was fit close to the
body and cropped to the waist, with its center-front zipper open to the
chest revealing only skin, as though if the jacket were unzipped she would
have nothing but skin showing underneath. The jacket was complete with
details of collar, multiple pockets, double stitching, metal buttons, and
zippers—an image suffused with many of the trappings of that familiar
20th-century symbol, the black leather jacket. But on close inspection, the
surface of this jacket could be seen to be a weathered brown, some fea-
tures were only hinted at, and others were missing altogether. Yet is there
any doubt this image, albeit from a 21st-century sales circular, was meant
to play off of the symbol of defiance that the black leather jacket became
in the mid–20th century?
The black leather jacket evolved from cool—to hot—to cool throughout
the span of the 20th century. When the black leather jacket developed rec-
ognizable attributes of form and broadly understood meaning, it became
an icon. Once the jacket was used in a variety of contextual settings and
gained headway when linked with the wearer and motorcycle (bike) in mid-
century, it evolved from icon to symbol (Figure 4.3). At that point, devia-
tions from the authentic form of the black leather jacket could be tolerated,
yet still provide reference to the root meaning. A thorough examination of
the black leather jacket reveals an aesthetic phenomenon in action. This
166 |

F i g u r e 4 . 3 . The use of
the black leather jacket as
biker dress in the movie The
Wild One (Columbia, 1953)
helped shape its symbolic
meaning.
intriguing progression from icon to symbol is illuminated in the follow-

ing discussion of the aesthetics of the black leather jacket.
Aesthetics and the Black Leather Jacket
To pursue the aesthetic involves continual reference to what people per-

ceive and value. Some commentators feel that although aesthetics mat-
ters, it is an “extra” after basic needs are met. But as Tuan writes (1995, 1),
“the pervasive role of the aesthetic is suggested by its root meaning of
‘feeling’—not just any kind of feeling, but ‘shaped’ feeling and sensitive
perception.” Aesthetics implies interest and involvement in what you
sense and feel. Aesthetics also relies significantly on the time and place in
which you live, who you are, and the social groups to which you and others
belong. In this essay, the basic aesthetics of the black leather jacket are
examined—that is, the relation among form, meaning, and context of what
it has become, and both its individual and collective identities that have
survived and thrived throughout most of the 20th century.
In the study of aesthetics we first analyze how form is perceived, how
its parts are organized into a whole image, and how we arrive at meaning.
Although an image is viewed in an instant as a whole, perceptual experi-
ence consists also of the parts that make up the whole; in terms of cloth-
ing, this includes the materials from which a garment is made, how the
f ro m cool to h ot to cool | 167

materials are put together to create the garment, the accessories, and the
result on the wearer.
Form
The black leather jacket communicates through its form, so we must con-
sider how that communication takes place (DeLong 1998; Meyers 1989). The
term literacy implies an ability to decode messages; when the term visual is
added, the implication is that visual literacy is an ability to decode visual
messages. Visual literacy is dependent on semiotics, the study of “signs” and
their perceptual significance in human communication. Because the ele-
mental components of visual processing are the abstract dot, line, color,
texture, dimension, and movement, such abstractions gain perceptual sig-
nificance in the way they combine and interact to create focus and provide
recognition and meaning. Interpreting the black leather jacket requires an
awareness of the interacting relationships of diverse sensory data.
Recognition of Sensory Data

The wearer and the viewer or observer move, interact, and experience
each other and the garments they wear through several senses simultane-
ously. Consider the way the black leather jacket is experienced—how it feels,
smells, and the sound it makes, which all combine to make it distinctive.
Black leather is a dark-value surface that absorbs light. Such a dark sur-
face does not call attention to itself so much as to the silhouette it creates.
Black ordinarily attracts attention to the silhouette of the body, focusing
and creating an immediacy that demands the attention of the viewer. The
silhouette in relation to the immediate surrounding is a potential con-
trast. For example, think of the visual effect of black leather on a dark
night or in bright sunlight. Beyond the silhouette, contrasts of light and
dark attract the viewer’s attention within the silhouette, emphasized by
placement of silver zippers, snap closures, and other contrasting details.
Contrasts may occur between the edges of black leather, shapes next to
the skin, and the skin texture and physical coloring of the wearer.
Surfaces can range from matte to shiny. Any degree of polish provides
some reflection that attracts attention to the surface. The form-fitting
black leather jacket with a polished, reflective surface accentuates the nat-
ural contours of the body. Reflective details of metal buckles, studs, and
snaps add to the potential of attracting the attention of the viewer or the
wearer looking at his own image. The reflective surfaces heighten the ef-
fect of the wearer’s body movement and, therefore, the visual impact of the
wearer’s body itself.

Leather has tactile appeal and provides a memorable sensory experi-
ence. Leather is often described as smooth and cool to the touch. Touching
leather provides feedback that connotes resistance to penetration. For
some it has appeal because it is skin that can be shed at will (Farren 1985).
Wearing leather is sometimes considered a second skin and a protection
of the wearer’s skin beneath.
Smells and sounds of leather are also distinctive. Leather, particularly
tanned leather, has an identifiable smell that augments the touch sensa-
tion and adds to the total aesthetic experience of the wearer. The smell of
leather is affected by close contact with the wearer’s body, and the warmth
from this contact brings forth a pleasant, earthy odor. Thump a leather
jacket and the taut sound emitted reinforces the touch sensation of pene-
tration resistance. Leather has a dry, slightly hollow sound when it moves
on the body or when one surface rubs against another, as when a sleeve
rubs against the body of a jacket.
Interpreting the Sensory Experience

To experience the impact of black leather on the senses, one must con-
sider perspectives of both the viewer and wearer. Black leather is consid-
ered by the wearer and the viewer to be significant. The appeal of leather
is primal, perhaps reflecting a search for something lost since the advent
of 20th-century life (Farren 1985). We are faced with a myriad of contex-
tual connotations. One thought is that leather represents an awareness of
our human vulnerability: We miss the protective safety of a thick hide or
heavy scales but want to retain the sensitivity and sensuality of our bare
skin. Emotionally, the leather wearer cannot be killed because what he or
she is wearing on the outside is already dead (Farren 1985). The one who
touches the wearer is also experiencing the desensitization of dead skin:
The wearer seems not quite mortal, not totally alive.
From hunter-gatherers and shepherds to cowboys and farmers, leather
has been an available and rugged protective material. No wonder that as
societies became organized and technology advanced this protective
function of leather endured. Leather used for clothing, especially the
heavy leather often used in the black leather jacket, is more like flexible
plate than draping material. The platelike quality of leather fitted over
the human body gives the appearance of a shield. The black leather jacket
makes good use of this quality because protection is a key functional at-
tribute. In addition, the voluminous appearance of leather fitted over the
body enhances the wearer’s body in the eyes of the viewer. Further, the
sheer bulk of leather provides feedback to the wearer in terms of weight
that may signal the wearer to take on a more prominent persona. One
writer interprets the result of the sensory experience of leather thus: It is

obvious that we are talking about the illusion of power that can be derived
from considering black leather as a sort of armor (Farren 1985).
Wearing the Black Leather Jacket

Farren has described his first experience of wearing a black leather
jacket, fully realizing that part of the attraction was that it was frowned
upon. “When I tried on the jacket and stood in front of the full-length mir-
ror in the store, I looked great. My legs seemed longer, my shoulders seemed
broader. I flipped the collar up. I looked so dammed cool” (1985, 8). He con-
tinues, “Even the worst of fools, devoid of all determination and style, can
put on the most badly cut, evilly tailored, imitation bike jacket and feel
himself capable of taking on the world. It is only when this capability is put
to the test that the trouble starts. All too often the world doesn’t treat the
fool with the seriousness that he believes he deserves, and this is where the
seeds of disaster are sown, where the violent, ugly, antisocial punk is cre-
ated” (1985, 10).
Accounts of those who have experienced wearing a black leather jacket
include a description as it relates to the body and the way it functions for
a biker. For example, bikers wear leather because it is a tough second skin
that protects against road rash in a wipeout. Thus, the black leather jacket
may be assessed strictly according to function. According to one biker’s
perception (Johnson 2006), the length of the jacket should be to the waist
or only slightly beyond, because it must not interfere with sitting on the
motorcycle. The front flap closure must overlap to close off the oncoming
wind and cold and have secure zippers and snaps. This biker explained
that when trying on a jacket, the wearer raises his arms in the position of
grasping the handlebars so he can make sure the jacket will not restrict
movement of the arms. The sleeves must be long enough when the rider’s
arms are outstretched while riding, and contoured enough at the wrist to
prevent the wind from rushing in. The contoured shape and zippers at the
wrist create a snug fit. The collar must snap down so it does not flap in the
wind at 70 miles per hour. The jacket looks good when the rider is on the
motorcycle, but off the bike it looks much bulkier because of the ease al-
lowed to accommodate outstretched arms. According to this biker, wear-
ing a black leather jacket off the bike is to be avoided.
Thus, the black leather jacket may be perceived as an icon with form
attributes, and a broadly understood meaning that can be used in a vari-
ety of contextual settings, allowing nuances of meaning to be cleverly
spun off. However, attributes of form are only one aspect of the intriguing
progression to symbol. Who wears the jacket and cultural meanings origi-
nating in its past uses are viewed and manipulated in the context of the
present. New meanings combine with and alter earlier meanings through
manipulation of the garment image, only to fuel future uses.

Meaning: The Image of the Black Leather Jacket
To comprehend the meaning of the black leather jacket, attention must be

given to relationships of the black leather jacket, that is: (1) the relation of
the elements that make up the garment as form, (2) how the garment inter-
acts with the body, and (3) the context in which it is worn or viewed. To-
gether these relationships can affect the status of the jacket as an icon or
symbol. An icon is a sign that directly resembles what it stands for; a sym-
bol is a sign that must be learned, as it is an abstraction of what it repre-
sents (DeLong 1998).
The black leather jacket can be assessed when viewed on a hanger or
worn on a body. Forms of dress that are cut and sewn in a similar manner
from consistent materials such as leather already have an embedded sen-
sory experience for the wearer, thus increasing the potential for the jacket
to become an icon. But contextual issues, such as how it is viewed in terms
of time and culture, create viewer expectations that indirectly link back
to form attributes, and thus the opportunity for the jacket to become
a symbol.
To attract and then command the attention of an individual or an en-
tire country requires a degree of creative tension in the interaction of the
relationships of form, viewer, and context. The black leather jacket owes
much of its status as a symbol to this image manipulation in connection
with the creative tension associated with male identity: gay or straight,
rugged protector or individualist survivor, hero or antihero, powerful or
vulnerable, and tribal or mainstream fashion (Figure 4.4).
F i g u r e 4 . 4 . Tensions
related to the black leather
Rugged Protector Individualist Survivor
jacket.
Hero Anti-Hero
Straight Gay
Powerful Vulnerable
Mainstream Fashion Tribal Fashion

Source of Male Identity
Hollander (1978) provides evidence that changing conventions of gar-
ment forms reflect and influence a changing perception and experience
of the human body. Recently, cultural messages about what constitutes an
ideal male body have grown more insistent and more widespread (Dam-
horst, Miller-Spillman, and Michelman 2005). As early as age 15, male ado-
lescents can become preoccupied with enhancing their appearance.
Symptoms include an excessive checking of self in mirrors and attempts
to camouflage imagined flaws. Characteristics of traditional masculinity
are toughness equated with self-worth, and physical stature equated with
a healthy and moral upbringing. The majority of adolescents are search-
ing for a solid identity and a sense of purpose in the world that seems
oblivious to their existence. Anything that provides a sense of power to
someone who feels powerless and enhances existing physical and psycho-
logical endowments must be attractive to him. Adolescents would like to
feel they are individuals with whom people do not “mess.” There is never a
greater need for psychological armor than during the years of adolescence
(Damhorst, Miller-Spillman, and Michelman 2005). Attfield (2000) de-
scribes the transitional object that provides a bridge between the inner
and outer worlds in the maturation process of the individual. The black
leather jacket has served as this transitional object for adolescents.
In their classic writing on gender, Men and Women: Dressing the Part,
Kidwell and Steele (1989) explain gender differences in sources of sexiness
related to dress and the body. Whereas women’s sexy clothing frequently
relies on themes of body exposure, men’s more often relies on indirect as-
sociations with particular men, such as movie stars or rock stars, or male
archetypes, such as cowboys, who are themselves regarded as being sexually
attractive. The personal charisma they want to project can be leveraged by
the types of clothes they wear. Personal qualities, such as daring, unlimited
courage and power, or men’s involvement with some adventurous or presti-
gious activity, become associated with their clothes. Through sartorial ex-
tension a western hat, boots, and jeans may conjure up images of rugged
individualism. Many women insist that men’s clothing does not have clear
sexual connotations—that men’s bodies or personalities are more significant
than their clothes. However, the sight of Marlon Brando or James Dean in a
black leather jacket is often regarded as sexy. Why? Leather has a certain in-
trinsic tactile appeal, as do silk and cashmere. In the 20th century, leather
has acquired tough, even sadomasochistic, connotations that may appeal to
people on the level of fantasy, according to Kidwell and Steele (1989).
Gay or Straight
Cole (2000) discusses the appeal of leather to gay men, which goes be-
yond its role as clothing. As a fabric, black leather is saturated with mean-

ing. Wearing leather enhances sexual desirability through an indication
of strength and power, but at the same time it is soft to the touch, and the
touch and smell are erotic (Cole, 2000). It is like a second skin that can ac-
centuate a good body. The appeal of the leather look is often that it is at
the opposite end of the gendered dress spectrum, representing a break
with effeminate stereotypes of the past.
Protector or Individualist Survivor

The idea of the black leather jacket encompasses many variations of
men’s leather jackets, worn by all social groups. Wearing leather in the
form of animal skins has a history dating back 5,000 years (Salisbury
2004). Over that time, the jacket has taken on multiple roles of identifica-
tion: protector, survivor, hero, anarchist, and sex symbol. The story of the
black leather jacket in the 20th century alone spans seven decades and
geographically stretches around the world, at least in temperate climates,
from Australian surf punks to the Los Angeles Police Department. Al-
though our focus is on the United States, European origins and the global
impact of the black leather jacket need to be recognized.
In World War I, the black leather jacket made an appearance on German
officers and lingered pervasively on the streets of Germany following the
war. During World War II, it was reintroduced, becoming a signature piece
of clothing for Nazi Germany, and was adopted by officers in several other
countries. In the United States, the uniform of General Patton, including
the black leather jacket, created a metaphoric image of wartime heroes,
reflecting admiration for their courageous commitment in the battlefield.
Soldiers had to find a way to reenter peacetime society after WWII. The
postwar economic boom was expected to help resolve the social problems
of reentry for the soldiers and was conceptualized by a standard appear-
ance exemplified by the traditional suit, hat, and haircut that together
became the iconic image of the man in the gray flannel suit. At the same
time, by war’s end, military surplus clothing was readily available; the
leather jacket became a signifier of the returned soldiers and their courage,
even as it was worn by nonsoldiers. However, the wearing by nonsoldiers
moved the jacket from a symbol of courageous protector to individualist
survivor.
Hero or Antihero
In the 20th century, Americans were introduced to a hero image intri-
cately intertwined with the black leather jacket, the adolescent, and the
motorcycle. Constantino (1997) relates that the term teener had existed in
the 19th century, but the concept of a separate age group did not. About
mid–20th century, adolescence gained attention as a distinct age group
with a set of developmental tasks. Sizing systems were created for the

teenager, and clothing production and manufacture were targeted to this
age group. Along with the concept of “teenager” came the idea of the delin-
quent juvenile. The juvenile delinquent could be either male or female, but
associations tended to be toward the male.
Brustein (1958) described this teenage hero as of medium height, mus-
cular, with a surly and discontented expression, eyes peering out at the
world, uncombed hair falling over his forehead, right hand resting on his
right hip. This hero walked with a slouching and shuffling gait and slumped
in chairs. When he made an appearance, he first uttered some guttural
sounds, then stared steadily at his adversary; he turned away, then again
faced his adversary. What he said when he finally spoke was rarely impor-
tant, but what he communicated was his feelings—revealed as “an inner life
of unspecified anguish and torment” (1958, 123).
Actors who have impersonated this archetype include Marlon Brando,
James Dean, and Montgomery Clift. Elvis Presley, the counterpart in music,
also became a symbol of the inarticulate hero who could “express the non-
conformism that stems from a long, hard, individualistic look at the world”
(Brustein 1958, 129). In the 1950s, films such as Rebel Without a Cause
and Giant both starred the archetypal teen rebel James Dean, and The Wild
One starred Marlon Brando. With these films and stars, jeans became city
clothes and the urban uniform for young men became the trinity of blue
jeans, T-shirt, and black leather jacket (Constantino 1997). Key words in
the film titles, “rebel” and “wild,” hinted that the wardrobes of the young
no longer included the suits, shirts, and ties worn by mainstream society
(Constantino 1997, 83).
Much of Brando’s success rested on his portrayal of the soulful rebel
Johnny Strabler, the inarticulate hero to which mass audiences have re-
sponded (Salisbury 2004). In a memorable exchange in The Wild One, a
girl asks the gang leader, “Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?”
Brando’s character replies with a weary sigh, “What’ve you got?” The image
of Brando as Johnny became a symbol of youthful abandon, and his uni-
form was the leather motorcycle jacket. In the arena of youthful defiance,
the black leather jacket offered protection by deflecting knives and blunt-
ing the blow of brass knuckles. In short, the black leather jacket became
the protective armor, the chain mail of young America. The strains of both
hero and antihero became part of the creative tension surrounding the
black leather jacket, because Brando could be perceived by the teen sub-
culture as hero and by mainstream society as antihero.
Source of Tribal Identity

In the United States, the perceptual experience of the black leather jacket
evolved during the period of the 1950s and 1960s. During these years, the

black leather jacket was inherent to the look of the emerging teenage ar-
chetype. With the rise of this cultural archetype, the black leather jacket
became part of the hipsters’ visual expression of revolt against the stan-
dardized social norm of the day. Movie images of Dean and Brando con-
tributed to the emergence of the jacketed idols as a symbol of rebellion.
This rebellious teenager rode a motorcycle and wore blue jeans, a T-shirt,
and a black leather jacket. In addition, a most conspicuous characteristic
of this hero was that he was an outcast or a rebel, isolated from society.
Contrasted with the rest of the male world wearing suits and ties, “the
leather jacket and open collar he wears are symbols of alienation and re-
bellion” (Brustein 1958, 127). Although the hero is a rebel against estab-
lished authority, he is not identified with the lawless elements of society,
but instead is in the middle, isolated and alone, a victim of forces he can-
not understand. This image was fostered and cherished by the juvenile
elements of U.S. society. Adolescents became effectively persuasive con-
cerning acceptance of their views, and they adopted the black leather
jacket as a means of identity.
By the 1970s, the black leather jacket was still tied to the biker. But a
young male did not have to own a bike to wear the black leather jacket or
identify with the image created in mid-century by the media and accepted
as an expression of youthful rebellion. What we wear, and all that goes into
creating our image, is what Goffman (1959) terms our “presentation of
self,” which functions as a medium of expression and identification. Pol-
hemus (1996) believes that such visual styles can say certain things more
immediately and powerfully than verbal language, making appearance an
important cue to identifying people who are on the same “wavelength.”
Polhemus identifies dressing according to a particular and recognizable
style as a tribal approach to appearance that signals “we rather than I”
(1996, 37). Polhemus uses the term “streetstyle” and argues that the even-
tual mixing of the youth culture “tribes” has meant less clearly differenti-
ated boundaries between groups.
From Rebel to Irreverent

The character of Fonzie in the television comedy Happy Days is remem-
bered as wearing a black leather jacket, but this was not always part of his
image (Salisbury 2004). Reviewers of the series thought the black leather
jacket suggested too much; it suggested a life of criminal and homosexual
behavior that contrasted with the series’ message. Reviewers insisted that
“the Fonz” wear a pale-blue nylon windbreaker while his character was
being established for the viewing audience. Once the audience became
fond of this lovable and straightforward character, the producers reneged,
asking themselves, What kind of rebel wears nylon? So what if no one was

likely to be mugged with brass knuckles? You could at least look the part—
dressed to kill. And so the memorable image was born of the slightly irrev-
erent but lovable character of Fonzie wearing a black leather jacket.
The black leather jacket in Happy Days created a different type of soft-
ened character—the rebel turned functioning member of society. The Fonz
was recognized by viewing audiences as part of youth culture but in a
broader and less rebellious way. Subsequently, the image of the black
leather jacket was reinvented in the 1970s.
Fonzie’s body posturing—his “cool” stance and way of repeatedly pull-
ing out his comb to smooth his hair into a ducktail—was part of his image.
According to Entwistle and Wilson (2001), the body is capable of furnish-
ing a natural system of symbols, and one’s identity is open to self-fashion-
ing. The body is a highly restricted medium of expression because it is
heavily mediated by culture and expresses the social pressure brought to
bear on it (Entwistle and Wilson 2001, 37). The body and its functions and
boundaries symbolically articulate the concerns of the particular group
adopting a particular form of dress and adornment, as in the case of Fonzie
and his familiar gestures. But the message can linger after the initial
statement is made.
Fashion or Antifashion
Fashion, or the idea of a continuous evolution of what we wear (Stern
2004), was born in Western cultures and emerged full-blown during the
latter half of the 19th century. Choices of dress are always defined within
a particular context: The fashion system provides the raw material of our
choices, but these are adapted within the context of the lived experience
and characteristics of the person—that is, gender, occupation, age, and eth-
nicity. From the beginning of fashion, there have been arguments and
movements against fashion, such as artists’ proposals that proceed from a
common will to reject official fashion and replace it with a utopian form
of dress that is antifashion. In the late 19th century, the looser fit of fe-
male aesthetic dress worn in defiance of the fashionable corset was a har-
binger of changing dress codes in the early 20th century. Similarly, for a
period of time in the mid–20th century, the black leather jacket in the
United States embodied the teenage symbol of defiance and antifashion.
Scholars of the history of dress have considered that clothing forms ex-
press the spirit of the era. The discipline of material culture asserts that
products are reflective of their makers’ and users’ culture, beliefs, attitudes,
ideas, and values. Ephemerality is a concept that implies changing social
meanings (Attfield 2000). This concept can be applied to the black leather
jacket because of the emotions and identities the leather jacket has medi-
ated over time that exemplify a unique characteristic of the jacket. In the

German context, the black leather jacket, a chic style for the dashing off-
duty military figure during WWI, gained a second connotation as a symbol
of absolute military power in WWII Nazi Germany. With its adoption by
U.S. officers in WWII, it became a symbol of courage and heroism. Follow-
ing WWII, the black leather jacket was, to a certain extent, still associated
with power. However, without much style change the social meanings im-
bued in the leather jacket kept evolving, from Brando as rebel to Fonzie as
an irreverent but functioning, even heroic, member of society.
From Tribal to Mainstream

So what has the black leather jacket become in the 21st century? What
about the contemporary adult male who could not fulfill his teenage dream
of owning a bike? Perhaps he wore the black leather jacket as a teenager but
this only left a nagging and incomplete experience of the image triad of
jacket, persona, and bike. The adult who purchases a Harley-Davidson may
be fulfilling a different kind of dream—the dream of freedom perhaps not
yet achieved for the baby boomer who has become a stalwart member of so-
ciety. This individual may still long for the thrill of the ride and the edgy
experience of wearing the black leather jacket, riding off into the sunset on
his bike, perhaps only once a year returning to the style tribe of his youth.
The leather jacket of the 21st century is becoming ubiquitous: It can take
on many personalities, according to one marketer (Mitchell 2004). It can be
a beautiful blazer, or a sporty bomber, or an elegant three-quarter belted
signature piece. Leather jackets can be very fashionable, yet durable and
functional, with the number of pockets and details reflecting the intended
use. Uses vary with the different needs of the customer. For example, a jacket
designed for a motorcycle rider still uses heavy leather, requires a snug fit
to the body, and has sleeves that are longer to cover the outstretched arms
of the biker’s body in action. But leather works both on the street and in the
office—it does not wrinkle much, it breathes, and it is durable. Black and
brown are the classic colors that will endure the passage of time, according
to Mitchell (2004). There are not many garments that can boast of softening
up over time and molding to the wearer’s form. Leather garments, especially
in black, can be worn for years without losing their classic appeal. In other
words, the black leather jacket has become a cool number, worn in many
situations, just one of them being for motorcycling.
Conclusion
The black leather jacket traversed the 20th century, evolving from cool,
to hot, to cool. In the beginning, it was cool in its association with the

courageous soldier, then hot in taking on the connotations of badness, de-
fiance, and power for the biker—and finally cool again in the widespread
adoption of the look of black leather.
The study of the aesthetics of the black leather jacket requires that
we consider form, function, body, and context. Without the infused mean-
ing of culture, the jacket does not look like much more than a waist-length
garment with an unobtrusive collar, sleeves, zippers, studs, and a buckle or
two. In its straightforward form it has little that speaks of the symbol it
has become.
The body may function transitionally when its relationship to the
everyday material world can help to reveal the dynamic process of self-
construction (Attfield 2000). The black leather jacket is a good example of
a garment that has served this function. In post-WWII Germany, it was a
transitional object for some Germans who yearned for past feelings of
power. In post-WWII America, the black leather jacket was also a transi-
tional object for some teenagers who struggled with the tensions between
childhood and adulthood. With the launching of Brando as the youthful
hero–antihero archetype, the garment became the uniform of the rugged
individualist and consequently of members of that tribe (Salisbury, 2004).
Since then, every generation has reinvented the black leather jacket, but
one thing remains unchanged—its ability to “invest the wearer with a cer-
tain power” (Farren 1985, 16).
We must conclude that there is something in the psychological makeup
of the various types of people who have adopted and worn the black leather
jacket. The black leather jacket satisfied the needs of diverse populations,
often with conflicting agendas. For example, at the same time that juve-
nile delinquents adopted the jacket as their own, so did the local police
department.
There is little argument that the black leather jacket has become more
than a simple, utilitarian garment. It has been perceived in the 20th cen-
tury as the uniform of many cultural groups, becoming an icon for more
groups than have been mentioned in this paper; Hitler’s Gestapo, the Hells
Angels, the Black Panthers, punk rockers, teenage wannabes, gay-bar cruis-
ers, rock-and-roll animals, and the hard-core mutations of the 1980s all ad-
opted the black leather jacket as their own (Farren 1985). The black leather
jacket has become widely understood as an icon and then symbol of the
20th century, so much so that the nuances playing off the symbol are also
understood.
Incidentally, in answer to the question posed in the introduction about
whether brown leather on a young woman in a 21st-century circular offers
the viewer the same experience as if she were clothed in a black leather
jacket, the answer is “no.” But the reference to the black leather jacket of

the 20th century is obvious. We may be looking at adoption by yet another
style tribe—those young women who want to capture the aura and power
offered by the black leather jacket.
References
Attfield J. 2000. Wild things: The material culture of everyday life. New York: Berg.
Brustein, R. 1958. America’s new culture hero, feelings without words. Commentary 25 (2):
123–29.
Cole, S. 2000. Don we now our gay apparel. Oxford: Berg.
Constantino, M. 1997. Men’s fashion in the twentieth century. New York: Costume & Fashion
Press.
Damhorst, M., K. Miller-Spillman, and S. Michelman. 2005. The meanings of dress. 2nd ed.
New York: Fairchild.
DeLong, M. 1998. The way we look. New York: Fairchild.
Entwistle, J., and E. Wilson, eds. 2001. Body dressing. Oxford: Berg.
Farren, M. 1985. The black leather jacket. New York: Plexus.
Goffman, I. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.
Hollander, A. 1978. Seeing through clothes. New York: Viking.
Johnson, K. 2006. Interview by Marilyn DeLong, September 20, St. Paul, MN.
Kidwell, C., and V. Steele, eds. 1989. Men and women: dressing the part. Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution.
Meyers, J. 1989. The language of visual art. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Mitchell, K. 2004. Leather is, simply, cool. Wearables Business, October: 18–19.
Polhemus, T. 1996. Style surfing, what to wear in the 3rd millennium. London: Thames &
Hudson.
Salisbury, M. 2004. Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Forbes FYI Fall (174): 92–97.
Stern, R. 2004. Against fashion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Tuan, Y. 1995. Passing strange and wonderful: Aesthetics, nature, and culture. New York:
Kodansha America.
Discussion Questions
1. What groups, in addition to those mentioned in this article, have ad-

opted the black leather jacket, and how have they used it to create
their own image or aesthetic?
2. Review the phases through which the black leather jacket passed as
it evolved into an icon and then a symbol.
3. What other garments might be considered iconic, and what groups
have used them symbolically?

M e n ’ s Fa s h i o n a n d P o l i t i c s
“. . . a s o n o f l i b e rt y w i l l n o t f e e l t h e
c o ars e n e s s o f a h o m e s p u n s h i rt . . .”
Susan North
Dress is a fundamental medium through which status, occupation, gen-

der, and age are communicated in human society, as this volume and many
others on the subject clearly demonstrate. The role of dress as a signifier
of political beliefs is more tenuous, perhaps because the indication of
such allegiances is not a constant in the language of clothing; indeed, it is
quite possible to go through life without having to signal one’s politics at
all. From a practical perspective, the ability to differentiate opposing sides
in any war is imperative. The sartorial distinctions of combatants in inter-
national or intercultural confrontations are usually established by re-
gional styles of dress or uniform. With internal disputes or civil war, the
ability to tell rival parties apart is potentially more difficult. If a cultur-
ally homogenous society becomes politically divided, divergent styles of
dress can serve as useful tools in signifying partisanship.
There is certainly an argument for the significance of dress in political
disputes based on class conflicts, which have pervaded the history of
Western society. Karl Marx’s alliance of politics and class in The Commu-
nist Manifesto has been seminal to global history and political theory
since its publication in 1848 and has influenced the interpretation of pre-
vious civil conflicts. Although his rather simplistic division of society
into proletariat and bourgeoisie is a reflection of the social environment
of Europe in the 19th century, subsequent theories have refined the defi-
nitions of historical class identities, recognizing the individualities of
era, geographical place, and culture, with the complications of gender and
180 |

particular economic structures (Thompson 1978). Because clothing func-
tions universally in human society as a signifier of class or social status,
it potentially plays an important role in visually defining class conflict.
This reading investigates the dress associated with a series of civil con-
flicts, its role in defining the relevant factional ideologies, and its effective-
ness in distinguishing one faction from the other. Examination of uprisings
such as the English Civil War and the American, French, Russian and Chi-
nese Revolutions reveals that the correlation between dress and politics is
never absolute. Although there are usually general sartorial distinctions
and often much rhetoric about the dress of a “patriot” or “revolutionary,” the
behavior of individuals demonstrates that clothing is an unreliable guide
to identifying political loyalties. When such associations can be made, they
are often fleeting, existing briefly in a period of ideological enthusiasm or
the first flush of success in battle. In the five examples of civil war studied
in this reading, the “revolutionaries” were successful in establishing a new
regime either entirely or at least for a decade before subsequent political
change. Their “radical dress,” however, proved more evanescent, either sub-
sumed into the mechanics of consumption and taste of mainstream fash-
ion, or rejected in favor of dress reflecting traditional associations with
political power. Only the totalitarian communist governments of the 20th
century succeeded in imposing any sort of sartorial unity, but even these
vanished once the regimes were relaxed or rejected.
Sumptuary Law
Sumptuary law demonstrates the correlation of class and politics via the
medium of dress. This unique type of legislation sought to govern, among
other consumables, the clothing worn within a given society, usually on
the basis of style and materials. While revealing myriad anxieties regard-
ing gender, luxury, wealth, and the overall health of the state economy,
sumptuary law was primarily concerned with class and social status, at-
tempting to restrict expensive and fashionable clothing exclusively for
ruling elites. Such legislation first appeared in Europe in the late Middle
Ages, when feudal aristocracies began to be challenged from below, in par-
ticular by the newly established merchant class (Hunt 1996). Because its
wealth derived from trade rather than land or birth, this new sector of so-
ciety was particularly threatening as consumers competing for luxury
goods, including fashionable clothing. Indeed, some of the richest of the
mercantile class in late medieval Europe made their money on the primary
resources of fashion, including precious metals, furs, silks, fine wools and
linen, and the exotic dyestuffs with which they were colored—trade that
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 181

was instrumental in the evolution of Western capitalism. The wording of
much sumptuary law made its underlying motive very clear. For example,
English legislation introduced in 1597 states, “None shall wear any lace of
gold or silver, mixed with gold and silver, or with gold and silver and silk;
spurs, swords, rapiers, daggers, buckles or studs of girdles, etc. gilt or dam-
asked with gold or silver, silvered; except Barons’ sons and all above that
rank, Gentleman attending upon the queen in house or chamber. Those
who have been employed in embassies. Those with net income of 500
marks per year for life. Knights (as regards daggers, spurs, etc.); Captains”
(Baldwin 1926, 228). That the battle to reserve fashionable dress solely for
the aristocracy was already lost is evident in the exemption for “those
with net income of 500 marks per year for life,” which illustrates the grow-
ing social and political power of the merchant class.
Contemporary moral and religious commentary echoed the psychologi-
cal apprehensions clothed by sumptuary law. Elizabethan legislation was
supported by the Puritan moralists who were disturbed by the extrava-
gance of fashion and its capacity for social confusion. For a society so
long used to judging status and nobility of birth by appearance, “dressing
above one’s station” bordered not only on deception but anarchy. In his
Anatomie of Abuses, published in 1583, Phillip Stubbes reiterated the
principles of sumptuary law: that one is either born with the right to wear
particular finery or earns it by means of a particular office or role in gov-
ernment or private estate. Without such distinctions, the whole order of
society breaks down, for Stubbes argued how dressing above one’s station
could appear misleading and fraudulent: “It is very hard to know, who is
noble, who is worshipful, who is a gentleman, who is not: for you will have
those, which are neither of the nobility, gentility or yeomanry, no, nor yet
any Magistrate or officer in the common wealth, go daily in silks, velvet,
satins, damasks, taffetas and such like, notwithstanding that they be both
base by birth, mean by estate and servile by calling” (Jones and Stallybrass
2000, 5).
The English Civil War
The moral outrage of Stubbes and other contemporary writers empha-

sized the religious and political conflict preceding the English Civil War.
By the 1630s, the dividing lines were evident in two stereotypes, “Cava-
liers” and “Roundheads.” The term Cavalier was derived from the French
chevalier, a term used for a knight, particularly one mounted during bat-
tle. Anthony van Dyck’s 1638 portrait of the Stuart brothers, Lords John
and Bernard, distant relatives to Charles I (National Gallery, London), has

come to epitomize the image of the Cavalier. The flowing curls, lustrous
silks, decorative lace, and high leather boots provided a visual cliché of
the Royalist supporter. Such clothing reflected the fashions of France and
spoke of the Stuarts’ aristocratic birth, their association with Catholi-
cism, and their wealth. These sartorial markers had long been a target of
criticism by Puritan moralists such as Samuel Purchas, who wrote in 1619:
“The Christian, that knows Apparel to be sin’s livery” (cited in Ribiero
1986, 75). The taste for long hair on men, particularly the lovelock style
with one strand longer than the rest, infuriated the Puritans, who con-
demned it as “unnatural,” “shameful,” and “the work of the Devil” (William
Prynne in The Unloveliness of Love-Lockes, 1628, quoted in Jones and Stal-
lybrass 2000, 208–9).
The term Roundhead referred to the cropped hair of the London appren-
tices1 who had supported the Parliamentarian cause in the early 1640s
(Lindley 1997). However, in the class conflict underlying the English Civil
War, the Royalists’ opponents were not the urban working class, but the
merchants and gentry who comprised the Parliamentarians. Beyond the
crude caricatures popular during the 1640s, a search for a portrait of a
Roundhead—that is, a Parliamentarian with short hair—has yet to reveal
one. The 1640 portrait of John Pym, leader of the parliamentary opposi-
tion to Charles I, in the National Portrait Gallery, London, characterizes
the appearance of an anti-Royalist: the dark unadorned doublet and plain
linen, yet undeniably luxurious locks. Lucy Hutchinson was the wife of a
parliamentary army officer, Colonel John Hutchinson. In the introduction
to her husband’s memoirs of the English Civil War, she notes that “he left
off very early the wearing of anything that was costly, yet in his plainest
negligent habit appeared very much a gentleman” (Hutchison 1806, 5).
She also recorded that he had light brown hair, “softer than the finest silk,
curling into loose great rings at the ends” (Hutchinson 1806, 4).
In leaving off the “wearing of anything that was costly,” the Parliamen-
tarians appropriated the sober attire of the Netherlands, plain dark fab-
rics and simple linen accessories, which indicated their nonaristocratic
class origins, their Protestantism, and their wealth. The United Provinces
of the North in Holland had gained their political freedom from Spain in
1609; they were predominantly Protestant and governed by middle-class
merchants. Although by no means a democracy, Holland demonstrated
that a nation did not require a monarch or a landed aristocracy in order to
be ably ruled. The Parliamentarian supporters in Britain found this a use-
ful model in forming a new vision of government, and they naturally grav-
itated toward a similar style of dress (Hill 1965). Although the clothing of
the Dutch and of the Parliamentarians was sober and understated, par-
ticularly in comparison with that of the Royalists, it was not cheap; the

luxurious black wools and silks, and sheer white linens, represented con-
siderable wealth.
On the face of dress and appearance, the differences between Round-
head and Cavalier were fundamentally those of class as much as politics
and religion, but an overview of popular support for the two sides of the
conflict shows that it was split at all levels of British society. Supporting
the Royalists, who were led by the king, were Catholics, most of the nobles
and gentry, about half of all members of Parliament, and, among the com-
mon people, the poorer areas of England in the north and west. Backing
the Parliamentarians under the command of Oliver Cromwell were the Pu-
ritans, the more militant members of Parliament, merchants, and com-
moners of the richer regions of the south and east (Ashton 1989). Given
such a lack of clear division by class, it is not surprising that in the end,
dress offers no certain declarations of political choice. Black proves an
indefinite signifier, as it not only featured in Puritan clothing but also
served as a fashionable contrast in the richly colored aristocratic ward-
robe. Based on contemporary moral commentary, one might expect the
presence or absence of lace to be a more reliable indication, yet the Royal-
ist First Earl of Clarendon wears a plain linen collar in his portrait of
1648–1655 in the National Portrait Gallery, London. In the same collection
is the 1632 portrait of the Parliamentarian Sir Robert Phelips, wearing a
ruff and cuffs trimmed with lace.
With the execution of Charles I on January 30, 1649, and establishment
of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector, one might
suppose that Puritan style would rule for the 1650s. However, it proved dif-
ficult for the country’s new governors to entirely eschew the sartorial
trappings of power; centuries of associating silks, and gold and silver lace,
with the ruling class could not be erased from the English psyche over-
night. The visual evidence of portraiture and surviving dress indicates
that a degree of luxury survived. Two portraits in the National Portrait
Gallery, London, represent leading figures in Cromwell’s Commonwealth,
Walter Strickland, a member of Parliament, and Oliver St. John, chief jus-
tice, both painted in 1651 by Pieter Nason. The golden sheen of their dou-
blets suggests not just a silk fabric but one woven with a silver-gilt thread.
Each man’s collar is edged with lace and their shoe roses and breeches are
embellished with gold braid. A surviving doublet in the Victoria and Al-
bert Museum, London, is equally “un-Puritan” in its splendor (Figure 4.5).
Of British provenance and demonstrating the cut and construction typi-
cal of the 1650s, the doublet is made of Italian silver-gilt silk tissue and
embellished with silver-gilt lace. Even Oliver Cromwell succumbed when
he confirmed himself Lord Protector at Westminster Abbey on June 26,
1657, wearing a robe of purple velvet and carrying a golden scepter in a

ceremony remarkably reminiscent of a corona-
tion (Tomalin 2002). Clearly, the association of
expensive dress and state authority was too
enduring for even the staunchest Puritan to
forsake.
The American Revolution
A somewhat similar correlation of austerity of

attire with political radicalism and extrava-
gant fashion with oppressive authority colors
the account of the American Revolution. The
increasing dissatisfaction with British rule in
North America fostered nationalist feeling in
F i g u r e 4 . 5 . This
the 13 colonies and a growing sense of self-identity, which had a sartorial
doublet from the 1650s,
expression. The colonies sought not only political sovereignty from Britain
made with silver-gilt tissue
but commercial independence as well, particularly in terms of dress and
and bobbin lace, demon-
textiles. “A people who are entirely dependant on foreigners for food or
clothes must always be subject to them,” stated the president of one organi- strates that not all
zation promoting American industry (Zakim 2003, 11). This led to the en- Puritans were “pure” in
dorsement of homespun wools and linens in the colonies and the association their choice of dress. Many
of such locally produced textiles with patriotism and support for American men who advocated reform
independence. A number of newspapers took up the cause of domestic (i.e., in English government
homespun) production as essential to the colonies’ economic health and became vulnerable to the
autonomy. A correspondent to the Pennsylvania Gazette in May 1768, sign- trappings of luxury.
ing himself “A Freeborn American,” urged: “The skin of a son of liberty
will not feel the coarseness of a homespun shirt!” (Zakim 2003, 12). Other
newspapers in Boston and Providence reported on “daughters of liberty”
gathering to spin in order to preserve American industry, and in 1768 the
graduating class at Harvard all wore homespun at commencement (Zakim
2003). Homespun balls became a popular form of entertainment, where the
genteel members of a community would attend in humble homemade wools
and linens rather than their best silks (Baumgarten 2002).
But such a policy was bound to fail, from both an industrial and a psy-
chological perspective. The American colonies did not have the resources
to manufacture textiles and clothing locally on any significant scale (Baum-
garten 2002). The raising, harvesting, preparation, dyeing, spinning, and
weaving of wool and flax were complex and labor-intensive activities. It
was certainly beyond the capacity of a family homestead to produce enough
fleece and fiber to clothe the household; find the time to spin, weave,
and sew; as well as raise food and other necessities. Nor had Britain ever

intended for her colonies to be self-sufficient in such a way; their purpose
was to provide essential raw materials for British manufacture and serve
as a market for goods such as Spitalfields silks, Lancashire wools, and
Irish linens. This commercial exchange had been in operation for over a
century and could not be altered overnight, despite the determination of
patriots. Furthermore, fine clothing was equally important in North Amer-
ican society as it was in Europe, and luxuries such as silk damasks, bro-
cades and taffetas, richly colored broadcloths, and fine linens were eagerly
sought after by the colonial elite (Zakim 2003). While decrying such de-
pendence on fashion, the American patriots failed to recognize that an
interest in, desire for, and means to acquire fashionable dress was a sign
of progress in the new colonies’ cultural development. Refinements such
as good furniture, portraits, fine silver, and fashionable dress indicated
hard-earned success. Indeed, such material attainments signaled that a
Boston merchant was as “civilized” as his equivalent in Liverpool or Lon-
don and therefore as deserving of equal political rights (Fortune 2002).
Once the American Revolution began, homespun took on an acute, prac-
tical significance. Trade of all kinds was severely disrupted by the hostili-
ties, and a shortage of textiles for military uniforms was one of the
hardships of the war. Thomas Jefferson, governor of Virginia during the
War of Independence, reported: “During this time we have manufactured
within our families the most necessary articles of clothing. Those of cot-
ton will bear some comparison with the same kinds of manufacture in
Europe, but those of wool, flax and hemp are very coarse, unsightly and
unpleasant . . . such is our preference for foreign manufactures, that be it
wise or unwise, our people will certainly return as soon as they can to the
raising of raw materials and exchanging them for finer manufactures
than they are able to execute themselves” (de Marly 1990, 131).
His words were prophetic; once independence had been attained, the
new United States of America were free to define themselves sartorially
and to reestablish trade relations, including those involving textiles and
clothing, with Britain and other countries. But America’s founding fathers
discovered a useful identity in the image of the soberly dressed, plainly
spoken, freethinking man, a slightly more polished version of the home-
spun patriot. The letters of both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson
reveal careful thought about their clothing and its impact on those around
them, particularly when abroad representing the new United States. Work-
ing as printer in Philadelphia in the 1730s, Benjamin Franklin confessed
that “in order to secure my Credit and Character as a Tradesman, I took
care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all Ap-
pearance of the Contrary. I drest plainly” (Baumgarten 2002, 98). When at
Versailles in 1778, he wore a plain velvet suit and neither sword nor wig.

The French artist Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun described him
thus: “I was first of all struck by his natural manners; he
was dressed in grey and his unpowdered braided hair fell
upon his shoulders; if it had not been for the nobility of
his face, I should have taken him for a stocky farmer, such
was the contrast he made with the other diplomats who
were all powdered and dressed in their finest clothes, be-
decked with gold and coloured sashes” (Vigée-Le Brun
2002, 317–18).
Thomas Jefferson was almost 40 years younger than
Franklin. His portrait, painted in the late 1780s by Mather
Brown (Figure 4.6), shows similar understated taste but
with a younger man’s sense of style and the refined ele-
gance of a dark blue velvet coat, striped silk waistcoat, and
shirt ruffles of fine muslin. Jefferson’s letters indicate that
he was well aware of the role of dress in defining political
power. Commenting on the French court in 1787, he wrote:
“In Society the habit habille is almost banished, and they
begin to go even to great supper in frock: the court and dip-
lomatic corps however must always be excepted. They are F i g u r e 4 . 6 . Portrait
too high to be reached by any improvement. They are the last refuge from of Thomas Jefferson by
which etiquette, formality and folly will be driven. Take these away and they
Mather Brown. Jefferson
would be on a level with other people” (Wilson and Chew 2002, 21).
used the power of dress
to his advantage in the
political arena.
Eighteenth-Century Dress and Politics
Both Franklin and Jefferson fully understood the relationship between

fashion and power and how to use dress as a political statement. Further-
more, their comments and experiences in Europe highlight the changes oc-
curring in men’s dress and how these developments became associated
with shifts in social class and eventually politics. The 18th century saw in-
creasing informality in men’s dress, first in Britain, then spreading to the
rest of Europe in the 1780s. In France, the aristocracy were always far more
richly and formally attired than their English counterparts, as the former
lived primarily at the court of Versailles. Those who spent much time away
from this the center of power risked social and political alienation.
The situation in England was quite different. Most English aristocrats
passed the majority of their time on their country estates, plainly dressed
in hunting attire or informal day wear, or in urban centers such as London
and Bath, the focus of social life and cultural activity. The court in England
was not the stellar affair it was in France, as neither Queen Anne nor any of

the Georges could be described as remotely stylish. Court dress was re-
served for the rare occasions when one’s presence was required at Windsor
or St. James, and such gala occasions were often viewed as dreary sartorial
obligations (Arch and Marschner 1987). The English prided themselves on
the informal and restrained character of their dress, as a Swiss visitor,
César de Saussure, remarked on a trip to London in 1725:
Englishmen are usually very plainly dressed, they scarcely ever wear
gold on their clothes; they wear little coats called “frocks” without
facings, and without pleats, with a short cape above. Almost all wear
small round wigs, plain hats and carry canes in their hands, but no
swords. Their cloth and linen are of the best and finest. You will see
rich merchants and gentlemen thus dressed, and sometimes even
noblemen of high rank, especially in the morning, walking through
the filthy and muddy streets. Englishmen, however, are very lavish in
other ways. They have splendid equipages and costly apparel when
required. Peers and other persons of rank are richly dressed when they
go to Court, especially on gala days . . . (de Saussure 1902, 112–13)
That such restraint in masculine style began to take on social and

political implications can be seen in the phenomenon of the “Macaroni.”
The tradition of the Grand Tour, a lengthy trip around Europe taken by
English gentlemen, was established in the 17th century. Its purpose was to
introduce them to the artistic and theatrical glories of the continent.
Paris and Italy were the most important destinations, and Florence, Rome,
and Naples were key stops on the Grand Tour. Young men were often away
for a year or more and, during that time, purchased clothes in European
styles, availing themselves of the luxurious textiles that both France and
Italy had to offer. Indeed, for over a century, this had been a means by
which new continental fashions in men’s dress were introduced to Britain.
However, by the 1770s, young Englishmen arriving back in Britain with
dandified airs and a taste for Italian silks and French lace became the sub-
ject of some derision and numerous caricatures. Very high wigs, tightly
cut coats and breeches in pastel shades, excessive amounts of perfume,
large shoe buckles, and high heels characterized the Macaroni. The expres-
sion was coined by those on the Grand Tour for anything stylish and ele-
gant, and the term was soon applied to them (Ribeiro 2002). Through the
medium of caricature, the Macaroni took on political as well as sartorial
associations. As most of the Grand “Tourists” were from aristocratic fami-
lies, the stereotype of effeminate foppery soon extended to character and
behavior as well as appearance. A letter appearing in Town and Country
magazine in November 1771 commented, “To our lot have they fallen most
amply, as every macaroni daily evinces. Their external appearance strongly

depicts their sentiments; and a rational being who can take so much pains
to resemble a monkey, must certainly have a great share of that animal”
(cited in Steele 1985, 99). In the period just before the outbreak of the
American Revolution, British dissatisfaction with George III and the Tory
government focused on corruption and incompetence (Steele 1985). The
criticism of social privilege in the caricature of the Macaroni preceded
the more radical political views of Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Rev-
olution in France, 1790) and Thomas Paine (Rights of Man, 1791).
The French Revolution
Even in France, the correlation of expensive and decorative dress with

state corruption began to take on political overtones by the 1780s. The
decade preceding the French Revolution saw the adoption of more casual
English styles of dress—unadorned suits of wool in subdued colors, worn
with plain linen shirts and wrist ruffles—a fashion dubbed “Anglomania”
in France. Fashion plates of this period reinforce the association of so-
called English styles of dress with supporters of political reform through
lighthearted titles such as “demi-converti” and “patriot,” although they
probably overglamorized the informal effect. English visitors, long used
to regarding Paris as the bastion of formal sartorial elegance, were sur-
prised by the new casualness in French dress. The third Earl of Morning-
ton wrote of the young men he saw in Paris in September 1790, who “in
order to show their attachment to the Democracy have sacrificed their
curls, toupees and queues; some of them go about with cropped locks like
English farmers without any powder . . .” (cited in Ribeiro 1988, 53).
The French Revolution was unique from the other two civil conflicts so
far examined in having an artistic iconography through which its politi-
cal philosophies could be illustrated. Art of the late 18th century was dom-
inated by the neoclassical style, and in France its popularity was enhanced
by classical ideology. French writers looked to the literature of republican
Rome, which emphasized the virtues of patriotism, justice, and liberty,
and corresponded to the prevailing mood in France in the 1770s and 1780s.
The artist Jacques-Louis David, with his austere linear style of painting
and precise replication of Roman dress, armor, and architecture, made
neoclassicism the visual language of the French Revolution. In particular,
it provided a sharp contrast to rococo style, the excesses of which were
viewed artistically as frivolous, superficial, and feminine and associated
increasingly with the corruptness and decadence of the ancien régime.
The adoption of neoclassicism in fashion really only worked for women’s
dress, however, as the classical tunic, toga, and sandals proved too far re-
moved from 18th-century men’s dress and its proprieties to be accepted as

appropriate masculine attire. Nevertheless, a “uniform” of the new Repub-
lic, more explicit than the country chic of English gentlemen, developed in
1792. Les tricolors—red, white, and blue—were most commonly worn as a
ribbon cockade and represented the motto of reform: Liberté, egalité, fra-
ternité. The bonnet rouge, or Phrygian cap, was associated with the head
wear of freed Roman slaves, and trousers became particularly significant.
Unlike Britain, where breeches were worn at all levels of society and trou-
sers were the working attire of only sailors and miners, these two types of
men’s garment formed a clear social divide in France. Breeches or culottes,
as they were called in France, were worn by the middle class and aristoc-
racy; trousers were the garment of the laboring classes. The sans-culottes
became associated with the Jacobins, an increasingly radical party led by
F i g u r e 4 . 7 . Portrait of Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien de Robespierre, and Louis-Antoine
Maximilien de Robespierre Saint-Just, who instigated the Terror in 1792. Like many political revolu-
by Louis-Léopold Boilly. As tions that begin with moderate change, that of France was eventually
Jacobin leader, Robespierre taken over by parties with extreme views. The aristocracy, the wealthy
advocated ridding France middle class, and the clergy were all declared enemies of the Republic, and
of the aristocracy but even their clothing served as evidence of guilt. Silk, lace, jewels, or any form
dressed as an aristocrat of metal embroidery was a sign of the ancien régime, as were hair powder,
himself. wigs, or any elaborate form of coiffure. Even good grooming and cleanli-
ness became suspect. The damning association
of fine clothing with royalist inclinations did
not apply to the Jacobin leaders, however, and
Robespierre in particular was a noted dandy
despite his extreme republican views. In Louis-
Léopold Boilly’s infamous portrait (Figure 4.7),
painted at the height of the Terror, Robespierre
wears all the trappings of an aristocrat: a silk
striped coat, fine wool breeches, lace ruffles,
and diamond knee buckles, exposing a hypoc-
risy that eventually led to his downfall with
the Coup du Thermidor in 1794.
With a majority of political moderates in
the National Assembly for the next five years,
France returned to some degree of social and
sartorial normalcy. The tailoring and textile in-
dustries sought to resume their former activi-
ties after the economic devastation of the
revolution, and France gradually resumed its
role as the mecca of fashion. Although not sub-
ject to the neoclassical influence to the same
degree as women’s dress, men’s fashions follow-
ing 1794 indulged in a degree of stylistic ex-

treme. With exaggeratedly high waistlines and huge collars and lapels, the
Incroyable style was popular with a certain element of disaffected and
anti-Jacobin youth in Paris. Pantaloons, elongated versions of breeches
that tucked into high boots, offered a fashionable compromise between
the radical trousers and decadent culottes. By the first decade of the 19th
century, trousers had been adopted by most of Europe as informal day
wear, although this probably owes more to the fashion whims of the Prince
of Wales and a generation of Englishmen who wore trousers as young boys
than the sartorial extremes of the French revolution (de Marly 1985, 85;
Ribeiro 1995, 107).
Nineteenth-Century Dress and Politics
Like England, France eventually returned to a monarchy of sorts after its

experience as a republic. As there were no surviving members of Louis XVI’s
family to take the throne, it fell to an ambitious opportunist backed by a
military force to take power, Napoléon Bonaparte. Once in a position of
power, Napoléon was only too happy to restore luxurious fabrics and pre-
cious metals to French clothing, for ceremony at least. His astute adoption
of the rhetoric and style of imperial Rome and his presentation of empire as
France’s natural progression from a republic avoided any overt association
with the ancien régime. In the long run, the French Revolution had a pro-
found impact on world politics, providing inspiration for several national-
izing movements in Europe during the 19th century and a warning to other
countries as to what might happen if they did not pursue more democratic
methods of government. In terms of men’s fashions, the ancien régime was
banished for all but court dress, and a combination of the sober black Puri-
tan suit and casual riding coat became fashionable dress for men of all
classes in Europe. Distinctions of wealth and social class did not vanish, but
the expression of them became more subtle; the expert cut of his coat and
the quality of fabric from which it was made characterized the gentleman,
along with the size of his wardrobe and proliferation of fine accessories. As
in previous centuries, the requirement to work relegated the middle and la-
boring classes to various forms of working dress and denied them the closet
of sporting garments made solely for leisure activity (Breward 1999).
Dress continued to play a role in subsequent political revolutions. In the
19th century, the question for revolutionaries was whether their symbol of
freedom should be national costume, usually some form of regional or eth-
nic dress, or the middle-class styles of the fashionable world (Ribeiro 1995,
228). This choice was often fraught with emblematic difficulties. Ethnic
dress was frequently still worn by the bulk of a downtrodden populace, but
the middle-class dress of Britain, France, and North America had strong

associations with modernity as well as liberalism and democracy (Hol-
lander 1994; Kuchta 2002). Guiseppe Garibaldi’s struggle to unite Italy and
free it from foreign rule was symbolized by the red shirts of his followers.
These were, in fact, the red smocks worn by butchers in Buenos Aires, ac-
quired cheaply from a Montevidean manufacturer (Viotti 1979). Although
the choice was dictated by economy, the red shirts had admirable working-
class credentials. Nevertheless, not all 19th-century revolutions originated
with class conflict. The divisions inherent in the American Civil War were
based not on class but primarily on geography and economy, and the issue
of slavery caused the initial political rift that eventually led to war. Al-
though differences in climate and lifestyles made the dress of the Union
and Confederacy distinct, neither group offered a visual icon upon which
to construct its identity. The differences in military uniforms of the North
and South were a tactical battleground necessity.
The Russian Revolution
With publication of the writings of Karl Marx and Max Engels and their
condemnation of capitalism, inspired by the horrors of the textile facto-
ries and sweated labor in Britain, the merchant’s plain black coat and
trousers took on an inescapable taint of corruption (Figure 4.8). By the
early 20th century, the bourgeois business suit had acquired connotations
as negative as the grand habit of the ancien régime. Grounded in Marxist
ideology, the Russian Revolution illustrated the limits of sartorial choice
available to political activists by the Bolsheviks’ rejection of mainstream
men’s fashionable dress. Not only was the three-piece suit a symbol and
product of capitalism, its presence in Russia dated back to Peter the Great
and his insistence on European fashions at court in place of traditional
Russian clothing (Ruane 2002). Any one of the rich varieties of dress
unique to Russia’s many ethnic groups could have formed a natural sym-
bol in which to clothe communist zeal. Unfortunately, Tsar Nicholas II pre-
empted such a gesture by wearing Russian folk costume at court and in
public as a visual reinforcement of imperial rule (Ruane 2002, 67).
After the overthrow of the tsar in 1917, the question of “what to wear”
became pressing for the communist party, not just from a symbolic and
ideological perspective, but from the practical need to provide clothing for
millions. With the centralization of most industries, including textile
manufacture and ready-made garments, the cut and design of clothing was
a political decision. The rejection of the traditional man’s suit was due not
only to its bourgeois associations but also to the influence of the dress re-
form movement of the late 19th century and its concerns about the health
and comfort of men’s clothing (Newton 1974). During this period, the aes-

thetic movements of futurism and modernism were also
exploring the redesign of contemporary clothing; the Ital-
ian futurist Thayaht (Ernesto Michahelles) designed the
tuta, a one-piece overall for men, in 1919 (Wilk 2006, 92). In
keeping with the Marxist celebration of the worker, men’s
dress focused on variations of working garments. Alexan-
der Rodchenko’s 1922 “production clothing” was a geomet-
ricized version of the factory boiler suit, while Vladimir
Tatlin’s “standard clothing” revisited the workingman’s
flat cap, overcoat, and trousers (Wilk 2006, 93, 94). Most of
these radical creations remained designs on paper or one-
off prototypes, as prior to 1939 Russia, now called the So-
viet Union, lacked the resources to manufacture them on
any scale. The complete eradication of capitalism, coupled
with industrialization, the reorganization of production,
and centralization of distribution over such a vast geogra-
phy, was extremely difficult. Shortages in all consumer
goods, including textiles and clothing, remained a constant
problem. After the 1917 revolution, most urban Russians
continued the 19th-century custom of wearing European
fashions made by local tailors. Rural people carried on the
tradition of producing traditional and regional styles
of textiles and dress at home or locally (Hessler 2004). Al- F i g u r e 4 . 8 . Portrait of
though there was some manufacture of ready-made accessories, there were Karl Marx by John Jabez
few centrally run department stores in the Soviet Union before World Edwin Mayall. Marx’s
War II, and with Hitler’s invasion of Russia in 1941, all textile and clothing
writings on capitalism and
production focused on military uniforms and matériel (Hessler 2004). The
consumption led to
problems of devising an efficient centralized system of manufacture and
fashionable dress being
distribution aside, the issue of style and design remained awkward, espe-
condemned by revolution-
cially during the Cold War period, with the official association of Western
ary-minded Russians.
clothing with capitalism and the general Soviet antipathy to consumerism.
For most Russians, fashionable dress was available only through the black
market. The failure to exploit the inventiveness of Russian artists and de-
signers in order to devise their own system of fashionable dress, one that
might have challenged Western fashion in style, creativity, production, and
distribution, was just one of many weaknesses in the Soviet regime.
The Chinese Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution of China was even more authoritarian in its ap-
proach to clothing and appearance than the Russian experience discussed
above. Mao Zedong not only condemned silk gowns and precious metal

embroidery as symbols of the corruption of China’s past and equated Euro-
pean fashions with the evils of Western capitalism, but he also imposed a
uniform on the Chinese populace (Figure 4.9). Known in the West as the
“Mao suit” and consisting of a high-buttoning jacket and trousers, the en-
semble had, in fact, been popularized by Sun Yat-sen, China’s first 20th-
century president. It combined aspects of Chinese peasant dress with
elements of Western military uniform (Wilson 2003) and embodied Chi-
na’s fundamental dilemmas in the early 20th century: desperation to mod-
ernize and cast off centuries of imperialism, yet wariness of the West and
its motives (Steele and Major 1999). With the establishment of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China in 1949, Sun Yat-sen’s distinctive ensemble became
the unofficial uniform, although initially elements of Western dress were
tolerated (Steele and Major 1999). In 1956, there was even a brief return to
fashion, albeit one promulgated by the Soviets, with fashion shows and
the import of East German tailors, but this was quickly suppressed when
Mao Zedong’s renewed program of political and economic reform, known
F i g u r e 4 . 9 . The Mao as the Great Leap Forward, began in 1958 (Steele and Major 1999).
suit combined Chinese With the advent of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, the extinction of
peasant dress with any dress other than the Mao suit was complete. Ideology aside, a scarcity
elements of the military of textiles and ready-made clothing rendered any other sartorial alterna-
uniform of the West and tives practically impossible, as it did in Russia. However, within both the
became the uniform of limited resources of state-manufactured garments and the intense psy-
China by 1966. chological pressure to conform sartorially, most Chinese sought to express
their personal identity, as much as was safe
to do so, through the details of dress: but-
tons, the arrangement of pockets, the shape
of a collar, as well as hand-knitted accesso-
ries such as gloves and scarves (Wilson
1999). The death of Mao Zedong in 1976
and a subsequent relaxation in the repres-
siveness of communist rule brought about
a slow return of the concept of individu-
ality, creativity, and novelty in dress—in
other words, fashion (Steele and Major
1999). The establishment of fashion jour-
nalism and fashion design schools in China
opened the way for dialogue between a wide
variety of traditional styles and Western
fashion, aided by China’s massive indus-
trial engagement in the manufacturing of
Western clothing. Ultimately, the rejection
of fashionable dress that the Russian and

Chinese Revolutions tried to enforce failed, for they ignored the psycho-
logical and social stimuli underlying the expression of individuality
through dress and appearance. That they succeeded for as long as they did
was due to the removal of any sartorial options via state control of cloth-
ing production and distribution, as well as the rigid authoritarianism of
both regimes.
Late 20th-Century Dress and Politics
Even nonviolent cultural revolutions are problematic in terms of sartorial

symbolism. The post–World War II boom in style tribes and counterculture
fashions demonstrates how quickly the philosophy behind such clothing
fades, either deemed as passé as one’s parents’ political views or suborned
into next year’s latest designer look. Yet the ideological origins of such
styles developed from conflicts of race and class. In Britain, the postwar
Teddy Boy style represented the aspirations of working-class youth anx-
ious to create their own identity distinct from the middle and upper classes
(Polhemus 1994). Many of the subcultural fashions that developed in the
United States originated in its racial tensions and the “ghettoization” of
black creativity prior to the civil rights movement (Polhemus 1994, 28–29).
Indeed, the latter, along with student protest against the Vietnam War,
formed the roots of the hippie movement with its distinctive dress that
borrowed from a variety of ethnic costumes. Although the politics and the
clothes of this era may have changed the world, they did so only very briefly,
before another style and another movement swept the social arena. The as-
sociation of many of these ideologies and fashions with popular culture, in
particular popular music, intensified their appeal to younger generations,
at the same time as it guaranteed their brevity. That blue jeans, leather
jackets, hippie beads, long hair, and all the political views accompanying
them wrought no lasting change is evident in the appearance of the punk
movement and its nihilist philosophy during the early 1970s. Defying all
social authority, accepted tenets of physical beauty, and norms of musical
taste, the punks rejected not only the hegemony of the establishment but
every prior counterculture movement as well (Polhemus 1994). Much of the
writing on the subject of “street styles” and the counterculture in the 1970s
and 1980s focused on political interpretations. However, such explanations
are difficult to sustain in the light of the increased fragmentation and
commercialization of youth culture. Even punk was eventually corrupted
by the fashion industry and betrayed by a younger generation of teenagers
who adopted the style simply because it “looked cool.” Sixty years on from
the Zoot Suit, all the counterculture movements have been reduced to a

fashion market for youth, and dressing as a hippie, skinhead, rapper, or
New Romantic is now merely a rite of adolescent passage, no more radical
or political a statement than graduating from rompers to jeans.
Conclusion
Examining the association between dress and politics reveals the transi-
tory nature of each; the ephemeral nature of fashion has long been recog-
nized, but the fleeting character of radical ideology has been acknowledged
only recently with the decline of Marxism (Cowling and Reynolds 2000).
There is often a correlation between ideology and dress in political upheav-
als, but the precise nature of this relationship is unique to each revolution,
as well as short-lived. Sartorially astute radicals who choose to denote their
politics with clothing know that they must cut a dashing contrast to that
of the establishment. Dress that seeks to convey an ideologically convinc-
ing message must also provide a stylish, minimalist alternative to a gaudy,
overdecorated abomination of bad taste and worse government, or provide
a funky and colorful contrast to dull, be-suited bureaucrats. But political
idealism does not guarantee sartorial taste; the hero of the revolution can
be a peacock or a slob, or resist outright efforts to have his or her personal
tastes overridden by any kind of fashion dogma. Dress only fits politics
comfortably but momentarily in the early stages of rebellion, when it is
freely chosen to express specific beliefs. A revolutionary “uniform” strictly
imposed will be rejected outright or subtly subverted. Dictates of the new
social order, both sartorial and political, eventually become as oppressive
to the proletariat as the last regime. For whereas modest working dress
often functions as a political statement for seditionists, the exploited
masses do not revolt for the right to dress in the clothing they already wear.
People rebel for the right to express their political views, to vote and be
represented, and to govern; they also rebel for the entitlements of the privi-
leged, including the right to dress as they wish, according to their own per-
sonal tastes and as stylishly as their money, freely earned, will allow.
note
1. Young men who were training for a profession were often rowdy, violent, and unruly—
perfect for any type of insurgency.
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1. What political ideologies are discussed in the reading, and how were
they expressed through style of dress?
2. The author discusses various groups or regimes that sought to con-
trol the types of dress that people wore. Who were these groups, and
how did they try to achieve this control over dress?
3. After answering question 2, make a list of societal characteristics
that support or are necessary for fashion to exist.

P u n k M a l e Fa s h i o n a n d
t h e A e s t h e t i c o f E n t r o py
José Blanco F.
Entropy, Chaos, Anarchy
In thermodynamics, order is defined as the maximum reduction of tension

achieved in a system. The concept of entropy is used as a quantitative mea-
sure of the level of disorder in any given system. Order allows for a distinc-
tion of what is alike and what is different, whereas entropy marks the
collapse of established order1 (Arnheim 1971). Subcultures, including punk,
have challenged order by adopting a defiant aesthetic of disorder aimed at
increasing entropy in society.2 Punk, named after the magazine published
between 1976 and 1979 by Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom, erupted in
major Western capitals in the mid-1970s. The music-centered youth move-
ment created a cultural rebellion by challenging order as promoted by the
hegemonic system. The increased entropy created by punk is reflected in
the music’s lack of harmony and melody as well as in chaotic performances
in which slam-dancing and stage diving remove the audience-performer
barrier. By embracing an aesthetic of chaos and disorder, punk aligned it-
self with the postmodern spirit of fragmentation that challenged the great
accepted narratives of the modernist agenda. The change toward increased
entropy was accelerated by punk’s juxtaposition of disparate elements and
by the “do-it-yourself,” individualized aesthetic of the movement.
Punk has been vested by some researchers with a primarily political
agenda revolving around symbolic resistance to hegemonic order. Heb-
dige (1979) argues that punk belonged to a line of working-class subcul-
tures that appropriated mainstream rituals and symbols to expose the
construction of hegemonic cultural discourses. Others have questioned
| 199

the idea of explaining punk exclusively in terms of a political agenda. David
Muggleton (2000) argues that subcultures are not usually internally cohe-
sive and that most punk fans do not see themselves as part of a political
movement. For Muggleton, subcultures exhibit resistance to all forms of
collective and holistic belief systems, regardless of any particular politi-
cal content. The punk revolution, thus, was more aesthetic than political
even though some groups, including the Clash, the Tom Robinson Band,
and SLF, expressed strong opinions about issues such as war, racism, and
gay rights (Davies 1996). If punk fans and musicians participated in forms
of social resistance, it was mostly through the movement’s adherence to
ideas of chaos and anarchy. O’Hara claims that the primary political ideol-
ogy of punk was anarchy (1999). “Anarchy in the UK,” an early punk anthem
by the Sex Pistols, certainly speaks to the idea of anarchy as a lifestyle in
which the spirit of destruction reflects a creative urge. “We are not into
music, we’re into chaos,” claimed the Sex Pistols proudly. Names for bands
and fanzines (low-cost magazines produced and distributed by fans) also
aligned with this approach. Notable examples of band names included
Damage, Suicidal Tendencies, Living Abortions, and Wasted Youth. Some
fanzine titles included Revenge, Search and Destroy, Rotten to the Core,
and Damage.
Punk aimed to dissolve functional content in society (i.e., disrupt and
eliminate the social mores of what is considered appropriate) and pro-
moted the abolition of meaning as found in the prevailing order of hege-
mony. This romantic nihilism was easily expressed by the recurrent use
of entropy-related words such as “disorder,” “chaos,” “anarchy,” “fury,” “se-
dition,” “disintegration,” and “apocalypse.” Punk, as an antiestablishment
and antiauthoritarian movement, rejoiced in announcing everything it
opposed, and fans and musicians often declared themselves antiparent,
antifuture, antifeeling, antifun, antilove, antinice, antistardom, anticon-
sumerism, and antifashion. Disorder, negation, contradiction, and the
search for an extreme degree of freedom were adopted as perfect tools to
enable individual judgment to prevail over dogmatic views of social order.
Punk male fashion, rather antifashion, functioned as a form of decon-
structive postmodernism composed of a chaotic arrangement of trends
that increased the level of social entropy by breaking away from main-
stream notions of modesty, balance, size, shape, and intensity. Among the
most notable trends was the determination to break with practices of
previous generations by adopting an anticonsumerism, “do-it-yourself”
aesthetic. Punk, nonetheless, embraced the past and created a bricolage of
previous styles, recycling glam-rock fashion and its prevailing sexual am-
biguity as well as elements from rockabilly. Crucial to punk male fashion
was the adoption of trends that developed out of the work of fashion

designers, particularly Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. Other
important trends were the practice of tearing and ripping garments and
the use of black leather jackets, slimming outfits, bondage fashion, outra-
geous accessories, seminudity, explicit and controversial t-shirts, and por-
nographic imagery. The following sections discuss each of these trends in
male punk fashion as defiance practices to promote increased levels of
entropy in the mainstream.
American Garage “Do-It-Yourself”
Breaking with previous generations was an essential goal of other anti

establishment movements, such as glam rock and the hippies.3 The assump-
tion was that the prevailing taste of the mainstream must be challenged,
and hopefully destroyed, to allow for the appearance of a truly individual-
ized style. A distinctive tradition in punk subculture was the “do-it-yourself”
approach, which spilled over from the amateurish performers to the design
for album covers, magazines, and fashion styles. O’Hara (1999) explains the
punk ethos of “do-it-yourself” as an effort to avoid relying on the products
created by the technocratic mainstream, with the goal of centralizing
creative endeavors and manipulating behavior. Punk inherited its lack of
interest in perfection and its emphasis on creativity and amateurism—all-
important elements in the creation of the aesthetic of entropy—from the ex-
perience of the American garage bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The birthplace and origin of punk has been a source of heated debate.
Some critics place the early development of punk in mid-1970s London,
while others trace it back to American garage rock, a phenomenon that
exploded when mostly male amateurs with no previous musical training
and a penchant for pessimism, irony, and rebellion began creating their
own music groups all across the United States in the late 1960s. Some
bands often considered forerunners of punk music include the Sonics, the
Seeds, Question Mark (?) and the Mysterians, the Standells, the Music Ma-
chine, and, most notably, the Velvet Underground. The early American
punk scene revolved around CBGB, the quintessential punk bar, which
opened in New York in the fall of 1973, attracting the underground scene
that followed the Velvet Underground and later groups such as the New
York Dolls, Television, and the Ramones.4 The eclectic fashion trends seen
in some of the CBGB bands and elsewhere in the United States were a
bona-fide bricolage of styles. The Dead Boys, a band from Ohio, wore dog
collars, dyed their hair, and sported fitted pants and tight, short-sleeved
t-shirts. Lead singer Stiv Bators occasionally wore ripped shirts and femi-
nine tops. The members of Television wore 1950s-inspired slim trousers,
pu n k m ale f a s h io n a n d t h e ae s t h etic o f e n tropy | 201

leather jackets, and torn t-shirts along with sunglasses
and spiked hair. Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dic-
tators wore his hair in a large mane, and his apparel
was heavily influenced by New York street-gang styles.
Influential garage bands flourished in other U.S. cit-
ies. Among them were Detroit’s MC5, Boston’s the Mod-
ern Lovers, and Cleveland’s Pére Ubu with their notable
front man Pete Laughner. San Francisco’s Crime revis-
ited rockabilly fashion, the style associated with the
“greasers” of 1950s rock and roll, by wearing black
suits, white dress shirts, bow ties, suspenders, fedora
hats, and neatly fixed hair. Later punk acts showcas-
ing rockabilly influences included the Cramps, the
Blasters, and singer Elvis Costello.
Early Los Angeles punk bands borrowed elements
from 1950s Hollywood kitsch style, including animal
prints and fur. The Weirdoes were influenced by Dada
styles and pioneered ripped and patched clothes,
while the Screamers incorporated theatrical elements
in their wardrobe. Bobbie Pyn (a.k.a. Darby Crash),
lead singer for the Germs, pioneered safety-pin pierc-
ing, bleached hair, and the practice of self-mutilation
during performances, a trend followed particularly by
F i g u r e 4 . 1 0 . Iggy Pop hard-core punks. Elements of sadomasochism and fe-
performing in bikini tishism had appeared in the lyrics and unconventional rough look of the
underwear. His mixture of Velvet Underground and front man Lou Reed. The band wore black outfits
masculine and feminine and leather jackets reminiscent of gangster styles. Iggy Pop’s band, the
elements helped establish Stooges, wore similar styles, while Iggy himself played with an eclectic se-
androgyny as a fashion ries of items, including baggy white pants, coveralls, and short-sleeved
trait of punk.
shirts. Some of Iggy’s performances were memorable for his outrageous
outfits, such as torn dungarees exposing red bikini underwear or a full bal-
lerina costume revealing a G-string. Iggy’s playful take on androgyny and
feminization was emulated later by other punk performers (Figure 4.10).
Made Me Up in Glamour Style
True androgyny came to punk via the New York Dolls, a group more con-
cerned with appearance than any other proto-punk American band. Recy-
cling elements from glam rock, they often performed in drag, even though
all band members considered themselves heterosexual. The Dolls’ sexually
ambiguous attire included see-through outfits, ballet tutus, strapless
dresses, halter or tank tops, fitted spandex trousers (often worn without

underwear), high heels, bouffant hairstyles, jewelry pieces, and full makeup
of rouge, eye shadow, lipstick, and mascara.5 The Dolls were also notorious
for their incorporation of the swastika in their wardrobe. Used as a symbol
of sedition and recklessness and not for any ideological meaning, the swas-
tika, nonetheless controversial, put them on a direct course to increase
social entropy. In 1975, Malcolm McLaren designed a new look for the Dolls
that included red patent leather and vinyl outfits, red ciré t-shirts, red
gabardine items, high-heeled boots, and, for an additional touch of contro-
versy, the hammer and sickle, symbols of the Soviet Union. Bright red
items remained popular in punk attire, as red was often perceived as a
symbol of danger and defiance to censorship.
Performing in drag was not new to punk audiences. Jayne (Wayne)
County, a transgendered rock performer, was fairly popular in the early
years of American punk. The Ramones, like the New York Dolls, incorpo-
rated a touch of androgyny and glam through rubber and vinyl clothes.
Joey Ramone occasionally wore women’s trousers or jumpsuits, rhinestone-
decorated belts, feminine jewelry, pink platform shoes, and makeup. Sexual
ambiguity remained an important tool that punk acts and fans used to in-
ject the mainstream with a dose of entropic gender confusion. Punk, how-
ever, had a love–hate relationship with homosexuality. Androgyny and
male bonding were accepted because they were rebellious; however, punks
were not necessarily in solidarity with gay people. Some performers were
aggressively vocal in their opposition to homosexuality, but gay fans were
constantly drawn to punk, perhaps seeking an opportunity to express their
rejection of the rules of mainstream sexuality. Few performers were actu-
ally gay, and even fewer were outspoken on gay-rights issues. An exception
was openly “out” front man Tom Robinson of the Tom Robinson band.
Designer Punk: Anarchy, Sex, Sedition
The year 1976 was marked by the appearance of some of the most famous
punk acts, including the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned. From its
inception, British punk seemed more fashion conscious than its Ameri-
can counterpart due in part to the close ties between the Sex Pistols and
the store on King’s Road owned by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne West-
wood.6 The store was crucial in creating the British punk look, and Savage
(2002) calls the work of McLaren and Westwood “social engineering”
through fashion.7 The designer pair opened their first store, Let It Rock, in
1971. It was considered the mecca for Teddy Boy revival clothing and of-
fered variations of jazz or zoot suits and slim, Edwardian-inspired looks.
The store also offered 1950s double-breasted, two-button jackets with
wide lapels and padded shoulders, as well as cardigans, embroidered vests,

gabardine shirts, drainpipe pants, and colorful creeper shoes. Strong com-
petition came from another store offering 1950s- and 1960s-vintage prod-
ucts. Located at 135 King’s Road, Acme Attractions, founded by John
Krevine and managed by Jamaican DJ Don Letts, attracted a number of
reggae fans, providing a connection between the two musical styles. The
name was changed to Boy at the time the store introduced torn and burned
clothes, and it became a key player in the development of punk style. After
McLaren and Westwood adopted a more rebellious punk approach in their
designs, their store name was also changed. The revamped Too Fast to Live
Too Young to Die sold ripped and torn items as well as leather jackets in-
spired by the rebel look in American pop culture and movies. The store was
eventually baptized Sex to reflect a period in which the designers explored
controversial and pornographic imagery borrowed from some of the sex
shops in the area. In 1976, the store underwent yet another name change,
to Seditionaries, reflecting the interest in anarchy and chaos. Quintessen-
tial products created at this time included the famous anarchy shirt,
which stated, “only anarchists are pretty.” Many other up-front claims
of sedition and disorder were carried by the store’s customers onto the
streets. The store’s name was finally changed to World’s End, which was
still in use in the 21st century. The influence of McLaren and Westwood’s
designs is clearly seen in some of the male punk fashion trends that follow
in this discussion.
A Dark and Torn Rebellion: Minimum Effort
Designers of punk fashion often copied trends started in the streets by

punk fans. Effortless and yet rebellious fashion could be accomplished by
simply creating a disheveled look, wearing clothes inside out, covering
them with patches, or selecting extremely fitted or out-of-proportion gar-
ments and accessories. Many punk fans sported long dress shirts under
shorter jackets or vests and used striking combinations of colors in their
wardrobe or hair, including glowing orange, electric blue, and intense red.
Torn and ripped items quickly became a major trend in punk fashion for
men. Jean jackets, pants, and even formal jackets, whether new or vintage,
were torn at the shoulders, seams, and other visible places. The garments
were also modified with the incorporation of mesh, fur, or safety pins and
accessorized with dog collars, chains, and pinned buttons. McLaren and
Westwood created a number of items inspired by this look but credited
Richard Hell, of the Heartbreakers and later the Voidoids, for pioneering
the trend. McLaren recounts his first impression of Hell: “Here was a guy
all deconstructed, torn down, looking like he’d just crawled out of a drain
hole, looking like he was covered in slime, looking like he hadn’t slept in

years, looking like he hadn’t washed in years, and looking like no one
gave a fuck about him. And looking like he didn’t really give a fuck about
you. He was this wonderful, bored, drained, scarred, dirty guy with a torn
t-shirt” (McNeil 1997, 198). Hell’s look was not only successfully marketed
by McLaren but also widely imitated in both the United States and
the United Kingdom. The style, associated with junkies, hustlers, and
homeless individuals, appealed to punk males because of the rebellious
potential embedded in the entropic process of destruction of objects and
alteration of shapes.
Black Leather Rebels

Black is defined as the absence of color produced by the total absorption
of light. A clear affinity with notions of chaos and entropy turned black
into the color of choice for many punks. Several bands performed in en-
sembles of black pants and dress shirts, but the rebellious nature of black
darkness was epitomized by the leather jacket. The look was first associ-
ated with the 1950s biker culture of the Hells Angels and with movie stars
such as Marlon Brando and James Dean, although the latter never actually
wore a black leather jacket in a movie. Leather jackets were first brought
to punk by bands such as Television and the Ramones. Some jackets even-
tually became a form of body armor, decorated with studs, pins, buttons,
zippers, or chains. Combinations of denim and leather were also common.
Denim jackets and vests provided a perfect canvas for self-expression, as
they were easily modified with pen drawings or acrylic paint and acces-
sorized with pins and studs. Many groups explored other creative avenues
with leather jackets. The Heartbreakers, for instance, wore them with
white or red lapels, MC5 matched them with tight jeans and print dress
shirts, while the Damned combined them with tuxedos and bow ties. It was
the Clash, however, who popularized black leather jackets among punk
performers and fans. The band used the jackets as the perfect companion
for their Pollock-like customized paint-splattered shirts and the slogans
or prison numbers printed on their apparel. The Clash’s defiant fashion
style was also expressed through a quasi-military look consisting of cam-
ouflage, bomber jackets, and berets. Public image became so important for
the group that a company called Upstarts was created to design some of
their clothes, posters, and album covers (Gilbert 2005).
Slim and Eager: Tie Me Up but Not Down

A slimming wardrobe was essential to punk, both on the stage and on the
street. Rockabilly-inspired slender suits with narrow lapels were a perfect

match for skintight jeans or leather pants. Other bifurcated garments in-
cluded polished fabric trousers, leather chaps over jeans, and pleated or
corduroy pants. The lack of manufactured slim-legged or drainpipe trou-
sers prompted fans to peg their own flared jeans. Retailers began offering
skintight trousers after they were popularized by the Clash and the Ra-
mones. Skinny ties and Converse All Star shoes were frequently used as
accessories along with trench coats and other long overcoats. Striking ele-
ments adding to the defiant spirit of punk male fashion also came from
bondage and fetish styles.
Bondage and fetish elements were more common among punk females;
however, male performers often wore items made out of rubber, leather, or
vinyl and incorporated handcuffs or other objects associated with sado-
masochism. These were not used for their sexual appeal but to confront
F i g u r e 4 . 1 1 . Wattie mainstream acceptance of sexual imagery. Bondage pants, probably seen
Buchan of The Exploited first on John Lydon at a Sex Pistols concert, were a staple for many male
featuring the Mohawk. The punk performers. Most were made out of polished black satin, tartan fab-
Mohawk is recognized ric, mohair, or terry cloth. The straps between the legs remained untied,
today as the symbol of
but their presence was an indication of the possibility of a drastic bond-
age look. Buckles, strings, and flaps were used on the calves, buttocks, and
punk fashion.
other areas. Other materials incorporated into the punk
wardrobe included plastic bags, nylon mesh, Lurex, and PVC.
Bondage pants were often accompanied by parachute and
net shirts.
Defiant personal decoration practices accessorized the
punk look, increasing the negative social reaction expected
by some. London punks wore safety pins in their nose,
cheeks, lips, and, along with razor blades, also used them as
earrings. Jewelry pieces incorporated items such as skulls
and crossbones, swastikas, crosses, crucifixes, rosary beads,
bullet casings, and toilet chains. Sid Vicious often wore a
chain with a lock as a pendant, and Peter Laughner posed
for a photograph wearing a black leather jacket wrapped in
a chain with a lock around his neck. Other body-decoration
practices adopted by punks included tattoos in visible and
covered parts of the body, such as the face, lips, and inner
mouth, and partial or full makeup, used by some to give
themselves lifeless or skull-like faces. The most visible and
perhaps striking of all the outrageous personal accessories
was the Mohawk, a hairstyle that went on to become the
quintessential street punk look. Early artists and fans wore
a variety of styles, including long, crew, spiked, and bleached
or dyed hair, but Mohawks won popularity as punk reached

the mainstream. As seen in groups such as the Exploited
and GBH, the Mohawk was perceived as a symbol of war
and violence, connecting punk fans to stereotypical Na-
tive Americans as rebellious savages (Figure 4.11).
Exposure: The Body as Rebellion
Punk artists challenged mainstream modesty practices

by exposing their bodies in different degrees. Sometimes
it was as simple as rolling up the sleeves of dress shirts
or ripping off garments; often, however, antiheroes such
as Sid Vicious and Darby Crash performed shirtless (Fig-
ure 4.12). The tradition of body exposure was carried on
by many male performers, including Tom Robinson,
Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra, Johnny Thunders, and Rich-
ard Hell. Seminudity often exposed hidden tattoos or
body-painted messages, allowing the performers to turn
their naked bodies into virtual message boards. For added
defiance, many male punk artists posed for pictures or
performed exposing their pubic hair. A more extreme
entropy-inducing practice associated with seminudity
F i g u r e 4 . 1 2 . Exposing
was self-mutilation. Sid Vicious appeared shirtless with self-induced scars,
the body was a typical
while Johnny Rotten proudly showcased his razor injuries. Iggy Pop used a
element of punk fashion, as
broken bottle to injure himself during concerts, and Darby Crash posed for
this photo of Sid Vicious
photographs while bleeding. Daniel Wojcik interprets these dramatic ges-
demonstrates.
tures of self-injury as an intention to create “the overall impression that they
were sacrificing their bodies on the altar of postmodern despair” (Wojcik
1995, 11). Hard-core punks continued this practice, performing while proudly
showcasing their bruises, splattered with blood, or self-inflicting wounds
during performances and occasionally inspiring audiences to do the same.
Whether this practice was grounded in the desire to sacrifice themselves
for their art or was engaged in merely for shock purposes, self-mutilation
was one of punk’s most aggressively defiant and disorderly practices. An
almost equally aggressive practice was the use of controversial and porno-
graphic imagery in apparel products, particularly on t-shirts.
My T-Shirt Has More Power Than Your Newspaper
Controversial imagery was embraced early by punk performers and, as a

part of the aesthetic of entropy, was used to abolish notions of appropriate

placement of rebellious content. Richard Hell wore a t-shirt with a bull’s-
eye target and the slogan “Please Kill Me,” while the Heartbreakers posed
for an iconic picture dressed in white tops splattered with blood. British
punk designers and performers were more aggressive in their inclusion of
controversial symbols as tools to enrage and shock the mainstream. Punk
design reached entropy through overrepresentation in the use of logos,
messages, and images directly promoting anarchy in album covers, post-
ers, and T-shirts. Messages such as “No future,” “Chaos,” “Anarchy,” and
“Destroy” were printed on t-shirts, often using a “blackmail” style of type
with cutout letters in different fonts and sizes. Dick Hebdige (1979) consid-
ered the use of this typesetting the most violent aspect of punk imagery.
McLaren and Westwood perfected the art of the punk t-shirt, developing
several styles ranging from sleeveless shirts created by merely seaming
two pieces of fabric together to carefully printed and detailed creations.
T-shirts also became the perfect avenue to promote the Sex Pistols and
were fundamental in advertising the “Anarchy in the UK” tour. The shirts
produced by McLaren and Westwood were praised for their clever use of
words and images. The designer team created quintessential punk shirts
with slogans that included “Only Anarchists Are Pretty,” “Be Reasonable,
Demand the Impossible,” and simply “A,” for anarchy. Another famous cre-
ation was their t-shirt stating “You’re gonna wake up one morning and
know what side of the bed you’ve been lying on!” followed by a list of “hates”
and “loves.” They also incorporated studs, zippers, rubber, glitter printing,
chains, parachute fabrics, and even boiled chicken bones and bicycle tires.
McLaren and Westwood also continued the punk tradition of tearing up
garments featuring celebrated rock acts and idols, such as Elvis Presley,
and maintained the homemade look in many of their pieces.
MacLaren and Westwood incorporated bondage, fetish, sexual taboo,
and light pornographic imagery in their printed and appliquéd T-shirts or
as cutouts under plastic pockets sewn into t-shirts and ties. As a further
testimony to their commitment to dissent and controversy, clothing in
their Sex store carried a label indicating “For soldiers, prostitutes, dykes
and punks.” T-shirts were also printed with the logo “P-E-R-V,” while other
products featured photos of women’s breasts or naked men with oversized
penises. Some t-shirts created by the designer duo were particularly con-
troversial, such as a piece showing young boys smoking, an image alleg-
edly taken from a magazine with pedophile tendencies. Also controversial
were explicit pornographic images of Snow White engaged in sexual in-
tercourse with the seven dwarfs and Mickey and Minnie Mouse in a simi-
lar situation. Like bondage and fetish elements in punk dress, overly
sexualized or pornographic imagery was used not to instigate sexual be-
havior but merely as another form of defiance and an opportunity to pro-
mote entropy. The aim was certainly accomplished when McLaren and

Westwood were charged for indecent exposure for their Tom of Finland–
inspired T-shirt featuring two nude cowboys with their exposed penises
nearly touching. After the death of Sid Vicious’s girlfriend, Nancy Spungen,
the designers created their most controversial t-shirt, featuring Vicious,
the rumored culprit in Spungen’s death, surrounded by dead roses over the
inscription: “I’m Alive. She’s dead. I’m yours.” The designers were accused
of profiting from Spungen’s death, but punk fans were quick to grab the
opportunity to wear an image of Vicious, just as they did after his own
death when famous photographs of him became abundant in apparel and
tattoos. T-shirts became a commodity sought after by many people out-
side the punk subculture due in part to the simple procedure of t-shirt
printing. Punk t-shirts became a trend and, just like many other aspects of
punk fashion, were adapted and adopted by the mainstream.
Punk Hits the Streets
Like many other subcultures before it, early punk thrived on opposing the
mainstream and its style. Defiance to the hegemony was accomplished by
creating an aesthetic of disorder aimed at increasing the entropy in the
society it challenged. As with similar subcultural movements, the appeal
of punk and its chaotic imagery eventually became so widespread that the
very society it rebelled against turned punk into a commodity. Beginning
in the early 1980s, stereotypical versions of most punk fashion trends
were adopted by rebellious youth around the world who hit the streets
proudly showcasing numerous piercings or tattoos, striking Mohawks,
bright fluorescent hair dyes, and controversial imagery on t-shirts and
other apparel products. The presence of these neo-punks in the streets be-
came a popular tourist attraction, particularly in London, thus decreasing
the appeal of the look as a symbol of defiance. The media transformed
punk into a profitable business, with fashion magazines and newspapers
publishing guidelines on how to create Mohawks or other punk looks while
commercial products—including hair dyes, armbands, and piercing jewelry—
were aggressively marketed to punks by specialty stores. Antifashion be-
came high fashion when designers Zandra Rhodes and Jean-Paul Gaultier
incorporated punk elements in their collections. Overall, the individual-
ized style and original hostility of punk was transformed by a postmod-
ern desire to incorporate subcultural styles into the mainstream.
Punk bands of the early 1980s were more concerned with fashion than
previous acts. The Jam, which had a strong cult following into the early
1980s, incorporated elements from mod and psychedelia into their ward-
robe. Other bands performed in colorful and eccentric costume ensembles.
Adam and the Ants wore historically inspired military jackets combined

with fetish wear and tribal face painting, while the singers of Devo wore,
among a plethora of styles, colorful jumpsuits in shiny fabrics and west-
ern cowboy outfits. The less aggressive appearance of some of these bands
was in part responsible for the easy crossover of punk into mainstream
music. Record companies, however, were weary of associating themselves
with the punk movement and coined the term “new wave” to refer to most
of the crossover punk bands, including the Cars, the B-52s, Blondie, the
Knack, the Talking Heads, the Police, and the Pretenders. Most of the men
in these bands wore simple clothing styles, and vintage suits and thin ties
became the identifying trend for many of them.
Punk has been credited with engendering many other music and fash-
ion styles, including alternative rock, neo–folk rock, grunge, and Goth;
variations of punk, however, also survived well into the 21st century. Neo-
fascist punk and neo-skinhead carried on the tradition of cropped hair-
styles and heavy dark jackets, while straight-edge punk promoted punk
lifestyles free of alcohol, drugs, and smoking. Anarcho-punk bands such as
Crass and Conflict were outspoken against the British political system
and often promoted anarchist ideas as well as causes such as animal rights
and vegetarianism. Although the bands did not embrace a specific fashion
style, their wardrobe continued to show a number of influences from pre-
vious trends in punk clothing. Also successful were hard-core punk bands,
such as Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, and Dead Kennedys, with a
heavier and faster sound. Their wardrobe was a simple version of “do-it-
yourself” and torn items, and male singers often performed seminude and
occasionally covered in bruises and blood. Cyberpunk bands incorporated
technology into their music and neon and metallic colors into their fash-
ion. Simple, slick, and slimming fashion styles are associated with Emo
punk, a term used loosely to describe emotionally charged indie-punk
bands such as Weezer and Dashboard Confessional.
Heat Death: The Postmodern Death of Punk
At the dawn of the 21st-century, punk had been fully inducted into the
realm of mainstream fashion. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London
hosted a successful retrospective of Vivienne Westwood’s work; torn jeans
and vintage t-shirts were sold at high prices by many retailers. Even punk
icon Iggy Pop appeared on fashion spreads as a model for John Varvatos.
The stereotypical punk look of the early 1980s was even packaged and
available as a Halloween costume, and an abundance of books, journal ar-
ticles, and college courses painstakingly detailed every aspect of punk
music, fashion, and lifestyle.

The alleged death of punk around 1979 is more a romantic myth than a
real event. Some observers attributed the demise of the movement to ex-
treme commercialization and the dominance of conservative agendas in
both the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1980s (Cole-
grave and Sullivan 2001; Savage 2002). For other critics, punk was alive
well into the 2000s. Cogan, for instance, argues that the rules of punk were
never meant to be static and that punk music thrives anywhere young
kids create and promote their own bands with a general disregard for
authority: “New punks constantly reinvigorated the scene, creating new
rules, new fashions, and new signifiers of identity that many of the origi-
nators would not recognize but that are still arguably and demonstrably
punk” (2006, xxvii).
Punk did not actually die; it merely dissipated into an infinite number
of postmodern versions of defiant music and fashion. Like energy, punk
could not be destroyed, only transformed. Punk’s “heat death”8 was achieved
by the diffusion of the style into the mainstream, where it nearly reached
a point of equilibrium with the system. Postmodernity’s acceptance of
heterogeneity actually turned global culture into an increasingly homo-
geneous system, thus limiting the opportunities for subcultures to effec-
tively use fashion as defiance. Muggleton contends that “perhaps the very
concept of subculture is becoming less applicable in postmodernity, for
the breakdown of mass society has ensured that there is no longer a coher-
ent dominant culture against which a subculture can express its resis-
tance” (2000, 48). He insists that individual experiences and heterogeneity
are now valued over collective experiences, thus rendering the subcultural
approach of defiance by fragmentation somewhat useless. The once rebel-
lious and entropy-inducing aesthetic of punk fashion has collapsed into
the widely heterogeneous fashion system of postmodernity in which alli-
ance to one’s individuality is more relevant than alliance to a particular
subcultural aesthetic.
Notes
1. The second law of thermodynamics establishes that everything in the universe began
with structure and order; every subsequent reaction, however, increases disorder (entropy)
and irrevocably moves the universe toward randomness and chaos. Entropy measures the
level of disorder in a system, which is determined by the amount of energy no longer capa-
ble of producing work.
2. Unusual fashion has been a trademark of avant-garde art groups, including Dada, sur-
realism, and futurism, and for subcultures such as Teddy Boys, Zoot Suiters, and hippies.
Tricia Henry Young (1989) discusses the connection between Dada and punk and character-
istics shared by avant-garde groups, such as the blurring of boundaries between art and
everyday life, the prevalence of untrained performers, and the juxtaposition of disparate
objects.

3. Punk, however, also departed drastically from the political and environmental con-
cerns of the hippie generation by embracing unhealthy junk food and often polluting the
environment.
4. CBGB famously closed in 2006 after the owner was unable to renew its rental agree-
ment.
5. Syl Silvain of the New York Dolls actually owned a clothing company with Colombian
partner Billy Murcia; they specialized in wool hippie fabrics inspired by Colombian folk
textiles.
6. Frank Cartledge (1999) divides the development of British punk fashion into five pe-
riods. The first one, starting in 1975, was influenced by glam rock and Teddy Boy styles
along with “do-it-yourself” modifications. The second, from 1975 to 1978, revolved around
the clothing styles developed by McLaren and Westwood. A third period, from 1976 to 1979,
developed at street level where slim suits with narrow lapels, homemade T-shirts, used cloth-
ing, and camouflage or mohair fabrics enjoyed popularity. The fourth period, starting in
1979, was inspired by male rockers and featured black and leather outfits, often decorated
with studs and bondage trousers. The final period, beginning in 1980, exaggerated the for-
mer style, featuring outrageous Mohawks, extreme piercing, and adornment. Cartledge ex-
plains that this is the archetypal look frozen in time.
7. Several writers, particularly Greil Marcus (1989), have argued that McLaren and West-
wood were also influenced by the Situationalist International, a popular cultural movement
of the 1960s inspired in part by Guy Debord’s 1976 book The Society of Spectacle. For an
extended discussion, see Marcus (1989), Osgerby (1998), or Frith and Horne (1989).
8. Heat death is a term used in thermodynamics to refer to the maximal degree of disor-
der achieved in any closed system—for instance, the universe. It marks the stage at which
entropy has reached a maximum level; all energy has been dissipated and is no longer avail-
able to produce work.
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Muggleton, D. 2000. Inside subculture: The postmodern meaning of style. Oxford: Berg.
O’Hara, C. 1999. The philosophy of punk: More than noise!! 2nd ed. Edinburgh: AK Press.
Osgerby, B. 1998. Youth in Britain since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell.
Savage, J. 2002. England’s dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, punk rock, and beyond. New York:
St. Martin’s Griffin.

Wojcik, D. 1995. Punk and neo-tribal body art. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
Young, T. H. 1989. Break all rules!: Punk rock and the making of a style. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI
Research Press.
1. The author of this reading observes that punk was aligned with post-
modernism and its “spirit of fragmentation.” What does he mean by
“spirit of fragmentation” and “juxtaposition of disparate elements,”
and how do you think punk style reflected these concepts?
2. The author states that punk eventually “dissipated” into a variety of
postmodern looks. Discuss examples of current fashion that borrow
from or are consistent with punk style, particularly in terms of men’s
fashion. Do these features still communicate defiance?
3. What is the “do-it-yourself” quality of punk style that the author re-
fers to several times in the reading? Would anyone who uses the “do-
it-yourself” approach to dress be considered punk? Why or why not?

T h e T e ddy B oy a s S c ap e g oat
Robert J. Cross
Youthquake
“Whaddya rebellin’ against, Johnny?”
“Wha’ya got?”
—Johnny in The Wild One
The young always have the same problem—how to rebel and conform at
the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and
copying one another.
—Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant
After six years of grim austerity, the years 1951–61 marked a period of un-
precedented affluence in Britain (Bognador/Skidelsky 1970; Lewis 1978:
9–41). This was particularly so during the Macmillan years, when the
Prime Minister informed a surprised population that they had “never had
it so good” (Sked/Cook 1990: 138–59). Citing some telling statistics, the
cultural historian Robert Hewison notes that
Between October 1951 and October 1963 wages were estimated to have
risen by 72 per cent, prices by 45 per cent. There was full employment,
and the availability and consumption of pleasurable possessions such
as cars, washing machines, record players and television sets testified
to the expansion of the “affluent society.” (Hewison 1987: 6)
It is a commonplace of history that the most visible recipients of this

economic dividend were the adolescent children of the generation that
had fought in the Second World War. Already between 1945 and 1950 the
214 |

average real wage of youth had increased at twice the rate of adults
(Bourke 1994: 46). This trend continued during the 1950s, paving the way
for that high-point of adolescent consumerism, the Swinging Sixties. It
was amid such economic prosperity that the “teenager”—initially a working-
class phenomenon—was born (Marwick 1991: 91–3; Lewis 1978: 141–2).
Comparing his own adolescence with what he was witnessing in the 1950s,
the novelist Colin MacInnes put his finger right on the major defining
point of difference:
In those days [when I was an adolescent] there were big boys and
girls, or young men and women—but no such thing as a teenager: who,
one must insist, is a new kind of person, chiefly on account of his sic
economic power. (MacInnes 1966: 57)
MacInnes was the first writer to describe the new teenager lifestyle with
empathy and understanding in his cult novel Absolute Beginners (1959).
What distinguished working-class children from their parents more
than ever before was not merely economics, however, but the widening dis-
crepancy in their expectations of life, particularly with regard to leisure.
Enjoying the greater egalitarianism that had arrived in the wake of the
election of Clement Atlee’s Labour government in 1945, these young people
had no intention of following their parents into forelock-tugging social
subservience. If their parents had known their place, so to speak, then these
youngsters refused to recognise a fixed and inferior social station. The
novels of Alan Sillitoe, Keith Waterhouse and David Storey probed this new
working-class teenage refusal to pull on the yoke of adult responsibility
and conformity. The new subcultural response of teenagers was thus
. . . both a declaration of independence, of otherness, of alien intent, a

refusal of anonymity, of subordinate status. It [was] an insubordina-
tion. And at the same time it [was] also a confirmation of the fact of
powerlessness, a celebration of impotence. (Hebdige 1996: 35)
The result of this expression of “alien intent” was the sudden appear-
ance of what we now refer to as the “generation gap.” An early enquiry into
this problem concluded that: “There are clear signs of alienation between
the young people of today and the adult generations” (Schofield 1963:
6–7). One contributing factor may be what is perceived to be the innate
conservatism of British society:
Britain is a nation which seems to attach particular importance to

“tradition.” “Britishness” in both the upper class and the working
class tends to be characterised by an adherence to “old values,” and it
t h e teddy boy a s s capegoat | 215

could be argued that the British see themselves (and are viewed by
the rest of the world) as having an “old” (established, aged or even
ancient) culture. In consequence, it might also be claimed that, pre-
cisely because of this British conservatism, young people are regarded
as both threatening and vulnerable. [my emphasis] (Storry/Childs
1997: 166)
The threat, as adult society saw it, manifested itself most clearly in
the exponential rise in the juvenile crime rate during the second half of
the 1950s. Offences committed by young people under the age of 21 rose
from 24,000 in 1955 to 45,000 in 1959 (Lewis 1978: 118). For adult society
the words “teenager” and “juvenile delinquent” were becoming almost syn-
onymous.
Since the Sixties the existence of a separate teenage culture, in Western
societies at least, has become a familiar concept—acceptable, too, largely on
account of the fact that middle-class teenagers participated more and more
in the creation of popular youth culture, diluting the initial anger of work-
ing-class youth, making it “safer.” It is perhaps necessary to recall, there-
fore, both the sense of claustrophobia felt by this first teenage generation,
and the shock and incomprehension with which its rebellion was met by
adult society at that time. Pushing against confinement, these working-
class juveniles set about negotiating “space” for themselves, sometimes
through delinquent behaviour, (although, as we shall see, this was fre-
quently sensationalised by the press media). As a result, adult society—the
“Control Culture” (Clarke/Hall et al. 1975)—set in motion a whole range of
disciplinary measures.
In Britain, the first adolescents to make a show of shaking off the aus-
terity of the postwar period, “the first to walk down the road to the prom-
ised land of Teen Age” (Savage 1982: 12), and the first consequently to be
disciplined by adult society were the Teddy Boys (hereafter referred to as
Teds), so-called on account of their “Edwardian”1 style of dress. The Teds
first appeared around 1954 in working-class areas of south and east Lon-
don. They reached their peak in 1956, and died out after the race riots in
the summer of 1958.2 Though short-lived, their subcultural gesture had
resounding significance:
The Teddy Boys broke new ground. They had established a teenage
market. They had introduced a fashion that was totally working-class
in its origins. And they had made it acceptable for males to dress
purely for show. (Barnes 1991: 8)
They not only “dressed-up,” however; they were also prone to aggressive
and violent behaviour. At a time when, as George Melly puts it, “good boys

played ping-pong” (Melly 1970: 37), the Ted entered the postwar British
stage as an “atavistic monster” (Rock/Cohen 1970: 289).
Youth subcultures are commonly seen as being somehow “self-gener-
ated” and discrete phenomena; products entirely of the adherents of a
given style: punks create punk style, skinheads create skinhead style. In
this paper, I proceed from the view that working-class youth subcultures
are products not of a single but of various complementary and mutually
reinforcing discourses. In Section 2 I look at the Ted phenomenon as a
multifaceted performance strategy involving the working-class body in
three key activities: dressing-up, dancing and fighting. In Section 3 I turn
to the response of adult society to the “threat” posed by the Teds, and ex-
amine the specific strategies of control and discipline adopted to suppress
it. In Section 4 I suggest that the Ted phenomenon, as it changed during
its short life-span, was the increasingly notorious product of these com-
plementary discourses. As the media sensationalised its reporting of Ted-
related events, for example, the Teds, in an escalating spiral of delinquency,
intensified their anti-social behaviour and became what adult society ex-
pected of them. In other words, adult society’s characterisation of the Teds
may be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Dressing-up, dancing and fighting
In his sociological study of youth subcultures Michael Brake makes the

interesting general observation that
Once youth has separated itself from adulthood, and made a public
dramaturgical statement about their difference from adult expecta-
tions of them, they feel free to explore and develop what they are.
This is why their image is deliberately rebellious or delinquent. It
quite dramatically emphasises their difference. (Brake 1990: 191)
The key phrase here is making a “public dramaturgical statement about

their difference.” What kind of difference were the Teddy Boys perform-
ing, and why?
To begin with the Ted style of dress, George Melly argues that its prime
significance lay in the fact that it “represented one of the first successful
attempts to establish a male3 working-class fashion with a symbolic rather
than a functional raison d’être” (Melly 1989: 166). Prior to the emergence
of the Teds working-class males had limited scope in terms of dress: work-
ing clothes during the week and “Sunday best” for the weekend. Casual
clothes for adolescents were at that time unknown. What the Teds did was
to cross the sartorial divide between functionality (overalls or “best”) and

performativity (costume). With their long Edwardian
drape jackets, narrow drainpipe trousers, bootlace ties,
brothel creeper shoes and quiffed hairstyles (see Fig-
ure 4.13), the Teds certainly cut outrageous figures.
It should be recalled that when the first Teds made
their appearance, rationing (including the rationing
of clothes and the materials needed to make them)
was still a fact of daily life (Sked/Cook 1990: 81). Thus
the Teds undertook the considerable expense of buy-
ing their outrageous clothes precisely in order to make
a defiant statement. Hebdige argues that
Far from being a casual response to “easy money” the

extravagant sartorial display of the Ted required
careful financial planning and was remarkably self-
conscious—a going against the grain, as it were, of a
life which in all other respects was, in all likelihood,
relatively cheerless and poorly rewarded. (Hebdige
1988: 70)
The Ted’s peacock-proud costume thus flew in the

face of the efforts of the war generation to “make do,”
“get by” and “pull together” for the common good. Fur-
thermore, the Teds added insult to injury by incorporat-
Figure 4.13. A
ing elements of upper-class dress into their style. Such a tactic, a common
characteristic Teddy Boy of
subcultural strategy of defiance, is referred to as bricolage (“using the
1954, in drainpipe trousers
means at hand”), about which Clarke observes that
and Edwardian jacket.
The generation of subcultural styles . . . involves differential selection

from within the matrix of the existent. What happens is not the cre-
ation of objects and meanings from nothing, but rather the transfor-
mation and rearrangement of what is given (and “borrowed”) into a
pattern which carries a new meaning, its translation to a new con-
text, and its adaption. (Clarke 1998: 178)
How exactly did this dynamic of resignification operate in the case of

the Teds? Soon after the war, the tailors of Savile Row—the traditional,
typically conservative arbiters of British upper-class, male dress style—
produced a more flamboyant line of menswear which came to be known as
“Edwardian” because it harked back to the golden age of Edward VII. Jack-
ets in this style were single-breasted, long, fitted and often featured velvet
trim on the collars and cuffs. They were worn with narrow trousers and
fancy brocade waistcoats. Britain as a nation needed to regain its pride in

itself and this upper-class “Edwardian” style served both to symbolise a
time when the greatness of Britain had been beyond dispute and to put a
check on the ever increasing cultural hegemony of America. From the per-
spective of the British working classes, however, another interpretation
must have been all too evident. The promise of a more egalitarian and less
class-ridden society was being mocked by these upper-class “toffs” in their
velvet-trimmed collars and fancy accessories who were emphasizing rather
than eradicating the demarcation line between the privileged and the
“lower orders.” What the Teds, living in the bleakest and most blitzed parts
of London, did was to expropriate the upper-class “Edwardian” look and
add to it eclectic features of American origin—Zootie styling and the cow-
boy’s “maverick” tie. It was unmistakably a direct challenge to the author-
ity of adult society, particularly the authority of what the Teds refused to
accept as their “social superiors.”
In his autobiography, Free Association (1996), the working-class Jewish
playwright Steven Berkoff (born 1936), looking back at his Teddy Boy
years, recalls that
. . . you would always have your suits tailor-made even if it took a year
of saving and many months of privation. A suit was your armour and
your colours and further defined your sense of aesthetics. (Berkoff
1996: 15)
Thus costumed (in the fullest sense of the word), Berkoff the Teddy Boy
was free to perform his image of himself on the dance floor:
The jive was one of the greatest dance forms ever invented. And
so all your arts were in some way fulfilled. You were the dandy,
the mover and performer in your own drama, the roving hunter and
lover, the actor adopting for the girl the mask of your choice. (Berkoff
1996: 39)
What Berkoff’s recollection demonstrates quite clearly is the extent to

which the Teds, locked for the most part in soul-destroying unskilled jobs,
were preoccupied with performing a vision of themselves. “They were using
clothes to assert their right to have attention paid to them” (Lewis 1978:
120). In an act of self-empowerment, the Teds (and all working-class youth
subcultures after them) were engaged in making “somebodies” out of what
society considered to be nobodies. They translated “the fact of being under
scrutiny into the pleasure of being watched” (Hebdige 1996: 35).
Aside from individual self-projection, the Teds’ concern with narcissis-
tic perfectionism also served to express group identity in the face of so-
cial disenfranchisement. Michael Brake argues that

. . . youth cultures attract those who feel little commitment or invest-
ment in the present state of affairs. It attracts those who feel misun-
derstood, or that they do not fit, or rejected. (Brake 1990: 191)
The Teds were the first teenage subculture in Britain to construct new
identities for themselves in order to compensate for socioeconomic mar-
ginalisation. One explanation for this was that they came from a class that
was in the throes of experiencing the break-up of its traditionally close-
knit communities. The policy of slum clearance during the 1950s had a
disastrous and irreparable impact upon the working-class communities of
east and south London (Wilmott/Young 1990: 121-99). As whole streets of
terraced houses and tenements were demolished and families were rehoused
either in tower blocks or the new satellite towns on the outskirts of London,
family and neighbourhood ties were broken (Phil Cohen 1996). The Teds, as
with the skinheads who followed them a decade later (Clarke 1976a), thus
felt the need to recreate community and territoriality among themselves by
constructing and rigorously self-regulating a group-oriented style.
In addition to the more “benign” strategies of donning a costume and
dancing, the Teds also expressed their group identity through fighting.
Why this should have been so is suggested in the 1953 American film The
Wild One, in which the protagonist Johnny (played by Marlon Brando, an
early icon of rebellious youth) the leader of a motorcycle gang, attempts to
justify the group’s delinquent behaviour. He declares that
These guys are nameless, faceless fry-cooks and grease monkeys all
week, working at dreary jobs they hate. They do violent things be-
cause they’ve been held down for so long.
The Teds were not just proletarian; they were all more or less drawn from
the “submerged tenth” of lower working-class youth—the lumpen (Jefferson
1975). Fyvel (1963) characterised the average Ted as a young unskilled
worker whose earnings were too low and irregular for him to take part in
the process of embourgeoisment enjoyed by his better-off working-class
peers. Consequently, the Teds kicked against their limited options for lei-
sure and social advancement. In his landmark study of working-class males
in secondary education, Learning to Labour (1977), Paul Willis has demon-
strated convincingly how, by dissociating themselves from the middle-class
values dominating the education system, they effectively conspire in their
own social oppression by condemning themselves to the least skilled and
lowest paid employment. Consequently, leisure becomes extremely impor-
tant for these working-class teenagers as they seek from it the excitement,
self-respect and autonomy which are so conspicuously absent from work.

F i g u r e 4 . 1 4 . Working-
class Teddy Boys would
save money to have their
suits made by Savile Row
tailors. Their carousing and
other activities soon had
them labeled as gangs.
The common thread linking dressing-up, dancing and fighting is the

body. Working-class youth subcultures express themselves through physi-
cality:
Because of its high emotional content, teenage culture is essentially

non-verbal. It is more naturally expressed in music, dancing, in dress,
in certain habits of walking and standing, in certain facial expres-
sions and “looks” or in idiomatic slang. (Storey 1994: 73)
If, as Melly suggests, “[The Teds’] bodies were their canvas” (Melly 1970:
32), then they were also their weapons. For Bourdieu, the body becomes
the site where working-class consciousness is materialized, particularly
the strong, excessive body. This working-class body, with its strength and
virility, he argues,
. . . is perhaps one of the last refuges of the autonomy of the domi-

nated classes, of their capacity to reproduce their own representa-
tion of the accomplished man and the social world, that is being
threatened by all the challenges to working-class identification with
the values of virility, which are one of the most autonomous forms of
their self-affirmation as a class. (Bourdieu 1984: 384)
He continues with the assertion that
. . . a class which, like the working class, is only rich in its labour power
can only oppose to the other classes—apart from the withdrawal of its

labour—its fighting strength, which depends on the physical strength
and courage of its members, and also their number, i.e., their con-
sciousness and solidarity, or, to put it another way, their conscious-
ness of their solidarity. (Bourdieu 1984: 384)
Since the Teddy Boys asserted themselves through powerful and dra-
matic physical performances, the response of adult or “normal” society
was to label, restrict, restrain or punish their bodies in a variety of ways.
Foucault (1977) has revealed in detail the ways in which Western societies
have used the body as the site where social power is most compellingly
exerted. The body is where the power-bearing definitions of social and
sexual normality are, literally, embodied, and is consequently the locus of
discipline and punishment for deviation from those norms. In the follow-
ing section I examine some of the primary disciplinary measures taken
by adult society to thwart the Ted threat.
Naming and taming the beast
Adult society’s response to what it perceived as the antisocial behaviour

of the Teds was apparent first and foremost in the way it chose to talk
about them. Upon their first appearance they were called, innocuously,
“Edwardians,” as, indeed, were the original upper-class wearers of the style.
As adult society proceeded to develop its negative attitudes towards them,
however, so too did it begin to change its labelling strategy. With the in-
creasingly sensational media coverage of Ted-related juvenile crime,
Those who now wore Edwardian dress were described in a vocabulary

which derived from former modes of delinquency. Unfavourable so-
cial types were summoned forth to define them. They were “zooties,”
“hooligans” and “spivs.”4 (Rock/Cohen 1970: 290)
As a consequence of violent incidents during April 1954, this tendency

picked up momentum. More and more, they were referred to as “gang mem-
bers” or, even more threatening, as “gangsters,” despite the fact that there
is no evidence to suggest that the Teds organised themselves into gangs
(Rock/Cohen 1970: 299). Rather this image was generated by sensational
reporting in the press media. One commentator argued insightfully that
the “gang” representation may have been “simply a device for registering
our [society’s] lack of understanding” (Downes 1966). Thus adult society
reacted less to the Ted than to its panic-driven conception of him (Rock/
Cohen 1970: 300).
In the same way that adult society had to name the phenomenon in

order to set about pinning it down, so too did it attempt to position it
through certain pejorative discourses or “moral panics,” a term coined by
the sociologist Stanley Cohen in his book Folk Devils and Moral Panics
(1972). He argues that
Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral

panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to
become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature
presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media,
the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and
other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce
their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more
often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or dete-
riorates and becomes more visible. (Cohen 1972: 9)
Cohen adds that moral panics are generally linked with various youth
cultures (particularly within the working class), whose behaviour is viewed
as deviant or criminal. The very first moral panic with regard to a youth
subculture in Britain was adult society’s response to the Teddy Boy.
More pernicious on account of the stamp of authority with which they
were invested were the attempts undertaken by sociologists, psycholo-
gists and other “socially accredited experts” during the 1950s and early-
60s to analyse the lifestyle not just of the Teds but of the whole teenager
phenomenon in a way that would “explain away” the danger. Mark Abrams
(1959a; 1959b) for example, examined teenager spending patterns; J. Bar-
nard (1961), in an attempt to understand the beast, drew up an “overview”
of what he called “teen-age [sic] culture”; B. Berger (1963) wrote on the
“youthfulness” of youth culture; Michael Schofield (1963) wrote portent-
ously of the sexual behaviour of young people; and W. Miller (1958)
sounded the alarm about gangs and delinquency. Boëthius notes that
Popular culture has almost always been considered a threat to young

people. It has been associated with leisure or with the borderline area
between family, school or work in which the control of guardians or
supervisors has been limited or non-existent. The recurring attacks
on popular culture have therefore been lodged primarily by represen-
tatives of these spheres: from parents, teachers or others who con-
cern themselves with young people’s spiritual and moral upbringing.
(Boëthius 1995: 39)
In the case of the Teds, a key discursive strategy on the part of “normal”
society was to view them as sociopaths or even criminals. Attempts were
made by adult society to demonise them, often by “questioning” their col-

lective mental health. A typical example is the following extract from the
rabid letter written by a “family doctor” that was published in the London
Evening News in 1954:
Teddy boys are . . . all of unsound mind in the sense they are all suffer-
ing from a form of psychosis. Apart from the birch or the rope, de-
pending on the gravity of their crimes, what they need is rehabilitation
in a psychopathic institution . . . because they have not the mental
stamina to be individualistic they had to huddle together in gangs.
Not only have these rampageous youngsters developed a degree of
paranoia with an inferiority complex, but they are also inferior apart
from their disease . . . It is the desire to do evil, not lack of comprehen-
sion which forces them into crime. (Brake 1990: 73)
As a result of their flamboyant dress, their masculinity was also brought

into question. It should be remembered that only a few years before the
emergence of the Teds, the military uniform and shorn hair of the British
soldier had been the index of “normal” masculinity.5
Another powerful discursive weapon in adult society’s arsenal was the
cinema. At a time when cinema-going was still the most popular leisure
activity, a whole series of “social problem” films appeared that dealt with
the Teddy Boy phenomenon: Cosh Boy (1953), Violent Playground (1958),
Sapphire (1959), The Angry Silence (1960), Wind of Change (1960), Flame
in the Streets (1961) and The Boys (1962), to name only the most prominent.
This represented a concerted effort on the part of the British film indus-
try, in league with the sociopolitical establishment, to demonise the Teds.
As Bracewell argues,
More often than not . . . in the social problem films, Teddy Boys are
merely “folk devils” to whom a much broader violence or prejudice is
attributed as though to remove the blame from society in general.
(Bracewell 1997: 71)
The central purpose of Violent Playground, for example, is to demon-

strate the failure of liberal measures to reform violent Teddy Boys and the
need, consequently, for punishment and repression—adult society is thus
exonerated on account of its well-meaning but vain attempts to rehabili-
tate recalcitrant youth. As John Hill notes, “the social problem film deploys
an image of teenage [Teddy Boy] violence in order to legitimate its own
disciplinary solutions” (Hill 1986: 123). It is worthy of note that the Brit-
ish Board of Film Censors informed Free Cinema film-maker Lorenza
Mazzetti that her proposed film about Teddy Boys would only receive a

F i g u r e 4 . 1 5 . Bar fight
at The Winchester, Elephant
& Castle, 1976.
certificate for exhibition if it unequivocably condemned them. She re-

fused to comply, and the film was never made (Hewison 1981: 193).
The most obvious strategy employed by adult society was physical sup-
pression through intensified police action and, in some cases, incarceration.
Beginning in 1954, following violent clashes between different groups of
Teds, emergency police squads were set up in various towns around Britain.
In Kingston, Surrey, for example, the police initiated “Operation Teddy Boy”
(Rock/Cohen 1970: 303). Teds were also subject to segregation and exclu-
sion. Youths wearing Edwardian dress were banned from entering cinemas,
dance halls, youth clubs, cafés and even fish and chip shops (Rock/Cohen
1970: 305). Clearly, the Teddy Boy was being defined increasingly as a “so-
cial problem.” And as Rock and Cohen note ominously, “A social problem is a
thing about which ‘something ought to be done’” (Rock/Cohen 1970: 295).
Conclusion
Why did adult society respond with such overwhelmingly repressive mea-
sures? The most plausible explanation is that it needed to make a scape-
goat out of the Teddy Boy for everything that was perceived to be going
wrong with Britain in the 1950s: the antagonism between the generations;
the breakdown in law and order; racial tensions; and, more generally, Brit-
ain’s increasing lack of self-esteem in the postwar order. For Britain the
second half of the 1940s and the 1950s is a litany of grim soul-searching

as the British people, proud of their imperial past and recent victory,
faced—or rather, refused to face—the traumatic realisation that their na-
tion would be playing a greatly diminished role in world affairs in the
postwar dispensation, very much in the shadow of America. The Sterling
crises of 1947 and 1949, Britain’s humiliating and chaotic withdrawal
from Palestine, Indian independence in 1947, and the Suez débâcle in 1956
were just some of the key developments that demonstrated that Britain
was ceding centre stage in world affairs (Lewis 1978: 143–57). In popular
parlance, Britain had “won the war but lost the peace.” A deep loss of self-
esteem was a grave problem for Britain domestically, too, epitomised by
the troubled birth of an unfamiliar and largely unwelcome multicultural
society. As a result of the McCarren-Walter Immigration Act of 1952, West
Indians began settling in England (Sked/Cook 1990: 178–79). Immigrants
also arrived in large numbers from India and Pakistan during the late-
1950s, settling primarily in the working-class neighbourhoods of large
cities. Since it was the working-class population that bore the brunt of the
influx of immigrants, it was working-class youth who reacted with the
most hostility, and adult society pointed the finger of blame at the Teds.
Racial violence came to a head in the summer of 1958 with disturbances
in Nottingham and Notting Hill Gate in west London, in which Teds visi-
bly participated. Although these violent events did not escalate into full-
scale riots, they clearly indicated “a new and unattractive aspect of British
social life” (Sked/Cook 1990: 179). The Teddy Boy, that “atavistic monster,”
was consequently made into the scapegoat for the failure of Britain to in-
corporate the influx of immigrants from the West Indies and the Indian
subcontinent successfully. The involvement of Teddy Boys in the distur-
bances made it possible to put the blame for racist violence on their shoul-
ders even though there were manifestly other elements such as fascist
organizations that took a very active part in whipping up hatred. In this
sense, the “moral panic” surrounding Teddy Boy racist violence reflected
British society’s increasingly strident “quarrel with itself” (Clarke/Hall
et al. 1975: 72).
We have seen that in considering the phenomenon of the Teddy Boy
broadly there have been two apparently competing yet in reality comple-
mentary and mutually reinforcing discourses in operation: the rebellious
performance of the Teds themselves and the repressive measures taken by
adult society. As adult society, through the moral panics that were stirred
up by the media and various experts, created the Teddy Boy demon, so did
the Teddy Boy respond by becoming that demon:
May [1956] saw the making of the Teddy Boy. He was given a form and
a substance. He had become a “menace.” He was not only introduced
to the public, he was introduced to himself. He learned that, because

he wore Edwardian suits, he must be a certain type of person. His suit
led to differential treatment. He could not pretend he was a member
of “normal” society because people did not treat him as one. He was
rejected from more and more public places; in some areas only the
cafés and streets were open to him. He thus became even more con-
spicuous and menacing. Above all, he learned that he shared common
enemies and common allies with those who dressed like him. (Rock/
Cohen 1970: 302)
A clear example of this in 1956 is the increased vandalism that resulted

from the media reports of violent incidents related to the showing of the
film Blackboard Jungle, which featured Billy Haley’s “anthem of dissident
youth” (Lewis 1978: 129), “Rock Around the Clock”:
At the Elephant and Castle, the home ground of South London Teddy
Boys, riots in the cinema were reported by excitable newspapers to
have led to two thousand young people taking to the streets in an
orgy of vandalism. By subsequent standards it seems to have been a
mild sort of riot: nine arrests, two policemen injured, some cups and
saucers thrown about the streets and one or two £1 fines awarded. But
wherever the film was shown afterwards there was further trouble
and ripping out of cinema seats . . . (Lewis 1978: 129)
It is certainly possible to see the Blackboard Jungle riots as an act of

vengeance by the Teds on adult society for its expropriation of the most
popular form of working-class entertainment at that time, the cinema, in
its campaign of vilification through the social problem films.
What I have attempted to demonstrate in this paper is the extent to
which subcultural identities—here the Teddy Boy’s—are dialectically con-
structed through competing struggles and negotiations for space and for
the right to exist. The significance of the Teddy Boy is that he was the
first manifestation of this discursive interaction. What is of paramount
interest in this case is the way in which the Teds became the scapegoats
for an increasingly insecure and inward-looking society. Britain during
the 1950s clearly did not like the image of itself that it saw in the mirror
(Vansittart 1995: 179–90). Its response was to create the image of its Other,
the Teddy Boy, the face of violent, racist, insubordination. As Hebdige
points out, although small in number, Teddy Boys had been “almost uni-
versally vilified by press and parents alike as symptomatic of Britain’s
impending decline” (Hebdige 1979: 82). Thus the demonisation of the
Teddy Boys, and of mods, rockers, skinheads and punks after them, is far
more indicative of the health or otherwise of the collective postwar Brit-
ish psyche than of any innate infamy on the part of youth subcultures.

Notes
1. Ted is a familar form of the given name Edward. The Edward in question is King
Edward VII, who reigned during the years 1901–10, the “Edwardian” Age.
2. Since the history of the Teds has been well documented, it is unnnecessary to repeat
this information here. For detailed accounts see Rock/Cohen (1970), Jefferson (1973; 1975),
Middleton/Muncie (1982), Melly (1989), Brake (1990) and Polhemus (1994).
3. It should be pointed that although, as Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber note in their
“Girls and Subcultures: An Exploration” (McRobbie/Garber 1975), there were a small group
of girls who saw themselves as Teddy Girls, the Teddy Boy style was primarily just that, a
style for boys. In this paper, therefore, I treat it as primarily a manifestation of male youth
culture.
4. The “zooties” appeared in the 1940s in the United States. They were young African-
Americans and Mexican-Americans who, by dressing up flamboyantly in zoot suits, estab-
lished their style as “an emblem of ethnicity and a way of negotiating an identity. The zoot
suit was a refusal: a subcultural gesture that refused to concede to the manners of subservi-
ence” (Flügel 1971: 110). Two notable zooties were Malcolm X and Cab Calloway. “Spivs” were
the flashy black-market hawkers who appeared in Britain during the years of austerity im-
mediately after the war (see David Hughes 1964: 86–105).
5. It is interesting that Arthur Seaton, the rebellious young protagonist of Alan Sillitoe’s
novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1959), receives a beating for his delinquent be-
haviour at the hands of uniformed soldiers.
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1. The author mentions that the Teddy Boy attire was significant be-
cause it was symbolic rather than functional. What does he mean by
this statement?
2. Why did the upper class view the Teddy Boys’ way of dressing as defi-
ant behavior?
3. How did the media use the Teddy Boys’ dress to vilify them?

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the Men’s Fashion Reader

00MensFashion_3rdpass.indd 1 5/15/08 1:49:29 PM

Andrew Reilly, Ph.D.

Sarah Cosbey, Ph.D.

00MensFashion_3rdpass.indd 2 5/15/08 1:49:33 PM

00MensFashion_3rdpass.indd 3 5/15/08 1:49:37 PM

Copyright © 2008 Fairchild Books, A Division of Condé Nast Publications.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007943509

Illustration Credits can be found on page 542.

00MensFashion_3rdpass.indd 4 5/15/08 1:49:37 PM

Chapter 1| Men’s Fashion and Meaning Through History 1

Chapter 2| Men’s Fashion as Zeitgeist 53

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Chapter 3| men’s fashion as Masculinity and Sexuality 109

Chapter 4| men’s Fashion as Defiance 161

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Chapter 5| men’s Fashion as Culture and Identity 231

Chapter 6| The male Body as Fashion 311

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Chapter 7| men’s Fashion and the media 375

Chapter 8| men’s Fashion as Role Dress 423

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In Western culture, we have grown accustomed to certain ways of thinking

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Organization and Substance of the Book

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Important Terms and Concepts

In colloquial language people often use terms such as fashion, clothing,

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The concept of postmodernism and dress as an element of postmodern cul-

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Marilyn DeLong and Juyeon Park

A prominent department store recently featured on the cover of a sales

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intriguing progression from icon to symbol is illuminated in the follow-

Aesthetics and the Black Leather Jacket

To pursue the aesthetic involves continual reference to what people per-

f ro m cool to h ot to cool | 167

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Recognition of Sensory Data

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Interpreting the Sensory Experience

f ro m cool to h ot to cool | 169

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Wearing the Black Leather Jacket

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To comprehend the meaning of the black leather jacket, attention must be

Mainstream Fashion Tribal Fashion

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Protector or Individualist Survivor

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Breaking with previous generations was an essential goal of other anti