Punk Rock you just can’t ‘buy’ it…
Ever since I spotted the Blondie vest in a Charity Shop earlier this year, I’ve been searching for any ‘rock inspired’ fashion only to find no other T-shirt to ‘match’ it for ages and ages. Until just the other week I came across a long black and white top with a ‘mysterious woman’ on it who definitely had the ‘rock vibe’. Like the Deborah Harry vest it stood out amongst the usual plain and patterned tops. So seeing it was quite a ‘revelation’ and I ‘snapped it’ hungrily.
Hello…punk!
Last year I noticed in Primark rock and punk T-shirts appearing on the racks, ‘Sex Pistols’ the band of ultimate rebellion now appearing in the mainstream…Nothing that new…but well looking at the display (see picture above) it was just so contrived like trying to ‘tick all the boxes’ of what is/was punk rock and not really achieving it at all. I don’t believe you can authentically ‘buy this style’ as a ‘one-stop shop’ using no imagination or feeling, it just goes against the grain of what punk and rock was/is?
The devil is in the detail…
Where is the originality? Nowhere…? And if it is somewhere, where is it? I found one or two more ‘rock’ items in the Charity Shop such as the high black shoes with chain detail, a spiky phone cover and a red corset with Dr Marten boots, but apart from that the rock influence in the shops is only usually seen as a detail. Bags with chains (lot’s of those) buckles, rips, studs and frays. Yes all the elements are there of this hugely influential movement, I’m only sad that it often comes across as ‘hackneyed’ and unoriginal where its origins lie in the exact opposite…
It’s time to be bold…but whose are those shoes…?