1950’s- The first rock and roll fashion started during the 1950’s post World War America. Because of the war everything was rationed, so after the war when fabric became readily available, Women started to wear large dresses made of excessive amounts of luxurious materials. Elvis Presley started a new style, where boys wore leather jackets, tight jeans and white t-shirts, whilst girls dressed like ‘Sandy’ from Grease. During this period, clothes of this type were considered to be edgy and the way people dressed back in the 50’s , is directly linked to the present rock and roll fashion.
1960’s-Rivalry arose between mods ( who favoured modern Italian fashion) and rockers( who wore motorcycle leathers) during the mid 1960’s. The Beatles were the main influence of fashion during this period, bringing in mop-top haircuts, collarless blazers and Beatle Boots.
Rock musicians were also one of the first to adopt the hippie fashion and popularized such styles as long hair and the Nehru jacket (pictured beside).
In addition to this, bands started to wear ‘uniforms’ for stage, the Rolling Stones being the first to adopt this particular style, allowing each member to wear what they wanted and not follow a certain style, allowing their own styles to come through.
1970’s- David Bowie, an extravagantly dressed glam rock artist influenced fashion from 1972-74 in England and the urban United States. Glitter was the thing of the time, and women started wearing high-waisted flaired satin trousers or denims, which were usually decorated with rhinestones, tight lurex halter tops, antique velvet dresses and sequined bra tops. Many women also brought
their clothes at second hand shops as this type of fashion was popular during the 1930’s and 40’s.
As for Men, they often wore lame suits, silver astronaut style outfits, satin quilted jackets and velvet trousers. Glam rock associated shops included Biba, in London’s kensignton High Street, and Granny Takes a Trip in Kings Road, as well as a branch in West Hollywood, California.
During the later 1970’s the style changed to peasant style clothing, including blouses with lace, which was inspired by those which they would wear during the 17th century. Yves St Laurent introduced this look in 1976. Skirts were gathered into tiers and shoulder lines were dropped.
During the early seventies, rock fashion had moved onto glittery fashions and high heels as glam rock became more widely influential, however, by the late seventies, disco acts brought a new flashy urban style to mainstream rock, whilst punk-rock groups started wearing mock conservative attire such as suit jackets and skinny ties, in an attempt to be as unlike mainstream rock musicians, who still preferred to wear hippie influenced clothes and blue jeans.
1980’s- During the 1980’s, visual image became a strong component of artists who started to wear leather or denim jackets, spike studs and had long hair.
The popularity of grunge brought in a punk influence during the early 90’s including torn jeans, old shoes, flannel shirts, backward baseball hats. Furthermore, they grew their hair, going against the clean cut image that was widely popular at the time in heavily commercialized pop music culture.
1990’s- Alternative and grunge rock popularity were widely responsible for the mainstream of these two styles, Nirvana being mainly responsible for the spread of grunge.
Today, many clothes manufacturers base their clothes on bands, The Dragonfly Clothing company for example, who have designed rock and roll fashions aswell as urban fashion styles.
Rolling Stone Magazine, commonly uses musicians as models, including Avril Lavigne on the cover of their August 2007 edition and The Beatles, shortly after the magazine started.
Fashion soon became very important in defining an artists intent and relation to the audience, when the rock music genres became more segmented.
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