April 3, 2025 |
There are endless examples of fashion trends – some compelling, others a bit crap – which we generally understand will be fleeting. Then there are subcultures. And even though these also peak then gradually fizzle out, or evolve into another subcultural mutation, they feel considerably more substantial than mere trends. Why so? Historically, youthful subcultures in particular have encompassed a sincere group commitment to a certain kind of (new) music in tandem with specific dress codes, hangouts, habits, drugs, drinks, dance moves and slang favoured by their most dedicated proponents.
Often, such subcultures have existed outside of the mainstream, beyond fashion or fads, and commanded a deliciously rebellious cachet. After all, during their early stages they were frequently misunderstood, provoking ridicule or hostility from the judge-y and the boring. Sometimes they were even viewed as a threat to society, being debated and dissed in the Houses of Parliament, or scrutinised and stamped upon by the police. Such is the power of music and clothes!
The UK has impressive credentials when it comes to spawning subcultures that go on to globally impact and influence fashion, music, film, TV, graphic design, publishing and advertising. And when fashion designers reference the nuances of yesteryear’s subcultures within their collections, it is often part of a quest to tap into something perceived as ‘authentic’ – an attitude, an energy, a hard-to-define and timeless kind of coolness that’s otherwise lacking in an industry focused on shovelling out shitloads of clothing, bags and shoes while praying for a viral moment.
Here, we look back at some of the most distinctive British youth tribes from the past 50 years. These proud subculture adventurers came, conquered and left us a trail of amazing sonic and stylistic statements, which continue to be raked over, remixed and referenced on today’s runways.
punks at the Batcave, Gargoyle Club, Soho; photography by Derek Ridgers
Punk
Peak years: 1976-78
Best track: Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK
Who: Recession, racism, strikes and bad state schools set the scene for punk’s teenage revolution. Edgy fashion-retail couple Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren addressed this need for change via their Chelsea boutique at 430 King’s Road. It was named SEX in the mid-’70s, then Seditionaries, and remains a Westwood boutique called World’s End. Its clientele of adolescent misfits, sex workers, punks and fetishists duly unleashed an anarchic style and attitude, soundtracked by new bands like Sex Pistols (managed by McLaren), X-Ray Spex, Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Slits, who gigged in Soho venues like The Roxy and The Vortex.
What: Although punk swiftly imploded into cliché and tabloid sensationalism, its initial philosophy instilled youths with self-belief and autonomy. Even with little money or zero formal training in music, journalism or fashion design, you could form a band, create your own zines and reinvent your own image. While not universally inclusive, punk, with its anti-establishment, norm-challenging attitudes, was an empowering cultural moment for young women and LGBTQ+ trailblazers.
Wear: If the outrageous (at the time) latex gear from SEX or the tartan bondage suits from Seditionaries were too pricey, fabulously trashy DIY looks were equally confrontational: safety pins adorned ripped clothes; plastic bin-bags became frocks; antagonistic slogans were daubed upon second-hand jackets and T-shirts; hair was dyed in vivid shades then spiked up with soap. Countless fashion designers have rehashed such anti-fashion ideas ever since.
club night when Batcave moved to Subway, Leicester Square, 1983; photography by Derek Ridgers
Blitz Kids/New Romantics
Peak years: 1979-80
Best track: Visage Fade to Grey
Who: After the early punk scene lost its spark, the originators moved on. Boys-about-town Steve Strange and DJ Rusty Egan began throwing cliquey parties for such adventurers, who typically shared a collective fandom of David Bowie, futuristic electronic music and dressing up!
What: The twosome’s weekly Blitz club night in Covent Garden demanded extreme looks to gain entry, attracting young Saint Martins’ students, rockabillies, ex-punks, ex-soul boys, discerning disco queens, artists and squatters. Many later became famous: pop stars Boy George and Marilyn, groups Visage (formed by Egan and Midge Ure, fronted by Steve Strange) and Spandau Ballet; filmmaker John Maybury, DJ Princess Julia, fashion designer John Galliano and milliner Stephen Jones, to name a few. Set to Egan’s soundtrack of Kraftwerk, Bowie and Giorgio Moroder, the Blitz kids brought postmodern glamour and optimism to a country stricken with high youth unemployment and general gloom, and before long the media had named them the New Romantics.
Wear: Gender-blurring and mega-posing were in! Hence, a competitive clientele was comprised of rubber-clad vixens, silvery space cadets, Hollywood-esque swashbucklers, vampy dragsters, Regency ballgown-clad babes, quiffed-up leather-rockers and peacocks of all persuasions with exquisitely-painted visages. Remarkably, these eclectic ensembles were fashioned with mere charity shop and jumble sale finds, or – for those with plentiful coin – came from PX, Covent Garden’s ultra-forward-thinking boutique.
elegantly dressed New Romantics, 1982; photography by Anwar Hussein (courtesy if Getty Images)
Goth
Peak years: 1979-86
Best track: Bauhaus Bela Lugosi’s Dead
Who: Goths generally hated sport, sunlight, cheesy chart music and mainstream fashion. These rebellious teens instead favoured sombre clothing, looking pale/ill, quaffing cider and smoking fags, and adored black-clad bands and style icons such as Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy, Siouxsie Sioux, The Cure and The Sisters of Mercy, who between them sang about cheery topics like vampires, schizophrenia and drug casualties.
What: Most UK cities played host to regular goth club nights: the Batcave in London, Le Phonographique in Leeds, De Villes and The Underworld in Manchester, for example. Although goths were perceived as introverted, they loved nights out with mates, clad in full spooky finery, even if that meant braving the mockery of – shudder! – ‘normal’ people. Goths liked to dance: mournful swaying for shyer types, or so-called ‘chicken dancing’ for the more uninhibited, which involved much flapping arm movements plus foot-stomping and now, let’s be honest, looks undeniably dated.
Wear: Tie-dye was acceptable, but black-everything was preferable, with androgyny often inevitable: tight leather jeans, fishnet tights, PVC skirts, band merch T-shirts, pointy boots, studded belts and crucifix necklaces, all sourced from charity shops or goth- friendly outlets in Kensington and Camden markets.
Also essential: heavy black eyeliner, black lipstick and dramatically backcombed hairstyles, dyed black or bleached white and sprayed with enough lacquer to destroy the ozone layer.
Siouxsie Sioux. Photography by Fin Costello (courtesy if Getty Images)
Lol Tolhurst and Robert Smith of The Cure, 1983; photography by Fin Costello (courtesy of Getty Images)
Acid House/Rave
Peak years: 1987-91
Best track: Royal House Can You Party
Who: The UK’s rave scene crystalised at Shoom, a small but influential party that ran across various venues in central London. It was created by DJ Danny Rampling and his then-wife, Jenni, running from 1987 to 1990. The events blended Ibiza’s carefree vibes with uplifting house music from legendary Chicago DJs such as Frankie Knuckles, a genre also championed by UK DJs such as Mike Pickering and Mark Moore.
What: Pivotal to rave was a newly discovered drug named ecstasy. Necking an E induced an urge to dance and trippy euphoria among revellers. This proved irresistible: related club nights sprang up in the capital, including Spectrum and The Trip, and the movement, nicknamed acid house, soon spread nationwide. In 1988, A Guy Called Gerald’s house anthem, Voodoo Ray, spent 18 weeks in the UK singles charts and each weekend for the next few years thousands of loved-up youths of all ethnicities and backgrounds flocked to illegal outdoor raves or warehouse parties, such as Sunrise or Biology, prompting aggressive police clampdowns and tabloid hysteria about off-their-trolley teenagers.
Wear: Swanky designer clothing was out. Loose-fit togs for dancing were in! Smiley-face T-shirts became ubiquitous, while other rave-wear staples from stores such as Mash on Oxford Street or Sign of the Times in Kensington Market included Osh Kosh dungarees, bucket hats, bum bags, Inca-print hoodies, Peruvian tees, baggy Mambo shorts, trackie bottoms in hues of purple or lime green, with Troop trainers, Kickers or Clarks’ Wallabees.
acid house ravers, 1988. Photography by Dave Swindells, courtesy of Unravel Productions
Baggy/Indie Dance
Peak years: 1989-91
Best track: The Stone Roses Fools Gold
Who: The increasing popularity of ecstasy at UK raves meant even indie kids began dabbling, discovering their inner groove, and digging dance music, too. Seasoned ravers also became appreciative of tracks from hitherto more rock-oriented bands – Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses, The Farm, Primal Scream and Soup Dragons among others – after they’d been remixed by respected DJs from the acid house movement, including Paul Oakenfold, Terry Farley and Andrew Weatherall.
What: The previous divide between dance music and indie collapsed, creating a movement (most predominant up north) nicknamed baggy or indie dance, the former due to the roomy ’fits worn by those involved. Manchester was unofficially rebranded as Madchester, due to its associations with local bands like the Roses and the Mondays and the Haçienda nightclub – a bastion of house music that embraced indie dance. Baggy reached its zenith when The Stone Roses staged a shambolic-but-legendary mega-rave-gig for 28,000 pill-popping, weed-puffing, loved-up nutters at Spike Island, a park in Cheshire, in summer 1990.
Wear: Bucket hats were still going strong. And extremely-flared jeans from Manchester brands Go Vicinity or Joe Bloggs became ubiquitous. As did a long-sleeved slogan T-shirt declaring ‘AND ON THE SIXTH DAY GOD CREATED MANchester’ from the Identity shop in Manchester’s longstanding alternative fashion mecca Affleck’s Palace.
drum and bass pioneer, Goldie; photography by Eddie Otchere
Shaun Ryder and Bez from The Happy Mondays, 1991; photography by Gie Knaeps
Jungle/Drum and Bass
Peak years: 1991-95
Best track: Doc Scott Here Comes the Drumz
Who: A continuation of the early-’90s UK hardcore and rave scenes, jungle converged elements of breakbeat, ragga, dub, D&B, techno and MC vocals for young and multicultural devotees. Wrenching the focus away from increasingly commercial house music, jungle instead delivered a faster, grittier, darker sound, often recorded DIY style in bedrooms or makeshift studios using cheap cassette tapes and basic Atari computers. Stars of jungle’s early era included DJs, producers and MCs with memorable monikers: Fabio, Goldie – whose spare, stylish and intense 1994 track Inner City Life is a classic of the genre – Grooverider, Shy FX, UK Apache, DJ Ra, General Levy and MC Gunsmoke.
What: The best jungle club nights back then were AWOL, Metalheadz and Rage in London, or Wolverhampton’s Quest, where the aforementioned talents would work the decks and prowl the stages. Result? Dance-floor mayhem and sweat dripping from the ceilings. Despite jungle’s prime movers wanting to keep the scene underground, even the BBC got in on the act, making a 1994 documentary titled Jungle Fever and further propelling this intense subculture into the mainstream.
Wear: Jungle wasn’t a poser vibe, yet enthusiasts oozed attitude and style. Girls favoured bodycon Lycra dresses, leather waistcoats, hot pants, vest tops and jeans; guys donned camouflage gear, MA2 flight jackets, pristine tees, crisply ironed shirts, baggy Armani jeans and box-fresh Nike Air Max sneakers.
DJ Grooverider at Blue Note, London, 1995; photography by Eddie Otchere
New Rave
Peak years: 2005-08
Best track: Klaxons Atlantis to Interzone
Who: Notable new rave-y performers included Klaxons, Hot Chip, New Young Pony Club, Brazilian band CSS, Namalee ‘n’ the Namazonz (with lyrics about wanting to be a cartoon) and Niyi, who inimitably rapped about poached eggs and was, years later, namechecked by Tyler, the Creator.
What: To the haters, new rave was less a subculture and more a fad manufactured via MySpace and the cultish style magazine Super Super. In contrast, a 2016 article in The Independent retrospectively asserted new rave as “arguably one of the last times that music, nightlife, fashion and street culture all collided to create a British youth movement”. For the fresh-faced originators in thrall to its gaudy garb and giddy sounds, new rave was definitely a thing.
Wear: Garish looks spotted at London clubs such as All You Can Eat or Anti-Social were a gleeful, youthful mash-up of smiley-face T-shirts (an ironic nod to late-’80s acid house ravers) with lashings of trashy neon, skinny jeans and lopsided haircuts. Accessories encompassed children’s cartoon-logo rucksacks, whistles, glow sticks and cheap plastic sunglasses. All of which fed into the work of the new rave scenesters’ fave fashion designers, including CassettePlaya (aka Carri Munden), Henry Holland and Jeremy Scott.
Top image: DJ Grooverider at Blue Note, London, 1995; photography by PYMCA/Avalon and Gie Knaeps (Courtesy of Getty Images). Taken from 10 Men Issue 61 – MUSIC, TALENT, CREATIVE – on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
London new ravers, 2006; photography by PYMCA/Avalon
