Sports and Leisure

The Punk movement originated in music and street fashion. Crucially influential were anti-establishment music groups such as the Clash and the Sex Pistols whose controversially obscene TV interview in 1976 hit all the newspaper headlines. Also important were iconaclastic fashion designers like Vivienne Westwood and her associate Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistol's manager. Punk was born as an avant guarde music movement providing a swingingly relentless criticism of contemporary society. Through clothing, makeup and body ornamentation, it also stimulated a new form of hard-edged personal identity, reflecting this radical new anarchic departure.

Punk dress was entirely personal, involving the asembling of different elements, often shocking and disturbing. Thus obscene words, slashing, safety pins, chains, studs, and images of skulls all jostled for attention, and the wearer could select individually dramatic make-up, body piercing and hairstyle to complete the image. Motorbikes were often the chosen means of transport, as they had been by their Rocker predecessors, and this studded biker's jacket was worn by a Manchester youngster who was a member of a punk gang who congregated around a pub in Great Ancoats Street.

Full item descriptions:

"motorcycle jacket (punk)" [2005.19]

Related Themes:

Sexuality