How To Look Like A Punk Vol. 5 - Women of Punk Rock
Fashion DON'T. Blondie sold out - we all know this. But did you know that Debbie Harry was also the first Brittney Spears? Here we can see her genitals as she performs in the late 1970s. Say it with me now: "EEEEEW"
Mothers, sisters, daughters - women are tough. Just being a woman is incredibly hard in this male-dominated world. Mid way through the 20th century American and British women were beginning to organize and demand attention, but they were doing it in dresses and bows. It’s hard to take someone demanding their liberties seriously when dolled up in the uniform of oppression. “Women’s Lib” became a joke in the Ivy League opium dens and sex clubs (I do not have a strong opinion and don’t you dare say otherwise).
In the 1970s, however, something changed. After the British Invasion of the 60s had died down there was a flare-up of garage bands in the US. Breaking sticks and busting strings along with the boys were lots of girls who were ready to rock and roll in the big leagues. Throughout the punk movement there have been women forging ahead where men have feared to tread, and some of the most influential people in punk rock have been females. So you want to look like a punk rocker? Let’s take a look back at some of the most visually distinctive women to ever grab a mic or guitar and see what they did to look punk.
The motorcycle and the flashiness of their clothing is what's interesting. You hardly notice that there's not a lot of skin showing.
The Runaways: 1975 - 1979
Although they managed to avoid being labeled “punk” while they were together, the first all-girl rock band was also the first all-girl punk band. With ragged vocals, punchy guitar riffs, and slam-bang drumming the Runaways were dismissed as a novelty during their time. In retrospect the Runaways have been hailed as one of the greatest rock acts of their time. Most famously the Runaways spun off the successful solo career of Joan Jett, who was the band’s lead guitarist and backing vocalist. Their break-up was tough on the teenage girls. They formed the band when between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, and got a harsh lesson in the reality of music industry politics.
Visually the Runaways were a breakthrough because they didn’t flat-out reject their sexuality, but doled it out on their own terms. Some of their contemporaries, like Debbie Harry of Blondie, would use their sexuality in a very conventional way. They would look harmless, seductive, or approachable. Conversely the girls of the Runaways looked rough, potentially violent, and aggressive. Men were used to looking at girls and wanting to have sex with them. They were unprepared for a set of girls who looked like they want to have sex with you. The Runaways turned the tables on men. While Debbie Harry was busy showing as much skin as possible, the Runaways were wearing skintight body suits designed like armor. The only time the Runaways showed much skin was in CREEM Magazine where they were photographed with their surf boards. Three of the girls are in bikinis. Two are in full wetsuits.
Where most women in the biz at the time were busy whoring out their bodies for cash, the Runaways took their sexuality by the horns and made it theirs. Instead of catering to the whims of men with skimpy clothing, they forced men to look at their bodies on their own terms. Most extraordinarily most of the Runaways’ outfits were clothing that draws the eye upwards through the use of converging lines towards their faces. Sexy and rugged, when people get a stiffy from looking at these girls it’s not because they’re looking at their breasts or legs - it’s because you’re looking them in their eyes. Those vicious, heart-piercing eyes. For more on how Joan Jett has effected punk fashion, check out How To Look Like A Punk Vol. 1 - History of Leather Jackets
From left to right: Jak Airport, Lora Logic, B.P. Hurding, and Poly Styrene. It's too bad every picture of the Spex is in black and white - the colors were amazing.
The X-Ray Spex: 1976 - 1979
Poly Styrene and Lora Logic were not knockout beauties. Just geeky teenagers with a lot of creativity and no money living by themselves in London. Styrene was born to an irresponsible white mother and an absent black dad, making her a serious social outcast with no safety net. Lora’s history is less well known, but she was only a teenager when she grabbed a saxaphone and became a punk rock legend.
Poly Styrene’s penchant for fashion predated her interest in music. Before she placed an ad in the paper looking for band mates, she was supporting herself selling clothing she designed and made by hand in a boutique named “Poly Styrene” in Beaufort Market, King’s Road. She specialized in Day-Glo - a type of neon-colored fabric which is not to be confused with the blacklight ink with the same name. The kinds of clothes she sold were the kinds she would become famous wearing while on stage. The bright, abrasive colors of pink, green, yellow, orange, and red clashed with each other all over her outfits.
On top of that the types of clothes she wore were different in and of themselves. Styrene was overweight, and her large metal braces were of the impossible to ignore variety, so showcasing her face or her curves was simply not wise for an up-and-coming performer and consummate professional. Whereas the Runaways had used their clothing to bring the attention to their bodies, Styrene did the opposite by trying to make her clothing the centerpiece. Bright pink fishnets, a neon yellow tie, a polka-dot Day-Glo skirt, and a combat helmet from WWII allowed the humble-looking Styrene to put on a costume and have her “shoeless hippie” image disappear into a gaudy, raging punk rocker. It’s clear that by putting on the clothing, Styrene was able to really be the person she had always wanted to be.
The fishnets and leather we take for granted today were popularized by Sioux as shocking and sexually "deviant".
Sixouxsie Sioux: 1976 - Today
Perhaps the most influential woman in punk rock ever to walk the Earth, Siouxsie Sioux will forever be on the history books for her involvement in the “Sex Pistols TV Scandal”. She was one of a few fans who had breached the Sex Pistols’ inner-circle and become friends with the band members. When, in December of 1976, the Sex Pistols were invited to appear on Bill Grundy’s television interview show, they brought along their young female friend. The interview went badly with the band using filthy language, attacking Grundy’s character, and refusing to answer questions. When Grundy made a remark that appeared to be a pass at Siouxsie, guitarist Steve Jones called Grundy a “dirty fucker”, ending the interview abruptly.
Although she didn’t speak audibly in the interview, she was the impetus for the line that made the interview famous, and would forever be burned into the collective consciousness of Great Britain. By 1978 Siouxsie had assembled a band with her as frontwoman, and their first single roared to the top of the charts.
Her distinctive look comes from her origins. In her formative years Siouxsie Sioux spent a lot of time in leather, fetish, and gay bars. She integrated fetish wear into her every day clothing, making overt statements about her sexuality in the context of something frightening and on the fringe for British mainstream. This kind of shock is what she became addicted to. When people reacted negatively to her appearance, it empowered her because she did not need to fear their reactions. She had planned on their reactions. By controlling what people saw in her, she controlled who she was to everyone else.
During World War II England had been under constant attack from the Nazis, and because the English had to fight German attack on their own soil Nazism became a symbol of evil in their culture - to a much larger extent than here in the US. During the late 70s many young Brits who were not alive during World War II found it easy to shock the older generation with Nazi imagery. People their parents’ age had been around to see Hitler drop bombs on their homes, and the younger generation had no sense of what it was like to live in war time. But using Nazi imagery proved to be the biggest fashion mistake of Siouxsie Sioux’s life. It had gone over well when she had come out on stage, topless, with a swastika painted on her chest in a London pub (notably with Sid Vicious on drums). It wasn’t about to go over as well elsewhere.
In 1976 Siouxsie Sioux went with the Sex Pistols to mainland Europe for their tour. When in France, Siouxsie underestimated the importance of Nazi symbolism in the country. France had been torn apart by the war, forced to live under the tyrannical rule of both Nazi Germans and the collaborators, the Nazi French, also known as the Vichy Republic. And unlike the punks of England, the punks of France still felt the sting of Hitler’s whip, even thirty years later. When a French punk (whose identity was never discovered) caught sight of foreigner Siouxsie Sioux walking around his hometown with a black armband emblazoned with the Nazi swastika, he took it upon himself to show the girl that she had made the wrong decision. Although the Frenchman’s cowardly act of beating up a girl in her mid-twenties displayed nothing but a deep personal insecurity, it should act as a warning: if you’re going to play with sacred symbols, be prepared to pay a price.
What did we learn today?
Women in punk rock have had to overcome a lot of obstacles, most notably their own sexuality. The way men perceive women has for a very long time defined interactions between the two sexes. Some women take this power of sex and exploit men’s desire to see them naked for profit. Others completely reject sexuality as a whole, preferring asexual cerebrality to vapid babydollism. But the most successful women refuse to ignore the power of their sexuality while also refusing to play the game according to men’s rules. The three female punk pioneers here would likely all have the same advice for being a girl and looking punk: find what makes you look most like you, and no one else. They each drew upon something deeply person to them. For Joan Jett her leather suits and one-pieces were from her love of riding motorcycles; Poly Styrene wore clothes she had made by hand, a product of her own imagination and soul; and Siouxsie Sioux wore the bondage gear and leather straps that she had been surrounded by in her early years, presumably by people who loved her and took care of her.
To be punk is to be yourself, no matter who that is.