70s Style Month: Week 2 - Rock and Roll, Punk

In case you missed last weeks post, I have dedicated July to a fashion exploration of the 70s. This week I am focusing on the rock and roll and punk contribution.
The 70's was all about the music, with rock music making major advances and some of the best classic rock songs and bands of all time came from this era. Think the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Kiss, Abba, the Bee Gees, the Ramones, Carly Simon, Queen, Fleetwood Mac.. the list goes on and on

One of the most iconic idols to emerge from the '70s was Stevie Nicks, the bewitching Fleetwood Mac singer who layered velvet, crystals, scarves, feathers and top-hats over peasant skirts, tight tanks and sky-high platforms. 

Thanks again to wikipedia, who just says the facts so much better than I ever could..

"Punk as a style originated from London from the designer Vivienne Westwood and her partner Malcolm McLaren. Before theModern world a punk was a person who attacked someones cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., based on error or superstition. Due to the harsh economic realities of Europe and Britain in the early to mid '70s, this movement was a direct reaction to the economic situation during the economic depression of the period. Punk had at its heart a manifesto of creation through disorder. Safety pins became nose and ear jewellery, rubber fetishwear was subverted to become daywear, and images of mass murderers, rapists, and criminals were elevated to iconographic status.

Punk fashion can be traced to the ripped jeans, torn t-shirts, scrappy haircuts, and worn and torn leather jackets sported by members of the Sex Pistols. When they released Anarchy in the UK in 1976, Malcolm McLaren, their manager, dressed The Sex Pistols. Whose wife Vivienne Westwood owned a clothes store called "Let It Rock" in the Kings Road, Chelsea area of London. 

These styles can be traced back further to New York artists at the Andy Warhol Factory or bands such as the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith Group or New York Dolls. 

By the 1980s, punk fashion and punk bands had shown up in cities across the world. There was a Do It Yourself quality to the fashion. Some small elements that spoke of a person's punk roots were safety pins, black PVC or tartan bondage trousers, leopard-print t-shirts, mohawk, spikes or harshly dyed hair, filthy tennis-shoes, or pointy Beatle boots. There is an element of a makeshift, thrown together look and a sense of poverty."

See my other postings on 70s style month:
Week 1: Hippie Chic
Week 3: Street Style
Week 4: Disco Glam