Fashion and music are a pairing as old as one of Beethoven’s musty wigs. As two of society’s strongest ways to express oneself and display your personality to the people around you. The two often cross-pollinate and inform one another’s trajectory. In the 20th century, genres of music were closely associated with a relevant subculture that ran parallel to the sounds. These subcultures, more often than not, comprised of specific ways of dressing, a cryptic slang and a defining ethos. However, with the rise of the internet in the last 20 years, a pattern has emerged where the link between the genre of music you listen to and how you dress, has almost completely disappeared.
Subcultures indeed remain intrinsic to the way the youth happen upon a personal style, but it is now the internet, rather than music that is spawning these subcultures. Could it be a case of the broad brushstroke no longer being relevant or necessary in a world that has become so focussed on the individual? Have genres of music become too hyper-focussed and niche?
Whether it be 90’s Hip Hop, Goth, 60’s Pop, Rock, Mod, Punk or Disco, a particular image of a person and way of dressing comes to mind when you think of any of these genres of music. Not only is it a struggle to identify a modern music genre, even if you can, you tend to think of individual musicians. Rather than a collective movement encompassing a lifestyle and fashion. Admittedly, if you cast your mind to the more traditional genres, many of which I mentioned earlier, you still see people who adhere to stereotypical images of genre followers. These stereotypes are definitely dwindling in numbers, especially among the younger generations.
Through the internet, young and old now have access to all music ever created, and the fashion of every time period. With this abundance of choice and variety, we can now express our individuality better than ever before. So it comes as no surprise that traditional connotations of musical taste based on the clothes someone is wearing has waned. In fact, judging someones music taste based purely off of their clothes has become an outdated idea all together.
With society’s focus now being on the individual rather than the collective. It was inevitable that this broader attitude would trickle down to that of connections between subcultures and music. Gone are the clear boundaries for what you should wear if you like this or that type of music. There is also less pressure on an Artist to adhere to a certain look in order to sell records. A lot of this has come with the downfall of the music video as a way of discovering new artists. Due to the prevalence of streaming services, we are once again hearing artists before we see them. An artist’s individual style and personality is also much more likely to sell records than them being attributed to a wider movement or collective.
It is now on the internet where like minded people find each other, rather than solely through interactions in public. The signifiers of fashion and clothing, are less important in telegraphing to someone what your taste in music is. More common ways, are including your favourite music on various online and social media accounts. Even connecting through streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music is a common way to find peers that are similarly sonically minded.
At the end of this read you may be scratching your head and asking yourself, why on earth has George brought this up? Well the truth is, I find it refreshing that the uncoupling of musical genres and fashion has allowed for greater freedom of personal exploration in both the aforementioned avenues.
“Finally, I can listen to instrumental music and not dress like an instrument”. I hear you say.
Yes, yes you can.
