Mainstream rules and tribal uniforms

Our solution is to invent more rules. The rigid dress codes of the past have not given way to complete sartorial anarchy. Although fashion magazines regularly proclaim that ‘Nowadays, anything goes’, this is clearly not the case. What is now known as ‘mainstream’ dress certainly does not conform to the same kind of official, universal dress codes of the pre-1960 eras – when, for example, all women were supposed to wear hats, gloves, skirts of a particular length and so on, with only relatively minor, and well-defined, class and sub-cultural variations. But there are broad-brush rules and fashion trends that most of us still obey: show a crowd-scene photograph from the 1960s, 70s, 80s or 90s, and anyone can immediately identify, just from the clothing and hairstyles, the decade in which it was taken. The same will no doubt be true of the current decade, although as usual we imagine that this one is more bewilderingly anarchic and fast-changing than any previous period. Even a photograph featuring ‘retro’ fashions, recycling the style of, say, the 1970s in the 1990s, or the 1960s and 1980s in the year 2003, would not fool us, as these styles are never simply repeated ‘verbatim’, but always piecemeal, with many subtle changes, and different hairstyles and make-up. Look at a few crowd-pictures, or just flip through some family photo albums, and you realise not only that dress is far more rule-governed than you might have thought but also that you are far more aware of the detail and nuances of current dress codes than you imagined – even if you think you have no interest in fashion. You are obeying these rules unconsciously, whether you like it or not, and will, when future people see you in a photograph, be identifiable as a typical example of your decade.

Even if I showed you a photograph of a specific sub-cultural youth group, rather than a mainstream crowd of a given decade, you would still easily identify the period in which that sub-culture was prominent. Which brings me to ‘tribal’ dress codes. English sub-cultures with different styles of dress from the mainstream majority are nothing new. In the mid-nineteenth century, the counter-culture Pre-Raphaelites influenced a style of ‘artistic’ dress – a sort of medieval-retro look, but with modern naturalistic touches – which in turn led to the droopy, ‘aesthetic’ sub-culture look of the late nineteenth century, and then the loose but more vivid ‘Bohemian’ styles of the early twentieth century. Teddy boys, students and arty types had their own distinctive styles in the 1950s; then there were the sharp mods and hard-looking rockers; then the softer, artistic-Bohemian look was re-invented by the hippies (not realising the whole thing had been done before) in the late 60s and early 70s; followed by the harsher punks, skinheads and Goths (this last still a popular sub-culture genre). Then in the 90s we were back to the recurring droopy-Bohemian-natural theme again with grunge and crusties and eco-warriors, now succeeded by the usual pendulum swing to a harder-edged style with new-metallers, gangsta and bling-bling. And so on. If the pattern holds, we can expect yet another big eco-bohemian-hippie revival of some sort by about 2010, or sooner. Plus зa change.

This potted summary is over-simplified and by no means exhaustive, but my point is that we’ve always had sub-cultures, and they have always distinguished themselves from the mainstream, and from each other, by their dress codes – until their distinctive style of dress becomes mainstream and they are forced to think of a new one.

The only significant change that I can see in recent times is an increase in the sheer number of different sub-cultural styles – an increase in tribalism, perhaps a reaction to the ‘globalization’ affecting our mainstream culture. In the past, young English people looking for a sense of identity and a means of annoying their parents had a choice of just one or two, at the most three, counter-culture youth tribes; now there are at least half a dozen, each with its own sub-groups and splinter groups. Since the 1950s, all youth sub-culture styles have been closely identified with different types of music, almost all originally derived from American black music, usurped and modified by young whites. The current batch conforms largely to this pattern, with aficionados of Garage (must be pronounced to rhyme with marriage, not barrage), R&B, Hip-hop, Drum&Bass, Techno, Trance and House each sporting marginally different clothing – the Techno/House/Trance groups being more smart-casual, the others more ‘gangsta’ and show-off glamorous, with designer labels and varying degrees of ‘bling’.

The minor style distinctions between these groups are subtle, and not really visible to the naked eye of an uninitiated observer, just as much of the music may sound alike to the untrained ear. As a member of one of these youth-tribes, however, you can not only see and hear important differences between, say, House, Techno and Trance, but also, within these categories, between sub-genres such as Acid House, Deep House, Tech House, Progressive House, Hi-NRG, Nu-NRG, Old Skool, Goa Trance, Psy Trance, Hardcore, Happy Hardcore, etc.⁵⁶ You know, for example, that Hard House and Hi-NRG are particularly popular among gay men, and associated with a more flamboyant, body-conscious style of dress, but you can easily distinguish this type of glamour from the ostentatious, bling-bling variety associated with Hip-hop. You can discuss the various sub-genres in a dialect utterly incomprehensible to outsiders, and read specialist magazines with reviews written in this private coded language, such as:

‘Slam drop a looping tech-house mix and Unkle provide a more twisted beatz version.’

‘A rich mix of textures that will satisfy floors and purist swots alike.’

‘For some acid mayhem, Massive Power reveals its Mr Spring influence in a spiralling 290bpm breakdown.’⁵⁷

The Collective Distinctiveness Rule

So you get to rebel against the mainstream culture, and proclaim your non-conformist individual identity, but with the comforting security of belonging to a structured, rule-governed social group, with shared tastes, values and jargon, and well-defined boundaries and behaviour codes. And no risk of sartorial mistakes or embarrassment, because, unlike the mainstream culture where you only have rather vague guidelines, there are clear and precise instructions on what to wear. No wonder so many English teenagers choose this form of rebellion.

The dress codes of youth sub-cultures are ‘codes’ in both senses of the word: rules, but also ciphers. The tribes’ sartorial statements, like the verbal ones in the reviews quoted above, are delivered in dialect, a private code that is difficult for outsiders to decipher. These coded dress codes are highly prescriptive – strict to a degree that would feel oppressive if these were rules imposed by parents or schools. Deviation from the uniform is not tolerated, as anyone who has tried to get into a popular sub-culture night-club wearing the wrong thing will know. And it’s not just what you wear but precisely how you wear it. If woolly hats are being worn pulled right down to the eyebrows and completely covering the ears, then that is how you wear your woolly hat. The fact that it makes you look like a six-year-old dressed by an over-anxious mother is neither here nor there. If hooded sweatshirts are worn zipped to the neck with the hoods up – again somehow looking curiously vulnerable and childlike – then that is how you wear your sweatshirt. If you are a Goth, you wear a lot of black clothes, with white make-up, heavy black eyeliner and dark lipstick. And long hair. Even with all the correct funereal fancy-dress and make-up, short hair will mark you out as a novice or ‘baby’ Goth. Either grow it quickly, buy a wig or get extensions.

This is not to say that there is no variety or diversity or scope for individual self-expression within sub-cultural styles, just that such variation must remain within clearly defined boundaries: you can pick and choose, but you do so from a limited range of core themes. A Goth must be recognisably a Goth, and a grunger identifiable as a grunger, otherwise there is no point. Some members of youth sub-cultures have more insight into their conformity than others. In his excellent study of the Goth sub-culture, Paul Hodkinson quotes one informant as responding to the question ‘What is the Goth scene all about?’ by declaring that it is about ‘having the absolute freedom to dress as you want and to express yourself as you want’. Hodkinson comments that ‘The ways in which sub-cultural participants choose to respond to direct questioning can sometimes result in debatable conclusions’ – which is a polite academic way of saying ‘Yeah, right.’

Another of his informants was more perceptive. Responding to a question about the importance of being ‘different’, she said: ‘Yeah, although you always say that, like, you’re all individuals, but everyone’s got the same boots on! Do you know what I mean? – “Oh, aren’t we all individual with all our ripped fishnets and our New Rocks [a make of boot]”’ And a third respondent gave a beautifully concise and endearingly honest explanation of the apparent contradiction: ‘It’s not like you’re a Goth because you want to stand out, but you do like sort of being different from everyone else, although when you’re with a load of Goths you blend in, but you’re all different, if you know what I mean, from everyone else.’

This comment would seem to support my point about alleged English sartorial ‘eccentricity’ being something of a team effort, more often a matter of collective distinctiveness than individual originality. We want to be creative and different, but we’re squeamish about ‘standing out’, and we also want to fit in and belong – so let’s join a sub-culture and all be eccentric in the same way, together. That way, we get the best of both worlds: the excitement of rebellion and the comfort of conformity. A delightfully English compromise. And only a tiny bit hypocritical, really.