Suffice to say, I was not impressed when I flicked through the September issue of UK Elle only to find a very stupid editorial. I say stupid with the bluntest intentions because that’s what it is. Allow me to elaborate. I’m struggling to find a word alternative, to prevent myself from fatally calling a trend that’s emerging this season, ‘GRUNGE’. I have in several posts before been throwing about this word but the more I think about it, the more wrong it seems. Simply speaking, there is no way we can call a trend ‘grunge’ when ‘grunge’ itself was born out of an anti-fashion sentiment. The contrived way this editorial was styled would make those people who actually lived through the ‘grunge’ era recoil with disgust. It was never about fashion and it was strongly connected with a cultural movement that we don’t seem to be experiencing at the moment. It was about not caring and not givine a s***. Name-dropping Kurt Cobain in fashion magazines is laughable and when I start seeing ‘How to copy Kurt’s look’ articles, I literally want to cry.
What do we have here. First off, according to Elle,
‘The new look grunge is too cool for school.’
Speaks for itself really….
Then we have carefully ripped up denim skirts, calculated by length. We have meticulously picked out faux ‘vintage’ t-shirts that are £60 a pop. We have models re-enacting sulky expressions. Somehow the nature of grunge itself makes it just that little bit ridiculous when recreated in a fashion spread – it’s one big oxymoron. The problem I have with this so called ‘trend’ is the insincerity and falsehood behind it. I just find the idea of fashion trendies suddenly wearing plaid shirts, baggy t-shirts and ‘worn’ out sweaters, out of the blue, with no idea of where the whole ‘grunge’ movement came from, completely absurd. To call it contrived would be an understatement.
I don’t even think this look was propagated all that much on the catwalks but somehow Elle read into the word ‘grunge’ and came up with their interpretation of it and before you know it, suddenly it will become a street style trend. I don’t object against the lux urban, tough, baggy look that Marc Jacobs has sent down the runways but to promote this so called renaissance of grunge is just wrong on so many levels! I predict 45 quid plaid shirts, jumpers with purposefully picked out holes and natty woolen beanies…. oh and Doc Martens that are mechanically ‘scuffed’ up in the shops near you soon.
(Editorial from UK Elle September 2006 "New Model Army", Photographed by Gilles Bensimon, Styled by Anne-Marie Curtis)
i agree with the grunge oxymoron thing with fashion… but i ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!! AHHHHH yessssssss
I actually think that it is silly to say that a new movement is not about fashion. Everything is fashion. For being unfashionoble you have to react to fashion. That is in the end how all fashion is created. I hope that you understand me, it’s really hard to find the right words in english. BTW I’ve heard that Kurt spent hours and hours cruising vintage stores for the perfect worn down jeans and shirts. Isn’t that devotion to fashion, then what is?
Susie… THANK YOU for this post. This is something that REALLY annoys me as a Seattle native… in fact I enjoyed your post so much, I wrote a massive response to it called “My Territorial Pissings” at my own blog, so please read it: ihategeneric.blogspot.com
THANK YOU THANK YOU
^Yes, true that grunge was a reaction to fashion but I’m more objecting against the way it’s being presented to us in a falsified guise.
It’s like ‘Get grungey in 10 easy steps’ to me is just ridiculous. I still think the clothes went with a social movement of sorts. Like the Teddy boys in 50’s England, the Mods, punks in the 70’s. Somehow, recreating grunge without really understand it seems a little contrived…..
I could just be on my own here…..
Funny that about Kurt cruising for perfect jeans though…..
Susie: You’re not on your own at all. I do agree with you in many ways. I just think that it’s silly that people feel like some trends and way of dressing are less about fashion than others. Fashion is about creativeness and it evolves togther with and/or reacts to what is happening in the world(socially, globally). Who cares weather the style is created on the streets or the runways?
i agree, it’s disturbing to see grunge all over the fashion press. i mean, i love the look but it’s not nothing that someone living in brooklyn or elsewhere hasn’t been sporting for awhile now. i think what’s offensive is that the aesthetic is being presented in a way that is divorced from its larger cultural context. it’s just another ‘trend’ to be consumed. for a movement that was concerned with authenticity, the presentation is incredibly inauthentic.
that said, i still love layers and such!
xo k.
This is a very contradictory matter to me. The whole grunge trend seems very wrong but at the same time very right. I kind of agree with you that it’s wrong because indeed, initially grunge was born out of an anti-fashion sentiment. But on the other hand, even during the ‘grunge era’ itself, didn’t grunge end up with the trademarks of a fashiontrend in the end? Thousands of people suddenly walking around in torn vintage shirts because some depressed rockstar liked to wear them? Doesn’t sound very ‘unfashionworldly’ to me. I feel like the true nature of grunge was violated a long long time ago, so I don’t really care if people are doing it again now. Won’t be joining them myself though. I prefer a more polished look.
back when grunge was “started” it actually was a fashion thing. if the grunge in elle isnt “real” enough, what is? if trendy girls start dressing grungy, power to them. at least they can relax about their style a little and be comfortable in baggy layers
^It’s not that I object to the look itself! I’m a lover of all things layered myself! It’s the way the look is being presented. I’m not doubting the aesthetic authenticity of the look they have created in Elle. It’s the way it looks false in spirit. I’m rather afraid of how people will adopt it in a sort of frenzied way and I just don’t think that’s how it originally originally started out.
Perhaps I am thinking too much about it. Perhaps i can’t even articulate what I feel about it properly. But unfortunately, it just irks me……..
These looks kind of remind me of Cory Kennedy –that funny little internet phenomenon from the Cobrasnake website!
You did a post about her awhile back, didn’t you, Susie?
I think what bugs me about that editorial is that it doesn’t feature very innovative styling. So in that way, it does resemble the original grunge in that it looks like a bunch of boring clothes thrown on. I don’t think it’s a fashion magazine’s job to show such a boring or literal interpretation of any trend. Where’s the fantasy?
I don’t think there’s any fear that latter-day grunge, no matter when it comes around again, will ever truly imitate the original. The early 90s grunge in America was born largely out of hipsters (and people who were hipsters but wouldn’t identify themselves as such) trying to seem ironic, disinterested, and above it all, especially above fashion. And it’s not like anyone would ever succumb to those pretensions again. Ahem….
I meant that to be a commentary on hipsters, not on you. Just wanted to make that clear, because I think you and your site are very cool.
I agree that this is an oxymoron, but I have to say that Marc Jacobs was the one who brought grunge to the masses. He was working for Perry Ellis when he created his collection that set it off into the mainstream. He was fired of course because of it’s anti-fashion sentiments and Perry Ellis was or is a bit more classy than that. Just thought you’d like to know in case you didn’t.
In a way I almost find it hard to describe my feels about this topic. I have always had a thing for the original and only grunge era all the clothes the rebelion everything about it and to see a rebirth of the style does not bother me but the fact as you said they call it the “renaissance of grunge” this is not a rebirth of grunge we are simply not at the same cultural standpoint and the rebelion against the fashion that was is simply not there. Therefor i love the clothes hate what they’re trying to market them as
I too remember ‘grunge’. I got into the Subpop label long before Nirvana became popular – bands like Mudhoney, the Melvins and Green River were all doing ‘grunge’ back in the 80’s, so were Nirvana of course. (Green River are often considered, by those who were really into the music, to be the first ‘grunge’ band – but how many people have heard of them?). It was all about the music…until Nirvana got big, then it got labelled ‘grunge’ and was VERY much about the look – the fashion. Kurt Kobain became a household name and everyone wanted to LOOK like Kurt Kobain. Simple as that. People dress like the stars they idolise. The MUSIC was born out of a social and cultural moment in time (during the 80’s not the 90’s – it was just associated with the 90’s because that’s when Kurt Kobain’s whining was being heard), but the look, by the time everyone had decided it was a ‘look’, was all about the fashion. In all honesty when Kurt died, so did the grunge look because he was out of the public conscience and so was the way he dressed. And guess what? They ‘look’ of grunge – messy layers, plaid shirts, ripped jeans, were all being worn by the people who were listening to grunge BN (Before Nirvana), but you didn’t see everyone rushing to their nearest vintage shop to copy the singer from Green River. Why? Because it was only when it hit the mainstream, ie when Nirvana got big, that it became a FASHION thing, and that’s the only reason half the people were even aware of grunge. But for the people who were into the music back in the 80’s like myself, it was mildly amusing that come 1992 there were all these kids dressing like Kurt Kobain! For most people it WAS about the fashion, as they weren’t that into the music. So, Elle featuring the look of grunge isn’t that shallow because, for the mass majority, it was never that deep in the first place.
Need to articulate myself better! I can’t explain why I found this editorial so repugnant. But I think it’s great how everyone’s bringing in a variety of opinions. I don’t claim to be some expert on grunge so it’s always good to be educated!
In the beginning grunge bands didn’t dress like that as some anti-fashion statement, they dressed like that because they were blokes in a band and couldn’t care less about how they looked, it was only Kurt Kobain who attached some meaning to it because he, as a person, battled with the contradiction he faced in his life with being a chart topping, rich, famous musician whilst hating everything that mass consumerism stood for, that he was now part of. But up until that point, til him, the whole look of grunge didn’t mean a thing. And to be honest, I cannot imagine myself going back to looking like that! I think I must have looked a total mess! I like my hairbrush too much! And washing. And not having my arse hanging out of my jeans.
My biggest fear realised…. trendies pandering to this look and tritely having messy hair, precisely ripping up shirts and buying jeans torn up at a premium price….
I think that’s my real gripe with it…..
just wanna ask…we stared to have a new trend of DIY… but not really do’n it ur self!…just by take’n a runway pic…buy couple of yards of fabric…take it to the taler…that we have one in each block here in my home town kuwait…for just 8-16 pounds u can get the dress of ur dreams! with a fab. quality…it’s fab!…but the copy’n part is what i hate about it! i once made a sketch…and WOW!…i felt like a designer!…;p
I wonder….will be see Victoria Beckham et al sporting ripped jeans and mussed up hair? Oh the horror….
I was living in Seattle before and during the “grunge” era and, no matter how “grungy,” there was a definite style to how people dressed themselves. I remember secondhand clothing shops rocking the look in their display windows before the craze went national.
“Grunge “Fashion” is pretty much just like “punk fashion”. Both of these movements were originally supposed to be anti-fashion and then got picked up and carried away by fashion trendies and big name brands who started selling pre-packaged “rebellion”
which defeats the whole purpose of everything *tear*
I agree with you, grunge is a movement, not a trend! they are spreading this whole grunge thing without knowing the true meaning of it.