Vivienne Westwood marks the opening of a Victoria and Albert Museum exhibit of her work, starting with punk rock in the 1970s.
"God save the queen," snarled the Sex Pistols in 1977. "She ain't no human being." Like typical angst-driven teens, though, anarchy-based punk music and its rude fashion sibling, postmodernism, grew up, moved uptown, got old -- and eventually became museum pieces. The early 21st century has seen a handful of exhibitions paying tribute to punk's godparents, Vivienne Westwood and the late Malcolm McLaren. In May 2013, "Punk: Chaos to Couture," at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, paired an unlikely name, Anna Wintour of "Vogue" -- a co-chairman -- with the punk aesthetic, signalling the great influence postmodernism has had on fashion. Postmodernism is dead: Long live ... whatever the next new thing will be. Pundits haven't figured that out yet.
Postmodernism
Museum piece: Elizabeth Hurley's safety-pin little black dress by Versace showed how street fashion had migrated to the runway.
In the visual arts, postmodernism is considered a late 20th century reaction to the modern art movement, with midcentury pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein bridging the gap. Modern artists -- including Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky -- prized freedom and individuality, and the movement was tied to "progress, the Industrial Revolution and capitalism," according to Arts Connected. The postmodern revolt, which began in France, put the focus on the collective rather than the individual and ideas rather than visuals. Irony and social context are trademarks; pop culture is considered as valid as the classics. The pop culture world -- music and fashion alike -- met postmodernism head on in the 1970s, when punk hit the New York and London street scenes.
Urban Guerrillas
John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, talks at a 2006 museum event about punk's influence on fashion.
When Westwood teamed with McLaren in the 1970s to open a London fashion shop -- renamed SEX when McLaren began to manage the Sex Pistols -- England's widely unemployed youth was ready to channel depression into anger with the punk movement. Westwood and McLaren's punk clothing line, Seditionaries, came out in 1976. The punk movement took off: Safety pins, shredded shirts, tattered British flag motifs and studded leather jackets were accented by neon-colored hair and facial piercings -- devolving into anything "dirty, ripped, scarred, shocking, spectacular, cruel, traumatized, sick or alienating," according to a Metropolitan Museum of Art timeline. Westwood's fashion designs went on to evoke other postmodern themes: "Nostalgia of Mud," in the 1980s, went global; "Witches" cited New York graffiti artist Keith Haring; and "Britain Must Go Pagan" mixed classical drapery and H.G. Wells tweed. "Fashion is always a parody, and therefore it has to be somewhat theatrical," Westwood said in a video interview about her punk days.
Street Fashion Bubbles Up
A design by Rei Kawakubo is displayed at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McLaren and Westwood weren't alone among designers watching the street scene: Zandra Rhodes was nicknamed "the princess of punk," and Gianni Versace's safety-pin-accented gown made it to the red carpet when Elizabeth Hurley wore it to a movie premiere. The Metropolitan Museum's 2013 exhibition includes punk-influenced designs by Marc Jacobs, Rei Kawakubo, Helmut Lang, Alexander McQueen, Rodarte and Alexander Wang, among others. McQueen's "bumster" low-rise jeans and skull motifs went on to become major fashion staples. The Met exhibit's "D.I.Y. Destroy" gallery even pairs photographs of Sid Vicious and a Chanel model -- the classical but shredded designer suit and the model's short, spiky hair echoing the late punk musician -- a thoroughly postmodern high-low example of how street fashion jostled its way onto the runway.
What's Next
Fashion with a message: The Metropolitan Museum's May 2013 exhibit examined punk fashion.
For some, the museum retrospectives on punk and postmodernism were the death knell for the movements: Once again, the rebels had become the establishment. But we can't unlearn the messages of postmodernism, Edward Docx argues in "Prospect" in 2011. Instead, Docx predicts a new era of authenticity and individuality -- not the shock of reaction, but an outgrowth of an Internet generation yearning for something real and cherished. In "The Guardian," writer Justin McGuirk suggests that postmodernism might just continue to recycle itself: "Retro has become a perpetual condition." So fashion, possibly, might be like a giant clothes dryer spinning '80s and '90s trends from which we could grab a little grunge or glitz to suit the mood as a break from futurism. Meanwhile, with its reactive ties to "turbo-capitalism," McGuirk says, postmodernism might export itself to emerging consumer centers such as Moscow, Shanghai and Dubai.
