Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Crust punk fashion can be traced to Bristol in the United Kingdom, where in the late 1970s and early 1980s bands such as Disorder, Chaos UK, Lunatic Fringe and Amebix broke from the usual punk fashion confines and created a disheveled DIY look originating in squatting and poverty. Typical dress is black or camouflage trousers or shorts, torn band T-shirts and hoodies, skin-tight black jeans, black denim vests and jackets, bullet belts, and jewelry made from hemp or found objects — much of it covered in patches and metal studs, with dreadlocks a popular hairstyle.
Crust punk can be traced back to Bristol (UK). In the late 70's early 80's, Bristol bands like Disorder, Chaos UK, Lunatic Fringe, Amebix, broke from the usual punk fashion confines, creating a disheveled DIY look originating in squatting and poverty.
Typical crust punk fashion includes black or camouflage trousers or shorts (heavy work pants are popular for their durability), torn band T-shirts or hoodies, skin tight black jeans, vests and jackets (commonly black denim), bullet belts, jewelry made from hemp or found objects, and sometimes bum flaps. Many items of clothing are covered in patches and/or metal studs. Often the patches display a political message.
Clothing tends to be unsanitary by conventional standards, and dreadlocks are popular. Crust punks sometimes sew articles of clothing with found or cheaply bought materials, such as dental floss. Pants are sometimes held up with string, hemp, or vegan-friendly imitation leather.
The term 'crusties' can refer to two distinct, but not entirely separate, subcultural groups. Particularly in North America, but to some extent worldwide, the term is used to refer to crust punks. In the UK especially, particularly in the 1990s, the term was used to refer to people who are members of a subculture related to the New Age travellers movement.
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Customization in crust punk is dense and cumulative. Jackets, vests and trousers accumulate patches and metal studs over years of wear, and the patches often display a political message, so the garment becomes a record of the wearer's affiliations and beliefs. The bum flap — a panel of fabric, often patched or printed, hanging at the back of the trousers — works the same way: a traveling surface for artwork and statements, and one of the style's most recognizable details.
Heavy work pants are popular for their durability, and that preference explains the whole wardrobe. Clothing chosen for life in squats and on the road has to be repaired rather than replaced, which is why the sewing is visible, the materials are found or cheap, and conventional standards of cleanliness and neatness are rejected rather than merely missed. The unsanitary edge of the look is part of its refusal: crust dress announces that the wearer lives outside the arrangements — housing, employment, consumption — that ordinary dress codes assume.
In Bristol, UK, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, around bands such as Disorder, Chaos UK, Lunatic Fringe and Amebix. The disheveled DIY look originated in squatting and poverty.
By hand and by necessity: clothing is sewn from found or cheaply bought materials — sometimes stitched with dental floss — and pants may be held up with string, hemp or vegan-friendly imitation leather instead of a conventional belt.
It can refer to two distinct but overlapping groups: in North America especially, crust punks; and in the UK, particularly in the 1990s, members of a subculture related to the New Age travellers movement.