Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Glam punk fashion, pioneered by bands such as the New York Dolls in the early 1970s, mixes punk's aggression with glam rock's theatre: glitter, androgynous make-up, brightly dyed hair, drainpipe jeans, bright colors such as electric blue, elements of leather fetish wear, and unusual costumes in leopard print, spandex or satin shirts. Leftover baroque pop clothing such as ruffled pirate shirts and brocade was also worn, together with platform boots, tartan, kipper ties and metallic silver clothing such as jumpsuits. Glam punk has been seen as a backlash to the hippie folk music sensibilities of the 1960s.
Contemporary to the garage bands of the early 1970s, glam punk fashion, pioneered by bands like the New York Dolls , includes glitter, androgynous make-up, brightly dyed hair, drainpipe jeans, bright colors like electric blue, elements of leather fetish wear, and unusual costumes like leopard print, spandex, or satin shirts.
Leftover baroque pop clothing like ruffled pirate shirts or brocade were also worn, together with more typical glam rock fashions like platform boots, tartan, kipper ties, and metallic silver clothing like jumpsuits.
Glam punk has been seen as a backlash to the hippie folk music sensibilities of the 1960s. Lucy O'Brien defines the The New York Dolls style as combining "Rolling Stones raunch with heavy borrowings from the girl group era". The term has been used to describe later bands who combined glam aesthetics with punk music.
Learn more about various punk fashion styles from the main page of this section.
We wonder if Glam Punk ladies would enjoy
chromatic metallic shoes.
Glam punk's trick is to wear glamour badly on purpose. The fabrics and finishes — satin, spandex, leopard print, metallic silver — come from glam rock and pop costume, but the attitude is punk: thrifted, mixed without respect for period or taste, and dyed as bright as the hair above it. The baroque leftovers, ruffled pirate shirts and brocade, sit beside tartan and kipper ties in the same outfit because the style treats all of pop history as a dressing-up box rather than a canon.
The term glam punk has been used since for later bands who combined glam aesthetics with punk music, which makes it one of the more durable punk style labels: it names a method — glamour plus aggression — rather than a single moment. Its influence runs quietly through later punk dress whenever bright color, makeup and costume appear inside a style that is otherwise built on jeans, leather and boots.
As combining “Rolling Stones raunch with heavy borrowings from the girl group era” — the definition Lucy O'Brien gives for the style the New York Dolls pioneered.
Glitter and androgynous make-up, brightly dyed hair, drainpipe jeans, electric blue and other bright colors, leopard print, spandex and satin shirts, ruffled pirate shirts and brocade, platform boots, tartan, kipper ties and metallic silver jumpsuits.
The hippie folk music sensibilities of the 1960s. Where hippie dress was earthy and anti-theatrical, glam punk was artificial, bright and deliberately costumed.