Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Ska punk fans typically dress in a style that mixes typical ska- and 2 Tone-related fashions with various types of punk fashion, including street punk, pop punk, skate punk and hardcore punk. Braces are popular, as are Harrington jackets with Royal Stewart tartan lining, thin ties, Doc Martens, mohair suits, pork pie hats, tonik suits (especially in the early years of the 1980s ska revival), tank tops, Ben Sherman and Fred Perry polo shirts, hoodies and checkerboard patterns. Hair is cropped very short, in imitation of hardcore punk bands and early 1960s rude boys.
Ska punk fans typically dress in a style that mixes typical ska- or 2 Tone-related fashions, with various types of punk fashions, including street punk, pop punk, skate punk or hardcore punk. Braces are popular, as are Harrington jackets with Royal Stewart tartan lining, thin ties, Doc Martens, mohair suits, pork pie hats, tonik suits (especially in the early years of the 1980s ska revival), tank tops, Ben Sherman or Fred Perry polo shirts, hoodies, and checkerboard patterns. Hair is cropped very short in imitation of hardcore punk bands and early 1960s rude boys.
Ska-punk is a fusion music genre that combines ska and punk rock. It achieved its highest level of commercial success in the United States in the late 1990s. Ska-core (sometimes spelled skacore) is a subgenre of ska punk, blending ska with hardcore punk. The more punk-influenced style of ska-punk often features faster tempos, guitar distortion, onbeat punk rock-style interludes (usually the chorus), and punk-style vocals. The more ska-influenced style features a more developed instrumentation and a cleaner vocal and musical sound.
Ska and punk rock were first combined in the 2 Tone movement of late-1970s England, which featured bands such as The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat and Madness. The fusion of the two music genres, however, became most prevalent in the 1980s, during the third wave of ska
One of the first appearances of the term ska-core was in the title of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones 1993 album Ska-Core, the Devil, and More.
Learn more about various punk fashion
styles from the main page of this section.
Ska punk is where punk dress gets tailored. The mohair and tonik suits, the pork pie hat, the thin tie and the polo shirts from Ben Sherman and Fred Perry come from the rude boy tradition that 2 Tone revived, and they keep their neatness even inside a punk mix: the Harrington jacket shows its Royal Stewart tartan lining, the braces are worn as a visible part of the outfit, and the checkerboard pattern — 2 Tone's graphic signature — runs across clothing and artwork alike. Against that sharpness, the punk contributions (hoodies, Doc Martens, cropped hair) read as deliberate roughness rather than carelessness.
Ska-punk is a fusion genre combining ska and punk rock, and it achieved its highest level of commercial success in the United States in the late 1990s, during and after the third wave of ska that had made the fusion most prevalent in the 1980s. The fashion traveled with the music: American ska punk audiences adopted the checkerboard, the braces and the pork pie hat alongside local punk dress, which is why the style is documented as a mix — the proportions of ska to punk vary by city, by band and by decade, but the ingredient list stays remarkably stable.
Ska-core (sometimes spelled skacore) is a subgenre of ska punk blending ska with hardcore punk. One of the first appearances of the term was in the title of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones' 1993 album Ska-Core, the Devil, and More.
In the 2 Tone movement of late-1970s England, which featured bands such as The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat and Madness. The fusion became most prevalent in the 1980s, during the third wave of ska.
The more punk-influenced style features faster tempos, guitar distortion, onbeat punk-style interludes, usually the chorus, and punk-style vocals. The more ska-influenced style has more developed instrumentation and a cleaner vocal and musical sound.