About:
Anarchy Sounds is an exploration into the relationship between fashion and music, more specifically between fashion brand Dr Martens and the punk rock genre. From a political stance to Dr Martens boots, punk rock created a new world for the working class hero and a society where people could finally be themselves and stand for something that they believed in without the pressure of trying to fit in with those surrounding them. Anarchy sounds explores the relationship between fashion, culture, society and music whilst maintaining the ripped and torn, DIY style of punk.
The punk rock era emerged in 1976 and brought with it a new distinctive genre of music with short fast paced songs which often contained anti-establishment lyrics. During the mid 1970s the youth of British culture were working class teens/young adults who had little to engage them or music that they could relate too. Punk introduced the idea of individuality and provided many people with the idea to form a punk rock band. ‘The Clash’ are one of the most influential punk bands of all time and brought all people from diverse backgrounds together through their music. The real essence of music is to bring people together, to unite them as one. I am investigating punk rock alongside one of the main fashion-wear associations with this genre, which is the wearing of Dr Martens boots, the most important and iconic boot being the 1460 boot. ‘Dr Martens’ were founded in Wollaston, England in 1901 by the Grigg’s family, but were then known as ‘Griggs’ Footwear’ and were firstly made for people to wear to work as durable and safe footwear to protect the working mans feet and to ensure comfort throughout the working day. Since then, the boot has become an icon for representing individuality and diversity due to its associations with punk. I wanted to explore this project as music has been a huge influence throughout my life, specifically the punk genre as this is my preferred music taste. The importance of this topic in my personal life was important as music has helped me in a number of ways throughout my life; lyrical content of powerful political songs inspire me to provoke my individuality and always be myself, in my day to day life and through what I wear and this is exactly what this work represents; me as a person.
My 15 photographs from this project are presented in a zine format, called: ‘Anarchy Sounds’, which has a main focal point of DIY as the ‘do it yourself’ idea was extremely important during the punk years as they would often make their own clothes by purchasing cheap clothing from charity shops, these were often preferred as punks were from a working class background which meant that most of them didn’t have masses of money to spend upon clothing. This led them to restyling the garments in their own individual way to make them ‘punk’, this included: spray painting, cutting, ripping, stitching patches, pinning and dying the clothing. This enabled punks to show which band were their favourite, which could be seen from patches stitched onto the backs of denim jackets and a variety of pin badges pinned upon the jacket, jeans and t-shirts. I chose these 15 photographs as I believe that they’re the most successful images I have taken throughout the project which all represent fashion, culture and identity.
