Music and fashion: How they've always gone hand in hand

‘Fashion and music – music and fashion – are the expressions of the same needs,’ said fashion designer and musical impresario Malcom McLaren, a man inextricably tied up in both fields. From the explosion of pop music in the 1950s to the present day, the two industries have found themselves encoded into the DNA of popular culture. If you look back through the last 70 years, you can see the moments when music and fashion were one and the same: jazz-loving, beret-wearing beatniks; be-suited mods brawling with leather-and-boots rockers; the eye-liner and frills of the New Romantics; MTV’s coverage of the thrift-store wear grunge movement.
It is hard to pinpoint exactly where the two became so closely intertwined. An argument could be made for the jazz and swing singers who popularised sharp suits during the early 1940s and 50s, but you could also say that a suit was the standard uniform for all entertainers in that era. It wasn’t until the emergence of Elvis Presley that there was someone who shifted the status quo and brought something different to the table. Here was a singer who combined outlandish shirts and tight-cut trousers to create a unique style on his way to global mega-stardom. The youth of the day finally had someone they could follow, and their parents were outraged.



© Paul Townsend - licence

Over time, the music and musicians became part of a wider youth movement. The Mod subculture of the 1960s is probably the most iconic example of a generation that created their own lifestyle that combined music and fashion. Favouring well-tailored suits and motor scooters, the Mod’s enjoyed music that came in a variety of genres, including jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, ska, and reggae. The movement was at the heart of ‘Swinging London’, a period where the city became the global capital of fashion, music, and pop culture. The subculture spawned bands like The Who and The Small Faces, who went on to conquer the world with their hit albums, while you can still find nods to the era’s fashion stylings today, such as the parkas at Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green or the pique polo shirts at Fat Buddha.
Each subculture that has emerged has needed music and fashion to separate them from everyone else. Fashion within cultural movements has often been influenced by the need for a uniform. This was a certain look that allowed you to dress in the same way as others in your tribe, but differently to the rest of society. Music has served a similar purpose, with every movement needing an exclusive soundtrack. Era-defining bands have often emerged from the scene itself: The Sex Pistols from punk, The Cure from goth-rock, and Nirvana from grunge to name a few. When the mainstream media pays attention to the fashion and music of a particular subculture, they can grow to the point of being a global trend. This explosion in popularity can be viewed as either a positive or negative event, depending on your viewpoint, but it often becomes the catalyst for a new subculture to emerge and for the cycle to start again.


© Julio Zeppelin - licence

Today, the links between music and fashion are so intricate that it is impossible to separate them. The rise of the internet and social media has seen popstars become almost inseparable from the fashion brands they wear or represent. For example, a popstar like Taylor Swift or Katy Perry can wear a particular outfit or brand on stage, which is then captured in a photo or video and shared globally within minutes. This endorsement influences their fans, who rush to get their hands on the same clothes, boosting sales for the fashion label. The lines are consistently being blurred between music and fashion, especially within the realms of marketing fashion products. The constant product placement within music videos and promotional clips often makes it difficult to discern whether you are watching a music video or a product advertisement featuring a particular musician.


© Eva Rinaldi - licence

Other artists have even gone so far as to launch their own clothing labels, some to such a degree of success that it has transcended their music career and turned them into an all-encompassing brand, rather than just a singer or songwriter. Take a look at this list from High Snobiety, which counts down the most successful musician-designers in the world.
Whatever your opinion on the current state of the relationship between music and fashion, there is no denying that they are now more closely tied than ever before, sometimes to the point of being the very same thing. What the future holds and where this relationship goes next is anyone’s guess.

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