Punk Icons

Obviously there were a lot of punk icons in the 1970/1980s, for example, The Sex Pistols, The Clash & The Ramones...

...Who had the historical punk hair look of spikes and slightly messy looking hair. They did this as a sign of rebellion towards the higher authorities and also their parents. Punk was all about standing up for yourself and showing that to anyone you could, as you could probably guess, it was more of the youth that joined in on this epidemic.

I've been looking up on the internet what punks all about, and here are some of the interesting quotes that I found about it;

'The popularity of punk was, in effect, due to the fact that it made ugliness beautiful'  - Malcom McLaren

'Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical styles' - David Byrne

'I come from the home-grown punk ethic, where it doesn't matter if you can't play a note, it's about how you communicate' - Siobhan Fahey

Hiebert, P. and Hiebert, P. (2010). What Is Punk? 25 Definitions From People Who Should Know. [online] Flavorwire. Available at: http://flavorwire.com/99393/what-is-punk-25-definitions-from-people-who-should-know [Accessed 21 Nov. 2015].

You can see just from these three selected quotes, that the music was not at all the main thing. It was about how you looked, how you acted and, like Malcom McLaren says, it's about taking something ugly, and finding the beauty in it. I really like that quote because I think it says a lot about this era at the time along with their styles. I highly doubt anyone would go as far to say that the hairstyles, clothes and make-up they wore in the punk era were nice, but they were extremely creative and pushed the boundaries! Let's take a look at a few of these amazing hairstyle creations of punk.

The Mohawk, was the true hairstyle of the punk movement. The wearer would shave his or her head except for a strip in the middle, for forehead to neck. Some people would let their hair grow to incredible lengths for the mohawk, and they would cement it straight up with any number of household liquids and products they could find. This would include such things as, eggs, glue, hairspray, and gel. They would try to get anything to spike up that mohawk!

Obviously with punk being about doing it yourself and not following the crowd, there were soon new variations of the mohawk. These included;

The Reverse Mohawk - Hair is shaved in the middle of the head opposed to the sides

The Chelseahawk - Mohawk with a fringe

The Deathhawk - Instead of sleek hair, it's teased

Another historical hairstyle from the punk era were the Liberty Spikes, they were like the Mohawk's brother in relation to hairstyles. This hairstyle was about consistency and care. Although it was meant to be about not giving a care in the world, a lot of precision and time goes into making Liberty Spikes. These are spikes that are all over the head, similar to the Mohawk, but all over. I've found from looking around online that these spikes would be evenly spaced out and with the same base width to make them all the same.

Over the years, people have lost interest in punk and moved onto new trends. However, there are some modern day versions of punk still in the music industry today, obviously they've changed slightly now from when they were first around about its' still got a modern twist of the classic punk look. For example, we can still see punk hairstyles worn by the likes of Green Day & Good Charlotte, both of which are music artists.

Here is a Good Charlotte music video still and you can see just how amazing the hairstyles are. They've all gone for classic punk looks, some with modern variations. You have the small Liberty Spikes on the far left, then a subtle Mohawk, then taking it very classical with large Liberty Spikes, and finish on the far right with a short wet, scruffy look. This would be slick down on the front or the fringe, then spiked and messy at the back.

Here are the band Green Day for a photoshoot. As you can see through their hairstyles, clothing and make-up, they are a modern punk band. On the far right, we have a neat and tamed classic mohawk, in the middle, you can see a scruffy and messy long hairstyles, and on the far left, you can slightly make out the correlation of spikes in the hair, however its not as noticeable as the hair is short.

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