Bondage trousers, ripped clothing, dyed and spiked hair, fake leopard skin, safety pins, body piercing, dangling chains, Doc Marten boots - these are fashions that today's youth instantly recognize as ¨Punk.¨ Prior to the popular commercialization of this look, Punk actually materialized in the mid 1970s among destitute working-class juveniles who felt alienated by society and felt little hope for their futures.
This look was truly accessible to all ´disaffected youth´ in that Punk music, clothing and graphics were not technically difficult to produce. Handwritten fonts, graffiti, letters torn from other sources and typographical errors characterized the work of designer Jamie Reid who designed the Sex Pistols´ album cover for their single God Save the Queen (1977,) displaying the defaced head of Queen Elizabeth II. Entrepreneur Malcom Mclaren, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and graphic designer Malcolm Garrett also captured Punk's sense of deviance and insubordination.
Cultural sociologist Dick Hebdige perhaps described Punk design best as the ¨sartorial [clothing] equivalent of swearwords.¨