Celebrity Costumes: There is freedom in PUNK

A story of Punk. Once upon a time in Britain there was a movement that eventually turned the lives of Britain's youth around. A turn fated to happen, led by someone merely casting about for success in a country nearly buried in unemployed youth. It was in the 70s, and there came an intoxicating fever of silence to be later followed by blinding stripes of ecstasy. The Sex Pistols! At the time, considered garbage, a bunch of psychos, the meanest manics of the age...only little did we know. By the end of the decade people had learnt to embrace these outcasts, bring these psychos to some level of normality, appreciate their creativity. A novel sprout in the use of frayed jeans, Dr. Martens, bicker jackets and metal chains as a fashion statement. A fashion statement rather audacious, defining every bit of the rebellious minorities. Another rebellious fashion that punks used in their uprising age was the use of gay looks on anti-gay nations. Big hair, male make-up and hot-pants. ''Jeans so old the knees were tattered and frayed open, worn with traditional leather biker jackets. They had an identity, wild ones so down on their luck they couldn't afford new chlothes or hair-cuts'', say Phil Strongman, author of Pretty Vacant (A history of Punk). We'll always celebrate his life, Malcolm McLaren, the man who almost single-handedly puts this loose concept together for a solid culture which has proven greatly inter-generational. His collaboration with designer Vivienne Westwood and her schizophrenic designs led to our punk, the real Punk.