Heavy Metal Fashion - Heavy Metal Clothing and Heavy Metal Style

Heavy metal fashion: As the main emblem of the heavy metal subculture, music occupies a privileged place in it. But the subculture is not limited to music. It also has non-musical elements that form a particular style, fashion, giving the main audience (metalheads) relative independence and initiative towards other participants in the metal deal. Through the components of his style, the mainstream audience becomes important in defining what metal is. The term "style" refers to the range of ways in which the body is displayed, animated, and chemically treated.

Fashion and styles of heavy metal

The fashion elements of heavy metal mainly come from two youth cultures of the late 1960s: motorcycle culture (bikers in the UK and "outlaw" gangs such as the Hells Angels in the US) and hippies. Some influence from modern military dress and the Vietnam War can be seen in thrash metal fans and bands, with members of 1980s thrash metal bands such as Metallica, Destruction and Megadeth wearing bullet belts around their waists on stage (quite likely that thrash metal bands got the idea of ​​wearing bulletproof belts from British New Wave heavy metal bands such as Motörhead who incorporated the bulletproof belt as part of their aesthetic from the start as many thrash metal bands in the 1980s were influenced by motorhead).

Style components perform social, socio-psychological and symbolic functions. Style distinguishes insiders from outsiders by allowing people to create identities. By providing forms for expressing attitudes, values, and norms, style takes on the character of a readable text.

Those elements of style that are revealed as visual decorations of the body are referred to as heavy metal fashion. The fashion for heavy metal, to a greater extent than in other youth subcultures, is men's fashion. While not all female members of the subculture share the same styles as males, all metal styles are embodied in a masculine ideology. The following discussion of metal style requires a special, apparently secondary discussion of women's style.

Heavy metal clothing and heavy metal style

Heavy metal fashion includes the metallic form of blue jeans, black T-shirts, boots, and black leather or denim jackets. Boots were a heavy metal subculture that was joined around 1980 by athletic shoes as well as baseball caps with band logos. T-shirts are usually emblazoned with logos or other visuals of favorite metal bands. The shirts are worn with pride, and metal fans don't hesitate to make brief remarks or give thumbs ups to other people wearing T-shirts depicting the band the viewer admires. Other advertising on shirts is quite acceptable in heavy metal fashion and for metal audiences, especially Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Two types of jackets are allowed in the heavy metal style and are worn by members of the metal subculture. The black leather motorcycle jacket is best known to the general public. It is mainly made of thick leather and has several large chrome zippers, including pockets and sleeves. The denim jacket, a hippie heritage, is more common than the black leather jacket. These jackets are not only much cheaper than leather jackets, but also light enough for summer wear. Both types of jackets provide space for lots of patches, buttons, pins and DIY artwork. The jackets are sewn with patches (embroidered logos of the bands). They range in size from three inches to over a foot in length. Buttons with a diameter of one to three inches carry logos or play the album art of your favorite bands; a person rarely wears only one. Notable drawings include skulls, skeletons, snakes, dragons and daggers.

Studded leather mittens and bracelets are also part of the heavy metal fashion. Other pieces of jewelry adorning some metal fans include earrings and necklaces, usually with dangling crosses, although men with earrings are a notable minority. Closely related to pins and rings, but more colorful are tattoos, which are key trademarks of heavy metal fashion. Usually the tattoo is on the arm, as T-shirts allow it to be seen there.

From the very beginning, the metallic hairstyle for men consisted of one simple feature: it is very long. Long hair is the most important distinguishing feature of heavy metal fashion. Long hair is important because it is impossible to hide it. This is the only feature that excludes the weekend warriors, those part-time heavy metal bands. Long hair becomes a real sign of commitment to heavy metal and the fashion for heavy metal, readily accepted by the cross. It defines the boundaries of the metal subculture.

Gestures as part of the fashion for heavy metal

Dancing is foreign to heavy metal, but heavy metal music is based on a strong, regular rhythm that causes the body to move. The solution to the body movement problem was to create a gestural response code to music that could be shared.

One of the two main gestures is a movement of the hand, usually in gratitude, but also used to keep the rhythm.

Another basic gesture, called head shaking, involves tilting the head down with a gentler upward movement. This move is typical enough for metal to serve metonymically as a designation for a metal audience: headbangers. Done correctly and with long flowing hair, the push down moves the hair so that it falls around the face when the person is facing the floor. Upthrust moves him gently down his back.

The gait of metal fans is less characteristic than their gestures. This is not the gait of swift-footed athletes or the graceful gait of would-be dancers. The term "clumsy" may be a suitable adjective for a weightlifting style of walking. It reflects the masculinity of the culture.

Body type as part of the fashion for heavy metal

The metal subculture also promotes the ideal of a particular body type, even if that type is not achieved by most members of the subculture. Building muscle mass is a hobby of many metal lovers; their concentration on the hands creates an image of an idealized worker, similar to the one depicted in the paintings of socialist realism of the Stalin era. The typical metal fan's body type is mesomorphic, as opposed to the ectomorphic body type found in punk and hardcore subcultures.

Beer as the substance of choice in the heavy metal subculture

Metalheads prefer beer and marijuana, the former is taken from bikers, and the letter is borrowed from hippies. Drinking large amounts of beer remains a constant feature of the heavy metal subculture. In Britain, metal festivals are notorious for piss-filled containers thrown at aa, but this is not appreciated. Afraid of flying bottles, or at least worried about insurance

costs, American establishments only serve paper or plastic containers.