A new wave of fashion created in the spirit of punks, misfits, and anarchists now reigns supreme. Less about a textbook recreation of a past moment — and let's be honest, terms like 'grunge' and 'punk' are often used as catch-all clichés anyway — the current mood is more about a subversive state of mind and spans a wide range of looks and interpretations.
It's Anna Cleveland walking on tip toe down Comme des Garçons' aw16 Paris runway in March wearing a coat of pink, multi-layered armour. It's Gosha Rubchinskiy outfitting a tribe of models cast through Instagram in classic punk tropes that same season. And it's also Marc Jacobs kitting Missy Elliott and Cara Delevingne out in finger waves, enormous goth feathers and aggressively tall boots in his newest ad campaign.
The rebel, or contrarian, has always been a popular reference in fashion. But the fact that the love has notably spiked is not entirely surprising. London is in the midst of a year-long celebration of the 40th anniversary of punk, with a full line-up of city-wide events heating up for summer. Add to that the news the influential Afropunk festival is finally coming to England for the first time after successful runs in Paris and New York and you can see why we're now all about the radical, on the runway and off. Here, we track the rise of the new rebel (or should we call it Rebel 4.0?) from SS15 to now…
