Alternative Fashion - Common Influences

Common Influences

Modern individual alternative fashion genres, and their wearers, may have homogenized or diverse influences that vary from group to group and person to person but some basic similarities do exist across the scope of alt fashion. Some prominent examples of influences, regardless of genre or label, are:

• vintage and retro fashion trends that have fallen out of favor with the general population (e.g.: Pin-up girl, Rockabilly, New Romanticism, Victorian fashion, etc.)which are revived or incorporated by a new generation

• dress styles, traditional and modern, from other cultures (such as Japanese street fashion)
• various forms of visual and performance art, including painting, sculpture, film and television
• notable personalities - authors, models, musicians, actors, etc.
• personal tastes and aesthetics
• personal attitudes towards concepts such as individuality, consumerism, social constructs on behavior, self-expression, and/or disenfanchisement with what is viewed as "normal" society
• considerations of availability and utilitarianism

Like many other aspects of alternative culture, alt fashion is often heavily influenced by music and the dress style of individual bands or musicians. While the qualities of individuality and open-mindedness are associated with alternative fashion, levels of conformity within subcultures, judgemental behaviors and expressions of feelings of superiority exist within certain alternative fashion communities just as they exist in aspects of mainstream fashion and culture. Pressure to 'fit in,' even just within a small niche community, may influence personal style.