Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewellery, and body modifications of the punk counterculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited to the dressed-down look of North American hardcore. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including glam rock, skinheads, greasers, and mods have influenced punk fashion. Punk fashion has likewise influenced the styles of these groups, as well as those of popular culture. Many punks use clothing as a way of making a statement.
Punk fashion has long been commercialized, with well-established fashion designers like Zandra Rhodes, Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, Stephen Sprouse, and Anna Sui using punk elements in their production and the first punk-influenced fashion spreads appearing in mainstream fashion magazines as early as 1976. The early, pre-fame work of designer Vivienne Westwood helped pioneer the look of early British punk with her scene-establishing clothing shops Sex and Seditionaries in the mid-1970s, co-run with Malcolm McLaren who managed the Sex Pistols. Westwood was asked by then-partner McLaren to outfit the Sex Pistols, and Westwood's designs found a canvas on Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious. Her early work with Sex and the Sex Pistols helped to establish her as one of the most influential British designers of the 20th century.
Punk rock was an intentional rebuttal of the perceived excess and pretension found in mainstream music (or even mainstream culture as a whole), and early punk artists' fashion was defiantly anti-materialistic. Bands that had been at the forefront of the wave of rebellion, like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, had become 'respectable', having achieved worldwide renown and subsequent wealth. Arena rock groups of the early 70's, with long, drawn out songs rooted in the psychedelic movement, were viewed as out-of-touch by fans who were much less economically successful. A desire for music to reflect their values of dissatisfaction and alienation began to develop.