Subculture and style

Lecture notes 

In this weeks lecture we have been learning about subcultures and their influence on fashion. 

Dick Hebdige Reading 

Blog Task

• Define what a subculture is - using at least one academic source.
​• Post visual examples of cultural capital (fashion, graphics … etc) for a subculture of your choice.

Definition of a Subculture 

Dick Hebdige states in 'Subculture: The Meaning of Style' (1979), "Subcultures represent 'noise' (as apposed to sound: interference in the orderly sequence from which leads from real events and phenomena to their representations in the media." Hebdige discusses the idea of subcultures as cultural "noise," which conveys interference with mass culture. This 'noise' suggests an obstacle which the dominant culture has failed to acknowledge, causing a significant cultural discourse. Therefore, subcultures are a break from the mainstream a way to go against the grain, often offending or unsettling those outside the group. However, those individuals who 'don't fit in' acquire a subcultural membership, giving them the opportunity to experiment with style, music and dispute gender norms. 

Hippies 

Hippies were one of the most powerful countercultures of the 20th Century. They started in the mid- 1960s in the Unites States as a youth subculture characterized by free love, utopian socialism, sexual revolution and psychedelic art and music. The movement peaked in the 1969 Summer of Love and subsided by the mid 70s. They were strongly against the Vietnam war and often took psychedelic drugs like LSD and mushrooms.