Is the rock star dead?
If Daniel Lee’s latest Burberry show was any indicator then yes/no is the typically ambiguous answer.
While rock star chic has been dying a slow booze-addled death since day-glow socks blinded the eighties, the look has since been re-imagined more often than a Rolling Stones comeback tour
Sure, ripped denim and leather, stubble and a greasy main may have taken a hit with diesel and dogs on chains. but there’s no denying the persistent appeal of bohemian threads and laissez faire poses feeding a look that keeps on keeping on.
Tattoos and smoking remain (while swallows and Malboro’s are out for signatures and hydroponic) because new cowboy isn’t such a countercultural choice nowawadays either… you can wear denim and your Motley Crew t-shirt to work, after all.
And he’s no longer a demi-god in the unfractured mirror of an adoring fanbase. Rock star is one of us, he comments on social media and is in touch with the liberal causes.
So what HAS changed? New rocker has to push new envelopes to make a noise – in with a myriad of materials and textures, with hybrid and gender fluid agency.
Out with romantic mysogyny.
That’s not so say that the world has become puritanical in its morals. Even on the runway and in the generally conservative proto male domain, there’s enough flesh on display that trumps the f*** you, individualistic, superficiality of anaologue years.
But the old-school knew their place and their role, and were comfortable in the heterosexual bodies and risked all (too much) in riding that romantic dream.
The modern take has no such clear line on the horizon, and in an age of flux, where gender, politics, trends and even identity are not grounded in firm historical precedents, there’s a celebration of risking the self, even without be certain what that is.
