Riot Grrrl fashion shaped and influenced young women’s fashion from the 1990s to the present day. Although there was no “uniform” in this movement, certain trends and tendencies carried over from the subculture to the mainstream. This appropriation failed to whitewash clothing politics, and its influence continues unabated today.
To understand this movement, you need to understand something of its predecessors. The punk movement had some feminine and feminist voices, including the Mo-Dettes, Blondie, Lydia Lunch, and the Runaways. However, the movement was always male-centered, and most of the women were groupies (like the much-maligned Nancy Spungen) or businesswomen (like Anya Phillips).
Punk musics tended to be lead singers, like Debbie Harry and Poly Styrene. This led to the perception that girls could not play music and should act primarily as sexual symbols. In the 1990s, young women were fed up with this and wanted to create their own music.
The movement grew out of the college music scene of Olympia, Washington, as well as other areas of the Pacific Northwest. The antecedents of the movement appeared in San Francisco, Vancouver and other cities. Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland inspired much of the aesthetics of the movement, although she was never directly involved.
The term was coined by Jen Smith, an early member of the Bratmobile band, when she wrote “This summer is going to be a girlie mutiny” to lead singer Allison Wolfe. Later, the Bratmobile members collaborated with Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail to create a zine called Riot Grrrl. The name stuck.
The Riot Grrrl Philosophy
The Riot Grrrl Manifesto emphasized female solidarity, as well as networking with other women and girls to create a women-centered scene. Early magazines such as “Girl Germs” and “Bikini Kill” dealt with traditionally feminist issues, such as domestic violence, rape, and male dominance.
Girl Germs magazine, 1990s.
Unsurprisingly, for a movement started by people in their twenties, the riot grrrl philosophy was enthusiastic and a bit sloppy. In early fanzines, writers like Kathleen Hanna and Allison Wolfe spoke out against racism, sexism, and other -isms, with great outrage, if not consistency. Many articles deal with personal experiences of sexism, as well as explaining what feminism meant to the author.
Part of the movement was against the “anti-selling” atmosphere, purer and colder than you, of punk, and a somewhat similar atmosphere in traditional academic feminism. Although members of the movement claim that there was no set of rules, I cannot find evidence of politically conservative or libertarian gangs in this movement. Rather than rebelling against academic feminism, most members of the movement seemed to accept its dogma, even if the individuals differed on the details or in private.
This philosophy was later adopted by the Spice Girls and diluted in “Girl Power!”, A phrase that occasionally appeared (in one form or another) in Riot Grrrl magazines.
Revolution Grrrl Style now!
Many feminists, then as now, want to be judged on their personality, not their appearance. This does not mean that they walked naked or that they neglected to express themselves. In fact, many third wave feminists rebelled against this aspect of second wave feminism, where looking sexy was seen as a crime. Instead, third wave feminists recognized that wardrobe self-expression, like all other forms of self-expression, could be a powerful political weapon.
What did Revolution Grrrl Style Now! It seems? Well, it seemed like a lot of things. Unlike punks or hippies, the riot grrrls appropriated many elements from other subcultures to create their own unique look. Like I said before, there was no actual uniform. Elements of punk, no wave, post-punk, heavy metal, grunge, kinderwhore, and butch lesbian fashion entered these outfits.
Makeup, if worn, often drew attention to the lips, through a bright red or pink lipstick. Heavy makeup was out of date in the early 90s; Most alt rockers, even goth rockers, opted for a more natural, low-maintenance aesthetic.
Kathleen Hanna, lead singer of Bikini Kill, sometimes wore “slutty” clothes, like Catholic schoolgirl skirts, while writing words like “SLUT” and “INCEST” on her body. According to Hanna, this was to drain the words of their negative connotations, as well as to get ahead of the thoughts of the young people looking at the photos.
Grunge music arose from the same or overlapping scenes in the Pacific Northwest. Some women wore the flannel shirts that were all the rage at the time and the standard uniform for alternative musicians of the nineties: a big black band t-shirt, black pants, and long hair.
Although the creators of kinderwhore fashion weren’t part of the movement (especially Courtney Love, who hated it), it did influence some members. The first Bikini Kill videos show the bassist in a vintage doll dress, complete with a Peter Pan necklace. The main difference, from what I can tell, was that riot grrrl was political, while kinderwhore was more of an art movement and aesthetic.
Some young women deliberately wore immature outfits as a way to reclaim their childhood from sexual abuse or dysfunctional family dynamics.
This article originally appeared in the Enjoy Your Style subcultural section.