Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 11, 1993 TAG: 9302110265
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GAILE ROBINSON LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long
GOING GREAT GRUNGE
The basics are filthy hair, ravaged flannel shirts, stained Ts, leftover love beads, mismatched stripes and high-top tennis shoes or work boots so old and moldy they look as if they've been dredged from a swamp.Grunge is fashion's road kill, and it's cycling through the garment industry faster than Greg LeMond.
The style - or anti-style - rode to fame on the backs of Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, Seattle musicians whose sartorial lack of splendor was so noteworthy that "grunge" became the name of their music as well as their look.
As Nirvana's hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit" saturated the airwaves in the fall of 1991, teen-agers began showing their allegiance by adopting the Nirvana style: a knit stocking cap, a plaid flannel shirt tied around the waist and clunky untied boots or beat-up tennies.
Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum, the Minnesota band that has been around for a decade, claims his group originated grunge. "They've co-opted our fashion sense," he quipped recently in Time magazine.
The same claim could be made by millions of kids in America, there being nothing new about dressing from the bottom of the laundry bag. (Ask any parent.) But in fashion, like music, timing is everything.
Grunge is popular now because it is a radical departure from the slick styles of the late '80s. Anything that reeks of conspicuous consumption or high prices is out; low-priced, recycled, anti-style is in.
But in America, even taste-free dressing offers opportunities for profit.
Showing they were plugged into the Zeitgeist of the grunge scene, New York fashion designers Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui and Christian Francis Roth sent models clomping down the runways in untied combat boots, knit caps, mismatched stripes and extra shirts (albeit silk) tied around their waists. The unfashion, anti-establishment look became a fashion trend.
Examples:
Vogue magazine devotes 10 pages to it this month, using clothing by Banana Republic, Pendleton and J. Crew. The writers describe grunge as mixing "rough-and tumble work clothes with waifish thrift-shop finery," except the designer dresses shown only look secondhand. A $360 floral-print Ralph Lauren dress is topped by a $37 plaid shirt. A $860 Calvin Klein button-front dress is paired with a $98 J. Crew jacket and a $45 Banana Republic plaid shirt tied around the waist for verisimilitude.
That insouciant, unwashed-hair look on the models is achieved with liberal dollops of Sebastian's Molding Mud (also called Pate de Modelage; $15 for 6.5 ounces), another high-fashion tool for those attempting a low-life look.
The summer movie "Singles," a rose-colored look at the Seattle music scene starring Matt Dillon and Bridget Fonda, glosses over the grubbiness of grunge. Dillon's long locks are fluffy and trimmed. His leather jacket appears to be the real thing, not the cracked plastic so many true grungeophiles prefer. Fonda's Doc Martens are squeaky clean, her tights are holeless and her hair has the bounce and blunt cut of a shampoo spokesmodel.
First-with-the-trend stores on Melrose Avenue here have been restocking grunge basics. And two stores deeply committed to the grunge scene have opened here in the past month.
All of a sudden, the eeeeeiuuuu gross of grunge has been replaced with ohhhhhhh cute. Spruced-up grunge is ready for mass consumption.
Conveniently for mainstream retailers, the Northwest look had been bubbling up in fashion and home furnishings since David Lynch's television series "Twin Peaks" introduced the region to the masses in 1990. Anoraks, lumberjack shirts, hiking boots, pine furniture, Mission-style furniture, plaid upholstery and evergreen-motif table settings have been the coming wave.
The popularity of another TV show, "Northern Exposure," further entrenched the back-to-the-piney-woods trend. Northwest began to supplant Southwest: Out went howling coyotes, cowboy boots and Navajo blanket prints; in came moose, work boots and plaid flannel.
With a little artful styling, the plaid shirt that so many stores ordered for their Northwest promotion will fit the grunge look. The same flannel shirt and quilted anorak shown in the men's department as perfect presents for Dad, for example, become, presto-chango, the grunge rock look in the young men's department when the shirt is tied around the waist of a thermal underwear top.
And grunge is a very adaptable fashion trend. You can find it in thrift stores for a pittance. It can be had at Sears and worn into a state of grunge, or it can be bought brand new but look old and worn.
\ What is and isn't grunge\ Grunge:
Blue jeans shredded from actual wear and tear.
Faded flannel shirts pilled with fuzz balls.
Naugahyde or vinyl jackets, preferably with cracks.
Knit caps with moth holes.
Tights with runs.
Boots without a doctor's label.
T-shirts from defunct rock 'n' roll bands.
Filthy hair that hangs in greasy tendrils.
\ Grunge Not:
Blue jeans artfully sliced to reveal tattoo and aerobically firmed cheeks.
Flannel shirts so new they feel like a baby's blanket.
Real leather jackets.
Knit caps bearing messages or logos.
Doc Martens.
T-shirts bearing grunge-rock band names.
Squeaky-clean hair smeared with pate.