Chemical engineering student (recently graduated) and researcher by day, 
Photo taken by NBC NYC nightlife (carlye wisel) at chictopia10 afterparty, more pics of NYFW HERE.
Hey everyone! As you guys may know, I love my chains/studs/leather and I work in the metal music industry on the side. As we all know, fashion is heavily influenced by rock and metal music... from the studs, chains, leather pants, rock n' roll sex hair to the sequins and heavy makeup. I have long been bothered by the obvious inspirations behind many runway collections and yet the general fashion crowd's lack of knowledge/care for the history behind it. Since I'm definitely not the person to give a lesson on metal music history, here's Steff Metal, someone who's actually knowledgeable (unlike me) about metal history to talk about it! For more of Steff's writing, please visit her site! -Diya
(Expires May 5th) Eighteenth t-shirt giveaway HERE."Diya – a fellow collector of studs, leather and all things metal – asked me to drop by and write a few words on how metal fashion evolved. Actually, she asked me months ago, but I had so much to say on the subject, I wrote about 5000 words – including a rant about appropriation of subcultural identity by the mainstream – and I’ve been struggling to whittle it down to something readable.Heavy Metal: aggressive music, long hair flying, studs, leather, and band shirts. Loud, proud and overwhelmingly masculine. Metal fashion is so distinctive even the most uneducated of hipsters can point out a metalhead from a mile away, but how did our unique style originate?HalfordHalfordLike so much in heavy metal, our ubiquitous fashion sense began with Judas Priest. Rob Halford, the iconic front man of Priest, composed his studded leather stage outfits from items he picked up at S&M shops – most notably Mr S. As Priest’s popularity – and the popularity of metal in general – grew, bands and fans alike adopted Halford’s style, and the studs and leather aesthetic began to be associated with the genre.By the time Halford came out as gay, and the metal journalists slapped their foreheads and cursed themselves for not noticing earlier, his fetish-studs-and-leather look was here to stay.During the eighties, metal began to split off into sub-genres, each scene incorporating different totems and aesthetics into their dress code. In America, death and thrash metallers wrote songs about war, gore and death. To accompany their music, they wore belts made of bullet shells and t-shirts showing scenes from B-grade horror films. This was around the time punk exploded across the globe, and their DIY working-class aesthetic bore a striking resemblance to metal. While metal remained very much underground, punk became almost mainstream, and designers drew much early inspiration from punk’s confrontational couture.Thrash metallers DestructionJohnny Rotten in Vivienne Westwood “Destroy” shirt.Meanwhile, in Europe, the emerging satanic black metal scene incorporated pagan imagery – Thor’s hammers, runic writing and pre-christian deities – into their album art and stage outfits, and gave rise to their own unique aesthetic. Black Metal became known for ridiculously posed photographs of corpse-painted kids in homemade leather gauntlets and inverted crosses waving battleaxes at each other.In Germany, power metallers gave a metal “edge” to medieval and gothic garb, and the corset – a garment usually reserved for the gothic subculture – found its way into the wardrobe of every discerning metal lass. Dragons, knights and warriors featured prominently as part of the power metal aesthetic, bringing to metal a unique fan base of ex-Goths, medieval scholars and Lord of the Rings geeks.NazgulSatyricon, from their Nemesis Divinia albumAs for glam metal … I’m not discussing it. We’re still trying to forget.In the nineties, Nu metal introduced the metal style to the next generation. The nu metal style fuses metal riffs and fashion with American youth culture – skateboarding, graffiti art, hip hop, and punk rock. Combine nu metal’s success with the influx of European catwalk trends into America (many – like Alexander McQueen - drawing inspiration from the same places as metal musicians) and we see the widespread acceptance of spikes, leather, lace and studs into mainstream fashion.So why, of all the aesthetic choices available, did studs and leather become essential stalwarts of the metal wardrobe? The reasons are myriad. First, they hearken back to metal’s roots as working class music of an industrial world. Studs and rivets are used to hold sheets of metal together when constructing large industrial projects. Spikes are reminiscent of nails and gauge pins. Leather makes saddles, tool belts, work gloves, work boots and flaps for various mechanical valves.It’s these elements that first drew another of metal’s influences – the biker subculture – to adopt studs, spikes and leather. Worn together by burly men astride wide, industrial bikes, it’s easy to see how the two subcultures embrace this aesthetic as the ultimate “tough guy” look:BikerManowar on their bikesMetal – like the gothic subculture – takes fashion cues from history. While Goths find inspiration from Victorian mourning attire and Lord Byron’s poetry, Heavy Metal lusts after military uniforms and medieval torture devices. It could be said the wearing of spikes by metalheads represents a physical manifestation of the “torture” many parents claim their kids inflict upon them by playing heavy metal. One of metal’s most longstanding acts – Britain’s Iron Maiden – even named their band after a spiked medieval torture device.Outfits made from studs and leather display metal’s fascination with pre-Christian, so-called “barbarian” cultures: The Vikings, the Celts and the Romans used leather and metal rivets to construct many of their garments.I could go on and on and on (and I did!) but I would much rather hear from you. If you wear studs, spikes and leather, why? What do wearing these items mean to you? How do you incorporate “metal” into your wardrobe? And where do you buy your favorite studded, spiked and leather pieces?- Steff "
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