The 60’s was an era where Roots Rock and Hard Rock (or sub-culturally known as Metal) was very influential in the music scene. With bands such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Judas Priest and Jimmy Hendrix rising to fame, band T-shirts became a fashion fad that was limited to attending concerts to celebrate the spirit of fan-hood.
It was only when Bill Graham, the entrepreneurial mastermind behind the Winterland Productions, capitalized on the idea of selling these vintage, limited edition Rock band T-shirts to frenzied fans that something shifted within fashion. They were branded as a street-style statement where “merchandise” triumphed as more than just a concert-wearing item; they emerged as a fashion icon.
While Heavy Metal’s inspired grunge and Gothic brand merchandise was replaced with more feminine, slim-fitting, vibrant and bold colors in the early to late 2000’s, it wasn’t until early 2015 when the metal-inspired merchandise came back with a bang. The trend-setting apparel was not only seen as merch for music artists and their promotions, but also as high-end, street-styled fashion wear.
In 2016, the dark, gothic and grunge styled fashion-wear aesthetic caught the eye of well-known artists (such as Kanye West and Justin Bieber) who ironically had no connection with the ethos of the apparel’s aesthetics but indulged in it wholeheartedly.
Designer fashion lines such as Yeezus by Kanye West have taken the grunge-gothic apparel aesthetic up onto a new wave, especially after collaborations with high-end fashion designers such as Balmain. While the Rock merchandise has preserved a special place in the hearts of fans ever since the 70’s, it is in the prevailing times that we see an appreciation for the Root Rock, Hard Rock and Heavy Metal’s original aesthetics.
Rock Band t-shirts have evolved from being entirely masculine to attaining a distinctive uni-sexuality in the monochromic, baggy styled t-shirts. These t-shirts boast bold imprints of the artist’s name and signature record label and have become a non-binary fashion statement. They have bridged the gap between high and low fashion threads, and creating a juxtaposition of the en-vogue aesthetic: street-style.
The revival of the Rock band t-shirts has heeded the restoration of the Rock’n’Roll genre – a hit in the 60’s and 70’s – amongst the current generations with their keen interest in gothic-retro inspired aesthetics. But whether or not this trend remains as rampant in the future as it is in the present is an unresolved mystery.
It is no secret that the fashion industry deliberately introduces rapid changes, sometimes by combining elements of multiple different fashion trends into one for an invigorating effect. Based on this, this frenzy will most definitely trend until a new one is introduced.
So while the Rock Band t-shirt mania is still alive, why not just embrace it?