Can you commercialise chaos?

Freja Newman wonders whether anything good can come out of the commercialisation of Punk.  

In Disney’s recent ‘Cruella’, audiences witness a story of fashion rebellion situated within the raucous London backdrop of the 1970s punk movement. And yet, the politicised aims of punk culture are washed out or even eliminated amidst a choreographed display of independence and eccentricity.

The film delves into the relationships and tragedies that transformed young Cruella, or rather Estella, into the notoriously villainous and glamourous Cruella De Vil (played by Emma Stone) we all know and fear. The film draws on Punk aesthetics as core to Cruella’s personality, showcased at its height as the villainess crashes a high end fashion show clinging to the side of a garbage truck. By dressing Cruella in a 40-foot-train dress crafted from newspaper clippings and other old, ‘trashed’ designs, Disney capitalises on the recyclability that dominates the punk style. 

Cruella’s 40-foot train dress made from newspaper clippings and recycled designs.

However, Punk is more than just a fashion movement and more than a trend in a Disney film. The punk movement was always inherently political, taking a stance against the mainstream through the promotion of an anarchic, anti-fashion, urban youth culture. By epitomising a D.I.Y attitude to fashion, punk style opposes the consumerism of 1970s postmodernism, objecting to traditional notions of family, status and gender. This mis-matched, recycled and often extreme style symbolised the testing of social boundaries: a rebellion against ‘the man’ in a society where the marginalised still struggled to have their voices heard.

Vivienne Westwood, a British punk designer coined as the ‘mother of punk’, was key to transporting this street movement into the design industry. Westwood and Malcolm McLaren opened the punk clothing store, ‘SEX’ and an innovative yet more expensive version of punk fashion emerged. 

Although many praised Westwood for her so-called genesis of punk fashion, the struggle that underpinned the punk movement was forgotten and the commercialisation of punk culture began. As Westwood and other designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen adopted elements of the punk genre, the street style was transported into haute couture. As a result, those that were previously involved in this D.I.Y movement became marginalised, no longer able to afford this alternative aesthetic. 

Punk was transformed into a symbol of wealth, rather than rebellion. 

This commercialisation is epitomised by Disney’s Cruella. Cruella is rebellious, wearing Punk-esque subversive designs and adopting unapologetic behaviour. But ultimately, the fact that Disney - a major media company reliant on capitalism - profits off this fashion style is contradictory to the punk movement itself.  

Whilst the irony is obvious, the disruption of trends and political dialogues through fashion continues. Alternative designers have maintained the mimetic pulse of punk, harnessing their authority and, albeit commercialised, platforms in the industry to mirror societal discourse and advocate for political change. 

Major fashion brands and high-end labels can have a positive impact too, of course. By popularising skirts for boys, Gaultier harnessed punk to subvert gender norms. McQueen used fashion to destabilise lingering taboos of disability in the industry as amputee model, Aimee Mullins, walked his spring/summer 1999 runway on carved wooden legs. Westwood especially channelled her creative platform for political agendas by countlessly transforming her catwalks into protest marches for environmental and human rights issues. 

This rebelliousness continues today, symbolised through a new class of elevated streetwear, relaxed shapes and trends of recyclability which have only grown amidst a social context of protests and political unrest. Designers such as Pyer Moss, Christian Siriano, Jeremy Scott and Prabal Gurung have dressed their runway models in graphic tees addressing issues from New York’s governor race to the over-policing of African American citizens. Just last month, in a Louis Vuitton Paris Fashion Week runway show, a woman crashed the runway in protest, criticising the ongoing environmental consequences of overconsumption in the fashion industry. 

Cruella similarly defies the societal expectations forced upon her since she was young.  In the first two minutes of the film, Stone narrates Estella’s countless fights and uniform violations that ultimately led to her primary school expulsion.

“It wasn’t [my mum] I was challenging, it was the world…how does the saying go? I am Woman, hear me roar. Well that wasn’t much of a thing back in 1964, but it was about to be.”

Yet whilst this new post-punk era, including fashion trends and Disney films, purports to reject the system, it remains a diluted definition of punk as a political phenomenon. While Cruella broadly contradicts punk’s anti-consumerist philosophy, it does so through the post-punk attitude of self-expression, rather than through collectivism or serious political claims. Punk culture would also caution audiences against the legitimacy of this growing trend of fashion activism, arguing that brands, especially those who have never been openly political before, are merely parading political messages to appeal to a new generation of buyers. The post-punk movement’s reliance on self-expression and individualism neglects the true spirit of punk and its united origins. 

While this new era of punk has broadened the audience of punk, there is an urgent need to remember the politicised history of punk culture as a fashion genre with serious social objectives. Yes, films and movements like Cruella provide greater visibility on the values of activism and self-expression. Yet, their profitization of this subversive culture only serves to conceal the laboured reality behind the punk movement. 

The rapid commercialisation of the chaos of alternative culture has softened punk sensibility. Although, one hopes that as long as fashion continues to respond or transform social discussions through shifting trends, remnants of the subversive punk culture will remain.