What Bands Influenced My Clothes

First up, the rocker-cowboy look. I can pinpoint this look to my favorite band, which was Traffic. They had this album and song called “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.” The song's writer, Jim Capaldi, was inspired by an actor with a rebel attitude, a guy who walked around in his cowboy boots and leather jacket. My logic was: the next best thing to being them is dressing like them. My Frye Boots, classic Campus style, were a form of tribute and a huge departure for me. I’d just transferred from a private girls’ school where we all had to wear uniforms and it was like being let out of the zoo—being able to choose your own clothes. I happily spent hours polishing those boots (instead of my dress-code oxfords).

Next? The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album and the marching band jackets that the band are wearing on the cover. In my thrift shopping when I visited my divorced dad in Greenwich Village, I found an excellent replica. Orange wool with blue lining and heavy gold trim around the neck and down the placket. All the little hook and eye clasps up the front that discouraged me from closing it and made me stand around at dances or parties, sweating underneath.

A later Beatles’ influence would be my glasses frames, which I got from a semi-retired optometrist (on Bromfield Street in Boston) who had drawers full of antique frames. Little black specs. When I held them up to the light, I saw that they were actually a dark translucent purple. I had a purple tint put into the lenses because “light hurt my eyes.” As I would learn (and to the frustration of my future husband), the fringe benefit was that at loft parties or rock clubs, cute guys would often stop and say, “Hey, cool glasses. Very John Lennon.”

Then there were those girl dance rock bands: Lene Lovich (“Lucky Number”), Cyndi Lauper (“Girls Just Want to Have Fun”), and early ungroomed Madonna ("Borderline" and "Lucky Star"). I didn’t really wear skirts until I found a yellow-pink-black oversized checked poufy one that any of these singers could have worn. I wore it with a black top and, because it was so short, black leggings or bike shorts instead of a slip. For bracelets, I wore a studded black leather band and lots of black rubber gaskets, à la Madonna. My boots were black Kenneth Cole lace-ups, which I wore out dancing and resoled and relaced and polished faithfully. After a visit to San Francisco, I dyed my hair black and cut it in short, punked-out spikes.

What comes after is the less exciting phase of the messy-rocker anti-fashion style of lyrical, heart wrenching noise bands: Sonic Youth or Patty Smith or the Pixies! Favorite t-shirts (mostly black in different fabrics) and jeans (mostly black) worn so often they frayed. A few leather jackets. And then came the long-term serious job and its subtle influence towards all things conservative. Or classic. Definitely no costume dressing. And fewer and fewer bands. A good point to drop this narrative, since it's lost its sense of drama!