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Heavy metal fashion is the style of dress, body modification, make-up, hairstyle, and so on, taken on by some fans of heavy metal, or, as they are often called, metalheads. more...

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Origins

The clothing associated with heavy metal has its roots in the biker, and rocker subcultures. Heavy metal fashion includes elements such as leather jackets; hi-top basketball shoes (more common with old school thrash metallers); motorcycle boots (Harness boots, Engineer boots), work boots or combat boots; blue or black jeans, Flannell shirts or vests, and denim jackets or kutte vests, often adorned with badges, pins and patches. As with the bikers, there is a peculiar fascination with Germanic imagery, such as the Iron Cross.

Certain aspects of the image can be credited to any one band, but the band that has received the most credit for revolutionizing the look was Judas Priest, primarily with its singer, Rob Halford. He incorporated a biker look to his stage persona as early as 1978, to coincide with the promotion for the Hell Bent for Leather album, released in that same year; he then started appearing onstage on a roaring motor bike. Soon, the rest of the band followed with that look. It was not much longer when other bands began donning the look; Iron Maiden's original singer Paul Di'anno began wearing leather jackets and studded bracelets, Motörhead frequently wore bullet belts, and Saxon wore spandex. The original hippie look with satin shirts and bellbottom pants was out; some believed Halford's contribution was the true manifestation of the music, and became tradition to metalheads around the world. This look was popular primarily with followers of the NWOBHM movement in the early 80's, and sparked a revival for metal in this era. In recent years, this look became common with concert goers, whether it be someone with combat boots, stud belts and bracelets, bullet belts, spiked gauntlets, etc.

Other influences

The style and clothing of metal has absorbed elements from influences as diverse as the musical influences from which the genre has borrowed: modern metal fashion is an amalgamation of punk, goth (particularly for female metalheads), military fashion and even various historical fashions. It is from this linking of different sub-styles of clothing and music influences that one can sometimes determine a person's specific taste in music simply from overall appearance. However, such signs are not, in the majority of cases (we will discuss the peculiar and extreme fashions associated with black metal below) hard and fast rulings. This uncertainty is what makes the first key aspect of the metalheads' identity below so important.

The influence of modern military fashion on heavy metal fashion is significant with metalheads been known to wear modern military clothing like field jackets and articles of camouflage and olive drab green uniforms like shirts and/or trousers to wear alongside their black T-shirts and black combat boots. This influence could be due to the impact of the Vietnam War on popular culture in the United States during the 1970s and the 80's, with images of American Vietnam veterans wearing their old combat uniforms in civilian life, as well as the fresh memories of the conflict were still in the minds of many Americans. Some of the influences of modern military fashion and the Vietnam War can be seen by the fans and bands of thrash metal, with the members of thrash metal bands of the 1980s like Metallica, Destruction, and Megadeth wearing bullet belts around their waists on stage (It is likely that the thrash metal bands got the idea of wearing bullet belts from NWOBHM bands such as Motörhead, who have incorporated the bullet belt as part of their aesthetic since their inception, since the majority of thrash metal bands in the 1980s were influenced by Motörhead and the like).

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