Subcultural fashion codes

Fashion is a language and the clothes are the words by which we tell our identity. It 's an ongoing process of innovation and imitation that turns the body into a map of meanings.

A subculture, according to sociologist Dick Hebdige, tends to differ from the rest of society especially through the way they dress, is a subversion of normality, metaphor of potential anarchy.

From punks to grungers, from mods to teddy boys, all subcultures codes have to be respected, a guarantee for their opposition to the traditional culture and ritual of appropriation of shared identity.

And if, as McCracken writes in his book Plenitude, "in the '50s you were or you were mainstream or James Dean. Or one or the other", in the world we live in influences and models are hiding in a kaleidoscope of possibilities.

The garments and the details that were clear indicators of belonging to a tribe, now are lost in a hybridization absolutely free, become intertextual, citation, but also self-referential. Bulimics are regurgitations of trends, mix and match. Have lost value and authenticity in favor of a more extreme spectacle that no longer serves to identify us as a group, but to celebrate our individuality.

But all is not lost. Just look at the men's fashion, the latest fashion weeks, to find traces of the return of the classic subcultures, those based on authenticity, because so much fragmentation renews in us the desire to be part of a group that defines us.

Brands like Hood by Air and its gender bending, Gosha Rubchinskiy with its young skaters and Nasir Mazhar's Londoners chola are proclaiming their return.

Each piece tells stories, says values, exhibiting the certificate of its authenticity. What will the next subculture? What are the codes to be respected? What next shared identity?