By Leigh Wingfeld<\/p>\n
I consider myself alternative, I think most people who know me would too. You may have an image of what this alternative may look like; maybe you\u2019re picturing a person with a long black dress and black hair, or you could be picturing someone dressed in a bright sparkly suit. Alternative, while commonly used to describe the way someone presents visually, is as much about the lifestyle as it is the looks. Alternative Sub-Cultures are exactly what the name suggests, cultural beliefs, lifestyles and practices that are deviant from the mainstream culture. In order to be able to identify oneself as part of a culture, they need to embody the beliefs and experiences of being in that culture. This is where the concern lies, in the disconnect between the value and the fashion of alternative cultures.
\nIt is generally considered poor practice to wear the cultural clothing of a culture oneself doesn\u2019t belong too, however this is normalized in terms of alternative political sub-cultures. This may be partially due to the inclusionary practices of most political sub-cultures, if one believes in the values of the culture, they are a part of the culture. This inclusivity has been mistaken for all-inclusivity, with many people presenting themselves as alternative without embodying the sub-cultural values. To wear a culture’s clothes, you must understand the cultural value of those clothes. To understand the value of the clothes, you must abide by the same values. Terms rooted in alternative political based sub-culture, such as goth, punk, and emo, have become so detached from their roots that the terms function as aesthetics and not sub-cultures.
\nAn aesthetic is defined by Oxford Language as \u201ca set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement.\u201d Principles are not the same as values. The goth sub-culture holds values of intersectionality, sustainability and equality. The goth aesthetic is guided by the principle that one needs to dress in black clothing. The aestheticification of sub-cultures has diminished spaces that once were reflective of sub-cultural values. Go to almost any fast-fashion brands website and you will find items labeled as alternative clothing, when the means by which these items are produced is the antithesis to the values of the same community that is supposedly buying this clothing. Yet, these items continue to be produced and consumed as individuals seek to procure the alternative aesthetic without the alternative values. To practice something as an aesthetic and to practice something as a culture are two very different things. One does not have to procure the goth aesthetic to be goth, one must simply hold the values of the goth sub-culture. To be alternative is to be part of a community, not to be another consumer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Leigh Wingfeld I consider myself alternative, I think most people who know me would too. You may have an image of what this alternative may look like; maybe you\u2019re picturing a person with a long black dress and black hair, or you could be picturing someone dressed in a bright sparkly suit. Alternative, while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9525,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9524\/revisions\/9525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}