This is my paper on rave fashion. Another term for it is "The freaky stuff people wear to get noticed at clubs." I think the root of it goes back to the insane Christian football fans screaming for attention with their giant rainbow afro wigs. Kids at raves don't usually have quite as deep a message to give out as "John 3:16," but they use the same technique to get people to look at them. That technique, of course, is to dress like a super villain and cover the body with bright colors and glitter. Pictured to the right is Afro Wig Jesus Android X6-Alpha. He has a villainous plotting look because he's about to start a soul cleansing crowd wave.

Yay, Jesus!

To the left is a picture taken from a rave in Arizona. The featured spotlight dancers have chosen to go with halter tops and vinyl pants. Let me state the obvious of the practicality of vinyl pants in a claustrophobic smoke filled basement: it gets sweaty. I once made the mistake of wearing vinyl to a rave and I lost 72 pounds. But they're shiny, and they have cool highlights when the lasers and strobes hit you. Discomfort and dehydration are small prices to pay for aesthetics. The girls in the picture do have the right idea with the tops, though. Not only are they more comfortable, they're sexy. In fact, some clubs exploit this fashion trend for attendance. They charge an entrance fee proportional to the amount of clothing worn. I'm not sure if there's a minimum charge for nudists, or if they have some sort of sort of grotesque body hair unit of measurement.

Here are some very different fashion choices. This picture is obviously taken from a very happening rave. Somewhere after the eighties camouflage craze started by Rambo and Mr. T, it became another hip retro thing. Sort of like the Partridge Family. However, the shit brown and forest green of camouflague seemed to remind everyone it was ugly. A fashion design genius turned it black, white, and grey. Then he called it "urban camouflage," and now it's cool again. Our model in the picture has gone with the standard baggy urban camouflague fatigues and a practical but dull string tank top. She has accessorized this with the dork she is dancing with who came in with what he was wearing at the last Magic: The Gathering tournament. Keep in mind that the underground dance scene is counter cultural enough to encourage demographics like nerds to attend. The nerd serves another purpose to show that most people actually don't dress up much for raves. A lot of "hardcore" club kids claim that it's not important how you dress, but these are usually kids whose parents won't buy them rubber clothes. If one doesn't dress with a distinguishing style, one must dance with a birth defect style so they can get noticed. That way, other people can say, "Did you see that guy that was grabbing his own face and pelvic thrusting?" As opposed to, "Did you see that chick that had silver pipe cleaners wrapped around her beehive?" In this picture, the nerd is proving my point by making up for his lack of distinguishing fashion with a strange ET kind of alien dance.

To the left is a rave with a few more attendants than the previous. Not an exciting picture, I know. I think I included it because the girl on the right looks like she's about to execute a jungle cat attack on the unsuspecting dancer in front of her. "Rarr!"

To the right is the rave rendition of the Spice Girls, I guess. To be honest, half of my paper time was spent studying this photo. Sexy vinyl hot pants and bra tops are much cooler fashion decisions than the ones made by the boring t-shirt people above. But the Spice Girl theme could arguably be too much. I think the one on the far right is Homely Waif Spice. And the old person in the middle is probably someone who drunkenly walked into the wrong black plastic lined basement. I say this because the rave culture has a definite age limit, and has a tendency to make even me feel old. You'll very rarely find anyone older than college student age at an underground club. I don't even think stores will sell glow sticks to someone who looks 25.

To the left is probably the most attractive man I've ever seen in his club clothes. He has chosen to risk the vinyl pants and has accentuated them with the gold spandex shirt he fights crime in. His blue hair and purple rave goggles help complement the gold while still allowing him full night vision. A true vision of sex appeal. When this guy goes to clubs, he usually gets asked for drugs by 15 year old kids dressed like vampires. Drugs are usually an important part of rave culture where everyone is on ecstacy and end up falling in love with the speaker and blowing out their ear drums. Crank is pretty common to give out of shape people the energy to dance all night, and for the people who like to have remedial philsosophical discussions and eat microwave burritos, there is always a little room reserved for pot smokers at a rave. However, in this area, the rave scene is dominated by non resourceful Goth kids that couldn't score an aspirin if their mom was on vacation.

To the right is a rave kid who was successful in his hunt for drugs. A lot of club kids bring gas masks and air tubes to enhance their narcotic experience. I could speak more about this, but since this paper is about fashion, I'll comment on how the tube accentuates his outfit. The biggest problem with this ensamble is that its parts don't work together. The air tube would go much better with a diver's mask and flippers. I think he needs to either get a wet suit or take the tubes out of his mouth. He just needs both or neither. And I think wearing a wet suit to a rave would be at least accepted, if not cool.

To the left is a normal scene from a rave as people resting and smoking cram into the corner like slave ship passengers. The air is actually fresher in areas like this as body odor and cigarette smoke are much more refreshing than the smoke machines DJs use. There are some eclectic fashion decisions in the crowd. There's a golf visor, a hawaiian shirt, near nudity, and it looks like the person on the right went with a sort of Wonder Woman top and Barbarella silver panties. Two very hard images to live up to. Groups like this form also as a place to try to find a conversation with anyone still coherent enough to talk. Maybe people can exchange body glitters, borrow cigarettes, or just tell each other how cool they look. Others, like the guy in the middle, throw their future away with the horror of marijuana. What would Superman think?

The picture to the right is included as a sub category of club culture: The Goths. The Gothic movement is a movement started as a compromise between depressed European cigarette smoking teens and a group of vampires. Together they started the laughably macabre fashion trend of powdered faces and black capes. As a vampire might say, "Blah! Your cape is magnificently evil! Blah!" Then they will begin maniacally counting and laughing between each number. It's known for the black leather, corsets, and cloaks, but the trick to pulling off the Goth image is to always look depressed. Give yourself a name like "Evilla: Queen of the Dark Underworld." Then it's normal to cover most of your face with black lipstick, sit in the corner, refuse to dance, and ask strangers for drugs. A group of high school Goth youngsters approached me once and asked for Speed, Ecstasy, and some stuff I had never heard of. It's quite possible they were making up names. I told them they didn't look like "upper love drug" kind of people. They left pissed, but it's not like they looked happy when they walked over. But this may be getting too anecdotal.

Cruella Nightdeath. The only Goth chick who can wear a smile.... I have no idea who this woman is.

This picture is from an outdoor rave in Germany. They obviously take it a little bit more seriously. You can see he has constructed himself into "Cyber Chomp: Lord of Passion," by using dryer tubing, paper towel rolls, and silver paint. I would call this guy extreme even for a fashion trend that encourages feather boas and latex. It's hard to dance in, but if you get lost at sea, you can signal a plane. I think this is also the logic with the big western belt buckles, but that's a subject for a much different paper. Raves in our country generally occur from late night to early morning, but in Europe, they will have festivals that last days. Americans have a tendency to only go dancing when it's dark... except for Vanilla Ice and his band of motorcycle rebels. They don't even need music. Just the open road and a flat area to get busy.

Another picture from Germany, I included this one because of the pink feather jacket being worn. I thought it was pretty, and they're obviously both very excited about it. It's not very unusual to see drag queens at raves, but this guy is in a nice transitionary point between drag queen and club kid. Here's what he screamed when the picture was taken: "Feel power this pink shirt, American! Yeah! Taste of that!" I have no idea what that was all about. His friend wasn't as daring with his clothing choices, and will probably be referred to as, "The guy that was with that guy with the pink feather jacket." I can't be sure, since it's such a small picture, but I think he's holding a fan made out of popsicle sticks in his left hand. If that's so, my previous statement was incorrect and he would be called the "popsicle stick fan guy."

Like camouflage, the mohawk is struggling to make a comeback. Here we see this streamlined hairstyle being worn by one more person who proves it is the most unflattering haircut besides every haircut from the 1970's. His friend to the right is either pretending to be a drill sargeant who forgot his shirt, or has such bulging muscles his arms don't rest at his side. Either way, nice pants. These guys prove that most anything you can come up with is acceptable in the culture. Even if you're just wearing golf pants and a bad attitude.

Other accesories are used besides strange hair colors and gas masks at raves. To the right, you see a girl with a backpack. I also think she played General Cornelius in Return to the Planet of the Apes. So I will henceforth refer to her as, "Cornelius." Cornelius has embraced her femininity with a pink backpack that most likely has hearts and Care Bears on it. A lot of club kids carry these to hold things like water bottles, money, and drugs. I usually carry an extra set of clothes so I can throw the post-rave sweat soaked clothes in the trash on the way out. I guess one could also use them for feminine hygiene products, action figures, or even toast. And although Cornelius' backpack is not terribly exciting, other ravers often wear colorful semi-transparent vinyl bags or things equally cool.

To the left is a fashion statement inspired by Cuba's soccer team uniforms and Princess Leia. She will soon sneak out of her parents' house and dance until dawn. Upon returning, her parents will catch her, ground her, and send her to Jenny Jones to get a makeover. Jenny Jones is actually a good place to see examples of rave fashion. She'll have outrageous guests who have spent so much time dancing and doing drugs, they no longer can communicate with other humans. And after innane comments from her audience, she will have them taken backstage and transformed into yuppies. Then her crowd of conservative housewives will cheer when the newly respectable boys and girls return well dressed and crying. So tune into the first hour of her show, since the second hour only makes you sick and doesn't have any rave fashion anyway. Her timeslot has been moved to somewhere around 3 am on Wenesday. Her career has gone downhill ever since she gave a white supremacist a romantic pen pal and announced that it was a gay man on national TV. One little shooting, and she loses her career. But I think we, the viewers, are the real losers in this tragedy. Now we have to stay up all night to see her fantastic and provacative program.

The real club movement is much more accepting than Jenny Jones' audience. As you can tell from the pictures, most anything a person wears to a rave is respected. If you want to make an outfit out of saran wrap and wear a tin foil space helmet, no one there will make fun of you. I might later on my stupid home page, but that's not important. I'm an anomoly wherever you stick me. The important thing is summed up in this great picture that supports my theory of rave equality. From left to right is a Gothic vampire chick, the world's prettiest super hero, a glamour queen, and a cyber whore snuggling for the camera. There's even a nerd in the background. It's almost as happy and loving as a sixties folk song.