This summer’s special exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcases a rude awakening of a culture that shocked the nation in the 70’s: punk. Today, many remember punk as a cultural fad that no longer plays a role in society. Aside from in oldies radio stations and Lower East Side of Manhattan, seldom does one hear much punk music or spot a man sporting leather, plaid, and chains on the street.

Sure the shocking visuals and haunting sounds of the exhibition seem otherworldly and thus aesthetically pleasing to the common eye. The Met, however, does not try to simply to recount the mysteries of the past. By displaying punk culture through fashion on the streets and on the runway, the Met attempts to show how combining two contrasting ideas leads to the birth of a new cultural staple.

The Met does an outstanding job of steering the viewer away from a freeze-frame approach and instead towards a progressive journey. Punk, the Met explains through fashion, was never an entity detached from society, a culture simply defined by sex, drugs, and anarchy. Instead, it was a cultural reaction that challenged societal norms and shifted perceptions of normality throughout the decades. Thirty years ago, wearing purposefully torn clothing and studded leather jackets was rebellious and extreme. Nowadays, DIY (do it yourself) culture is not so much a rebellion as a stamp of individuality.

Although the exhibition Punk: Chaos to Couture is only open until August 14, the Met, by emphasizing the effects of 70’s punk on 21^st century fashion, boldly declares that punk is never dead.  

Image from metmuseum.org