What Actually is Alternate Clothing?
What exactly is meant when people say “alternative clothing“? Surely, what is considered regular for one individual may be considered a form of alternative clothes for another. When searching for alternative clothing, many of the results will be for gothic clothing, emo clothing, or punk-themed apparel, therefore it’s safe to assume that most of them fall into the “alternative” category.
But who or what is the alternative? Gothic clothing or emo clothing is considered typical with alt clothing. This is laughable to us. With an “anything goes” attitude prevalent in today’s society, a person may see anyone dressed in a tracksuit, gothic clothes, punk shirts or going around in a floral arrangement. And in reality, that is our reality.
The difficulty with pinning down what alt clothing actually can be defined with is that there are fewer people as we get older due to the pressures of society to dress in a “normal way”. As a result of this, they are in the minority, which indicates that they should be the ones to wear alternative clothing.
Alternative clothes to one person might mean going out in their PJs, but to others, it might be platform boots, a black frilled dress with a ringed metal belt. Alt is what you make it at the end of the day
So, since everyone can wear anything, what could you possibly wear on the street that suddenly counts as alternative clothing?
As a general rule, we see alt clothing as garments that most other people don’t wear. Almost every form of alternate clothing is linked to some form of movement, the original skinhead movement that held the ethos of peace and love tended to…shave their heads, wear leather boots, suspenders and a shirt. That sounds fine to us, but at the time of the movement, it was a very counter-culture move as it didn’t fit the general consensus of the time. And that is practically the same as today.
Most “alternative clothing” styles are derived from some form of a subculture that is a minority in the eyes of the rest of the population, and there are a lot of subcultures, meaning there are lots of alt fashion choices and derivatives that ultimately lead to one conclusion.
Alternate clothing is whatever you want it to be. Being alternative isn’t being different or isolated, in our eyes, it’s the opposite. It can help bring you into a number of beautiful subcultures and give you a sense of identity and belonging to a group of likeminded people.
That is exactly what The Armageddon is about. We aim to create clothes that will cater to everyone, from the skinheads mentioned earlier to goths, skaters, tattoo lovers and any other subculture in the UK.
If you’re looking for some UK based alt clothing, The Armageddon is building your one-stop-shop for everything and anything alternate.