"For someone with grandiose dreams of shredding it onstage - but no real musical talent to speak of- the return of the band jacket is a godsend. Be it bright red, sequined, or DayGlo, the topper can make you look like a rock star... the jacket itself is reminiscent of military garb- no surprise, since early marching bands were associated with city-state armies, directing troops across the battlefield with various toots and honks. While modern incarnations of these bands still make use of martial traditions... the jacket has true rock'n'roll roots.
This is in large part thanks to the Beatles. It was 1967, and the Fab Four had commissioned famous theater costumiers Bermans & Nathans to make the coats featured on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. Withing days of that record's release, it seemed everyone on London's King's Road was covered in epaulets.
From there, the braided and buttoned combo went psychedelic (thanks, Jimi Hendrix)...
New Wave (here's to you, Adam Ant),
and pop (hello, Michael Jackson) **Ella's note: M.J. scares the crap out of me and I refuse to post a picture of him** :)
...before returning to it's rock core recently with appearances on the backs of Coldplay's Chris Martin and the Killers' Brandon Flowers (both courtesy of Dolce & Gabbana)".
ARTICLE: "FOLLOW THE LEADER" WRITTEN BY REBECCA WILLA DAVIS - NYLON MAGAZINE, JULY 2009 - THE MUSIC ISSUE.
OF COURSE... leave it to Nylon to leave out the most famous of these recent band jackets, yet:
Remember The Black Parade...???
Brandon Flowers and Chris Martin (or anyone else in the present day for that matter) didn't start wearing these kinds of jackets until AFTER Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, appearing as The Black Parade, came onto the scene in 2006. He hired Colleen Atwood (the legendary costume designer behind Tim Burton movies including Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd), to make him and his band black and gold marching band uniforms. Shortly thereafter, TrippNYC ripped off the look in a cheap way (like they always seem to do) and hawked it in Hot Topic.
And even more recently, Mat Devine of Kill Hannah wore a white military style jacket during the entire Hope for the Hopeless tour last year.
So where does Ella Anarchy come into all this? The other day, I realized I like layering vests over my tank dresses, and I saw a picture of a cool black denim vest, so seeing as how I don't own a black denim jacket (to cut the sleeves off of), I went thrifting for one. That's when the universe sent me this:
I mean SERIOUSLY. How Black Parade is this?!? The only problem however... was that even as cool as it is, it looked HELLA TACKY on me. Like, it had these gigantic shoulder pads, it weighed about ten pounds, and as much as I WANTED to like the fringe on the shoulders, I couldn't get past how "rodeo" it makes it look. So after careful deliberation and inner debating with myself, (and since I was unable to find another black denim jacket), I decided to attack it with my scissors.
I cut off the sleeves, removed the bulky shoulder pads... thought about leaving the fringe, but decided against it, and then suddenly got the idea to braid the strands into several little braids and turn them upwards. (Unfortunately, you can't see them very well in the picture unless you strain your eyes really closely at the shoulders). I took in the sides a little to give it shape, added my handmade medals, and VOILA.
Ella Anarchy's version of the band jacket for hot summer days:
Militaristic vests are just as cool as jackets. See??
What do YOU think? do you think I butchered an awesome jacket or is the vest cooler? Thoughts and opinions, pleaaaase :)
3 comments:
I love the vest you cut, it's fantastic!
It is quite awesome actually. From a design point its like if the modern Sargent Pepper had a creative baby with Tim Burton.
Swell job :)
Dude you get double comments on this one, that vest is so rad!!! It's all perfectly tailored and looks like you've been following some gnarly band around for thousands of sweaty miles!
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