Music in American Fashion: Forms of Art

Music has played a pivotal role in the influence and constant development of fashion throughout America's musical history. Both music and fashion are art forms, and like other art forms they are an expression of the individual's inner self. Music can be soulful, bright and happy, or slow and sensuous. Because it has lyrics, it can also tell a story, be argumentative, or persuade the listener to adopt a cause. Anything that can be expressed in ordinary speech can be expressed more vividly and effectively in music, because the words are enhanced by the rhythm and the beat. Likewise, fashion tells the story that can be told by any visual object. The old adage "A picture can take the place of a thousand words" is emphatically true; in fact, a thousand words cannot possibly ever replace a picture, because the reader must read those thousand words, thus diminishing the impact. The sight of a visual object communicates an idea clearly and immediately without the message having to go through the individual's many inner "filters." A picture gets past all of a person's defenses and registers its message immediately. Thus, taken together, music and fashion provide the auditory and visual expressions of an idea.

Given the similar way in which they communicate an idea, it is not surprising that music and fashion also influence each other. The fashionista moved by a musical creation can incorporate what she feels in a fashion statement. The fashion that makes

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[6] It also cannot be ignored that music fans identify celebrity musicians with causes, even those causes are no more than musical freedom or sexual promiscuity. Thus, by listening to a musician's music, adopting his mode of dress, and attending his concerts, the fans are in a way displaying their affiliations. When the Beatles arrived on American shores in the 1960s, they became an instant sensation. Their mop-top hairdos were suddenly the rage, and as their own fashion sense and spiritual values metamorphosed from that of kids from Liverpool to drugs-and-sex rockers, their fans followed suit, adopting John Lennon's style of glasses, the long hair and beards, and the sneakers. The Beatles' flirtation with New Age religions and transcendental meditation was reflected in a fashion rage for Nehru jackets, and their hippie period saw fans going barefoot and smoking pot. Here it was not just the music but the musicians that influenced the culture of their day, communicating values that were picked up like sponges absorb water. For some reason, American teens were ripe and ready for the Beatles. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame web site states that "The Beatles' induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, says

Category: Arts - M