The clothes show...Industrial fashion

[Industrial Fashion]

The rivethead subculture is a pretty new one, so rivetheads are often confused with goths or punks (or even worse, people associate them with the 12 year old 'hardcore' rebels who think liking Marilyn Manson makes them really rebellious and alternative). To assert your rivetness, make sure you dress like a proper rivethead. Also because the subculture is pretty new, finding other rivetheads may be problematic. Therefore if you dress like a rivethead, you should be able to attract fellow rivetheads and make new friends (although being permanantly angry may not be conducive to making lasting friendships, but so be it; you may also attract the aforementioned Marilyn Manson fans, in which case you should prepare yourself by carrying something sharp and pointy to, uh, 'persuade' them to go away).

Clothing:

The key points to remember are:

* You really, *really* need some boots. Big stompy ones.

* You can't go wrong with black.

* Army surplus clothes are good

* Fabric is all important. Denim (black only) is fine. PVC may be too goth but you could risk it. Definitely no lace or velvet. Leather is pretty good too. *Mmm...leather* Or maybe that's just my leather fetish talking... ;-)

* No fancy floaty crap, except maybe for your trenchcoat, because:

* Long black trenchcoats look really cool

* Nothing says 'I am more industrial than you' more than a T-shirt featuring an obscure industrial artist. If you are an industrial artist (and obscure) wear a T-shirt with your own band name on it. This highlights your elitism and shows that you're better than everyone else because you know about a band that they don't. Also it's advertising for your band at the same time. No one need know it's your own band and you've never actually released so much as a crappy quality cassette in your life. Failing the obscurity factor, pick a "safe" and well-known industrial artist such as Einsturzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle or Skinny Puppy for your T-shirt.

Or, alternatively, wear just a plain black T-shirt (this implies that your fav bands are so obscure, they have no merchandise whatsoever, so you couldn't buy a T-shirt with their name on).

Or finally buy/make a T-shirt with a catchy slogan. Something like "I eat ravers for breakfast" or "call me goth and I'll punch you in the face".

* Note: there seems to be the disturbing possibility (at least for British rivetheads - I don't know how it is with the rest of the world) that we might actually be fashionable. This is because someone suddenly decided that military clothes are in fashion. So if you have a real hatred for anything fashionable, it's best if you put away your military clothes for a while until the fashion police pick something else to hype up. However you could continue to wear military clothes with army boots as a mockery of this trend, also wearing copius amounts of rusty chains and an industrial T-shirt and perhaps smearing your army gear with raver's blood or something to 'customise' it. And you're probably safe anyway because the military clothes the "normals" are wearing are crappy flimsy high-street shops' own take on military, not proper military. And I don't think army boots are actually considered fashionable.

Jewellery:

The industrial subculture is something of a break off of punk so screw the capitalist system and make your jewellery. Note: avoid safety pins (people will think you *are* a punk). Also to be avoided: crucifixes (too goth) and inverted crucifixes (too fake satanist).

All of the following make great industrial jewellery:

* Chains - a multipurpose item; wear 'em round your neck, wrists or as a belt. Note: if you wear the chain as a belt and go for the padlock option, make sure you have the key with you, otherwise going to the toilet might be a little problematic. Chains also double as a handy weapon (not that we are trying to encourage violence, of course; we're talking purely for self-defence purposes here *grins*).

* Cogs, nuts, bolts etc on cords/cables/chains (if anyone asks, it represents the fact that we're all just cogs in that big old shitty piece of machinery known as life - see the industrial philosophy page)

* Dog collars. Preferably with spikes/studs. Nothing says 'get the f*** away from me' like a nice thick black leather collar with great big pointy spikes. Note: actual dog collars for dogs are usually a hell of a lot cheaper than dog collars designed for humans (OK, so you have to put up with the checkout assistant in the pet store looking at your appearance and giving you a weird look when they figure out you're actually planning to wear the collar yourself, but so what? It beats shopping in the crappy teenybopper 'we cash in on passing trends by selling overpriced tat to pop fans who suddenly decided anything remotely gothicky/festishy looking was cool because Britney wore it' accessories stores)

* Parts of computers. Cables, wires, computer chips, etc. If anyone is adventurous (or dumb) enough to actually wear large parts of a computer (like a keyboard, mouse, or a monitor, even) strapped to them, I would really love to see that... send me the photos. No, I won't laugh. I promise.

Make up:

I guess if you *really* wanted to go over the top for a special occasion, you could paint your skin grey and draw on a bunch of wires and screws and make it look like you're some kind of cyborg or robot.

But for general wear just stick with the basic black eyeliner/black nail varnish combination (this look can work for males or females). Black eyeliner is not subtle. This is good, because it is anti mainstream fashions, since they're always telling us that make-up should be subtle. You should probably avoid lipstick (especially black or dark red) since this is more of a goth thing. Unless maybe you could get grey lipstick. My request for information on grey lipstick yielded a result (thanks Yasmine) - apparently there's a brand of make up called Wet 'n' Wild (which I've never heard of, but then I'm English and we're slightly behind America here. We only just got Vanilla Coke for christsakes) who make a silver-grey lipstick. Coincidentally, virtually at the same time Yasmine gave me this info, I'd literally just bought a Stargazer silver lipstick. It's a little light, but put on over black lipgloss or black lipstick you can make it more dark silver/grey. Makes you look like a corpse yet not in a goth kind of way. ;-)

I've also attempted (with no success yet) to find gunmetal grey/silver nail varnish. Despite the fact that metallic make up colours were supposed to be fashionable at the time I searched for this, I found nothing. Mixing black and silver together really isn't working that well either. Someone find me some goddamned gunmetal nail varnish damnit. Please?

Hair:

I'm just adding this bit in because I wanted to and to hell with it if other sites already cover it. Rivethead hair is simple: shave it. Shave all of it or just part of it. The choice is yours. (fragility_and_decay *really* wants to shave part of her head here but is constrained by the real world *damn the real world* and the need to get a job. *considers buying a wig*).

*But* there is also - I think - a fine line between rivethead hair and cyber hair. So if you don't give a shit about anything one way or the other (like having rivethead purists take the piss out of you if you put cybergoth hair on), do what the hell you want with your hair. I think - in moderation - synthetic hair can look pretty cool. Depends what colour it is (I don't care what anyone says, neon pink hair is bad). And you don't have to use hair either. Could be tubes, wires, plastic. Whatever you can get to stay on (I have a hard enough time getting my plain old jumbo braid dreadfalls to stay in, but if you have more hair than I do to actually tie/clip the stuff onto, you might have more luck). I think it would look pretty cool having a bunch of chains attached to your head as falls. Don't ask me how to do this. I haven't figured it out yet. Would be damned heavy too, I would imagine. Possibly quite lethal too. But still... it would look cool. (if anyone has ever made a hairpiece/falls/whatever with chains on, send me the photos. I wanna see).

Or wrap electrical tape round your dreads and tie cogs and nuts and other metallic things into the ends of them.

By the way, though this is of course a matter of personal taste and opinion, can I just say I think goggles look damned stupid? Especially worn permanantly on top of the head (i.e. never, ever where they're supposed to go). Mirrored sunglasses look cool though...

Here is a lovely picture I drew (OK, so it's crap; so sue me) which demonstrates how I visualise some of the people who populate some online industrial forums. Unfortunately it's hard to draw elitism, so I just drew them as angry.

The Rivethead:

The Rivethead

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