Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

What motivates people to dress in a manner that marks them out as different to the conventional norm? Is it true that, with dress, 'anything goes' in our mix-and-match postmodern culture? Have easily recognizable, authentic subcultures imploded in a glut of ironic revivals and stylistic fragmentation? Does this supposed 'post-subcultural' generation actively celebrate ephemerality, transience and disposability, merely casting off and trying on one alternative identity after another in an ever-accelerating fashion frenzy? This exciting book is a considered sociological examination of such questions. By listening to the voices of the subcultural stylists themselves - their subjective perceptions of their style and the ideas that lie behind them - the author provides original insights into issues of subjectivity and identity. Situating an empirical case study within a wider consideration of postmodernism and cultural change, the author rejects cultural studies perspectives that attempt to 'read' subcultures as texts. Drawing on extensive interviews with people who dress in what might be deemed a stylistically unconventional manner, he seeks instead to establish whether contemporary subcultures display modern or postmodern sensibilities and forms. He argues persuasively that they do both - a stress on postmodern hyperindividualism, fluidity and fragmentation runs alongside a modernist emphasis on authenticity and underlying essence. He concludes that a Romantic libertarianism has permeated working-class culture and that the distinction between 'individualistic' middle-class countercultures and 'collectivist' working-class subcultures has been over-emphasized.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. vii)
• 1 Back to Reality? My Experience with Cultural Studies (p. 1)
• Notes (p. 7)
• 2 A Neo-Weberian Approach to the Study of Subcultural Style (p. 9)
• Notes (p. 31)
• 3 Postmodern Subcultures and Aesthetic Modernity (p. 33)
• Notes (p. 53)
• 4 Distinctive Individuality and Subcultural Affiliation (p. 55)
• Notes (p. 79)
• 5 Commitment, Appearance and the Self (p. 81)
• Notes (p. 104)
• 6 Change, Continuity and Comparison (p. 107)
• Notes (p. 129)
• 7 Resistance, Incorporation and Authenticity (p. 131)
• Notes (p. 154)
• 8 Cultural Expression or Class Contradiction? (p. 157)
• Notes (p. 167)
• Appendix: Fieldwork Details and Interview Schedule (p. 171)
• Bibliography (p. 175)
• Subject Index (p. 191)
• Author Index (p. 195)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

While this book is ostensibly about dress and style in various British subcultures, scholar Muggleton uses clothing largely as a point of departure to explore the values and motives of those who identify themselves, at least partially, as "punk," "goth," "skinhead," or "hippy." With the greater purpose of investigating current claims about the "postmodern" nature of subcultures, Muggleton conducted a series of 57 interviews with subculture participants in Brighton and East Sussex. Subculturalists, he concludes, are postmodern in their identification with fragmentation and heterogeneity but modern in their commitment to individual freedom and self-expression. While there is considerable popular interest in the subject matter covered here, Muggleton writes almost exclusively for specialists in the field. His use of professional jargon and propensity to quote liberally from secondary sources will discourage all but the most intrepid general readers. Highly recommended for academic libraries.DAndrew Brodie Smith, Martin Luther King Memorial Lib., Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Muggleton describes how members of youth style subcultures interpret and make sense of the postmodern characteristics attributed to them by social theorists, most notably scholars of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Criticizing the school's grand theorizing, he adopts Weber's verstehen methodology to uncover the subjective meanings, values, and motives of those involved in style subcultures such as punk, Goth, skinhead, hippy, etc. His fieldwork consists of semistructured interviews with 57 different people between the ages of 16 and 34, living in Brighton and Preston and active in style subcultures in the early 1990s. He concludes that these individuals are postmodern because they display an individualistic, fragmented, and diffuse sensibility. However, a postmodern celebration of style was displaced by a modernist belief in the importance of attitude, especially the freedom to express oneself and be free from social and cultural constraints that inhibit and prohibit self-expression. Muggleton's findings indicate that the distinction between working-class subcultures and individualistic middle-class subcultures has been overemphasized and that postmodern "hyperindividualism" rather than class is a better way of understanding subcultures. This informative study adds much to our understanding of style subcultures. All levels. G. B. Osborne; Augustana University College