How can punk style become a framework that elucidates the multiply expressive aesthetics and sensibilities—the feel, the attitude, the gestures and choreographies of a ‘core community’? Monica Sklar (University of Georgia) joins Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley to unpack the layered answers to this and many other questions concerning punk fashion, authenticity, identity, and graphic expressivity. As Monica offers, poetically so: “And they're using things like graphic design, symbols, color theory, proportion, line symmetry, asymmetry, affectively to have a conversation about what is the mainstream and beauty standards and the body and what might be contrarian to the mainstream and what might be… an adversarial relationship or a conversant relationship with the mainstream, using the body as that place of conversation… And so there's this certain authenticity to what's being worn,” across what could be considered a simpler skate-punk outfit to the spectacular ensembles that defined Vivienne Westwood’s SEX circa 1977. Crucially and pointedly, Monica leads with relational inquiry, taking it back to the body—adorned in systemic noise, at times donning interruptive signals and disruptive possibility. She establishes the foundation--one where style and power, to name, claim, and adjudicate authenticity dovetail in the oft-simplified practice of wearing, which is “about the form, the viewer, and the context” and opens to the pivotal consideration: “what is the conversation they're having with their mainstream community using the body to have that conversation?” Mind you, we’re already here, in the thick of it, at around the five-minute mark of an episode that lasts for another hour. So, perhaps, instead of a summation, I should stop here to issue a warning of sorts. This episode might gnaw at your judgmental ego while complicating any clear crack in the sidewalk from which to delineate whose clothed body speaks itself on the side of ‘legitimate’ punk and whose clothed body speaks itself on the side nearest the mall, or as a ‘poser’ punk. But, as Monica affirmed, echoing the sentiment of many punk scholars, it's the messiness and, here, the gnarls of punk curation qua fashion, archives, museum, and ethics that are compelling precisely because they prove generative in challenging surface attachments.
Guest Bio.
Monica Sklar, Ph.D. is a Professor of fashion history and merchandising and museum studies at the University of Georgia. She is also the Curator of the Anne Barge Historic Clothing and Textiles Collection at UGA. She serves on boards for Dress and Punk+Post-Punk journals and is the Vice President of Education and Programs for the Costume Society of America, running their YouTube channel and developing educational resources for professionals and students. When time permits she does independent archival consulting for clothing collections. Her expertise in museum work is participatory and community archiving as well as databasing and access to the public. Sklar is author of the book Punk Style (2013), has written numerous articles on the relationship of punk with dress, and publications on museum best practice around access and outreach. She is a longtime participant in punk and related scenes booking festivals, traveling globally for community, and now documenting its history.
Links
Email: msklar@uga.edu
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We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.com
The PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved.
Season 2, Episode 12, was recorded on April 28, 2026, on Zoom with participants in the UK and the US. Russ Bestley and Jessica Schwartz co-hosted and co-produced this episode and edited the transcript, which is available here.
Jessica Schwartz also edited the audio.