Style/ Label

Okay, so I'm probably going to contradict myself here against my previous posts in terms of how I began to define 'style'. I've been attempting to un-pick what we class as style, how we define it and how it is perceived. I alienate the term and put it on a pedestal, considering it to have much more value than other collective groups because I believe it is the depiction of individuality. And while I'm not quite ready to dismiss this view just yet, the more I put 'style' into perspective, the more I see it from another angle. It isn't much different from all these other collective groups, in order to define style we have to compare and analyse what it means to be stylish. We 'label' someone for having style? 


DM: If I said 'What are you?' how would you describe yourself?
D (Duncan): Punk.
DM: You're a punk, right. Definitely, yeah?
D: Through and fucking through.
DM: Yeah, right, good, OK.
D: Fourteen year...um, no, about twelve years.
DM: What's - OK, this is a big question, right - what's punk mean to you?
D: Punk is basically being yourself, freedom, doing what you wanna do, looking like you wanna, like, look like; and then if you look like a punk, well you don't even have to look like a punk, 'cos there's a lot that don't have mohicans or nothing.

(Interview taken from David Muggleton's, 'Inside Subculture, The Postmodern Meaning of Style)


In Duncan's definition of punk above he makes a point of the most important assets being beliefs, attitudes and values moreover the actual exterior which is interesting as this is usually how we would tend to label someone as punk. But more importantly, the assets he states; 'being yourself, freedom, doing what you wanna do, looking like you wanna', pretty much coincides with those values of someone we would associate with as having 'style'. 

So, in actual fact, any group that can be identified and defined is surely yet another label? Another Individual, socio-political drive and focus to belong within a certain group. And while this group might not necessarily be prominently collective, it's still apparent, admittedly more ominous but they're still categorised as being part of a group. Being stylish isn't really as individual and different from the rest of the world as I first thought? In order to define and describe someone as stylish we draw both visual and behavioural qualities from them which fall within the criteria of having style. Therefore by having distinctive individuality, what these stylish loners are actually doing; subconsciously perhaps; is affiliating to yet another definitive organisation of 'Individualism'?