Flares & Punk Rock

Flares seemed to have been about since the age of dinosaurs, but in fact became popular in the late sixties. By the mid-seventies, like the black plague of yore, they were everywhere and infesting every household. When you look at the pictures below you’ll get a sense of why, when punk fashion went overground with a straight leg as de rigeur, and its more radical bondage trousers, along with the whole punk look combined, it was like a swift slap around the face.

By 1976, flare width had developed to such a ludicrous level that you could smuggle a friend in one leg to a gig. Flares were what everyone from hippies/prog rockers (horrendous dirty patched jeans) wore to football hooligans (Oxford Bags) to pop stars and footballers to yer man/woman/child on the street and disco types.

Oxford Bags had a wide three-button waistband with 12″ flares. I had a pair of black ones and had side pockets. For some reason, while the rest of your body felt like you were wearing two-bed sheets stitched together billowing in the breeze in complete freedom, the bit that covered your bum and bits was cut so ludicrously tight I’m sure it delayed my balls dropping by a year.

As if this wasn’t enough of an affront to society, these trousers were paired with Coco the Clown platform shoes (see above left). I however had a pair of cherry red wedges which were a poor man’s brothel creeper (I was eight ffs!) and I can find no pictures of them so maybe I imagined them.

Football hooligans, who know their fashion (sic), would wear their Oxford Bags with ox blood Dr Martens (see above right) or similar boots or avail themselves of Wrangler Parallels.

Above Manchester United fans mid-seventies – Photo credit?
Below teenagers in Belfast 1974, Photograph: Frank Tewkesbury/Getty Images.

Pop-wise it was all flares a gogo, but one band took it to ludicrous extremes. All the more strange then that the Bay City Rollers rehashed up boot boy fashion – tartan scarves around wrists, high flared trousers and boots to a mass hysterical teenage crowd. to bring Rollermania.

Straight jeans or trousers were pretty much none existent so that’s why sometimes you see photos of audience members (the Finchley Boys below at a Stranglers gig at The Nashville – Picture Ray Stevenson) with their jeans tucked in their socks or band members like Andy Blade of Eater (pictured below at the Roxy Club by Erica Echenberg). Others who had mums who could sew would get theirs taken in. Or you would hunt the charity shops for straight-leg trousers, post-war trousers or you could customise. Or if you had money Acme or SEX or US jeans importers.

Flares, like long hair, became a symbol of the old way and a way of identifying which side of the bed you were lying on. Here’s Mick Farren legendary leader of The Deviants, NME writer, sixties radical and now the old guard being swept aside with the onset of punk.

I’d hardly started my first Roxy beer when Rotten spotted me from across the room and started in my direction…Now Rotten was in front of me, but he didn’t say a word. Instead he leaned forward and extended a hand to the cuff of my jeans. The leathers had a slight flare to them…Rotten measured the flare with his thumb and forefinger like a disapproving East End tailor. His expression said it all. So, grandad, not so hip as we thought we were, are we? Give The Anarchist A Cigarette

Like a lot of things punk related, The Ramones changed things overnight with their iconic first album and cover. Flared jeans had no place there or even a pair of jeans without holes. Fuck platform shoes – it was sneaker time and a street hoodlum look.

Of course, not everyone got the brief. Look at the flares on Jez from Blitz below circa late 1977/early 1978!

And here’s Arturo Bassick from The Lurkers & 999 recounting a gig outside of London at Ollys in Lancaster oop North with The Lurkers in 1977.

The DJ…just before we went on played God Save The Queen…for about 30 seconds, took it off, snapped it in half and introduced us as ‘sone shit punk band from London’. There were some 40 feather-cutted . oxford bag wearing, platform booted town boys there – no punks at all…We thought we were going to die that night but the townies just stood three looking at us dumb then just drifted out. Arturo Bassick, Fat Bloke Thin Book

And to finish up – we said football fans liked a bit of fashion. Here’s some captured at Maine Road (Manchester City’s ground) in 1977 as punk sweeps the land with obvious results as flares are banished. Pictures from the British Culture Archive and photographer is Iain SP Reid.

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