Vice Style

2000s: Colour revolutions

Ukraine's Orange Revolution

Colour revolution was a method of non-violent resistance used in several societies in the CIS (former USSR) and Balkan states during the early 2000s, where people wore specific colours as a symbol of protest against corrupt or authoritarian governments. Colour revolutions have been successful in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and (although more violent than the previous ones) in Kyrgyzstan (2005). Each time, disputed elections were followed by massive street protests, which then led to the resignation or overthrow of authoritarian leaders. Pretty cool. Also worth a mention is the failed one in Iran where the pro-democracy guys wore green and thousands of people were killed by their own government.

Fuck you, electoral fraud.

2008: Mexican emos


Mostly we've avoided the most obvious rehashing of punk and club kid fashions, because no one is actually threatened by that stuff. But remember when emo became really popular in Mexico a couple years back? Reminding everyone that while Topman or Hot Topic mean being alt. in the west is near impossible, in the third world it can still get you killed. The emo explosion caused an insanely violent backlash among Mexican teens of other persuasions (i.e. punks, Rastas, metal kids, etc.) claiming emos were lame, overly sentimental, homos and, well, just emo basically. Anti-emo riots broke out across Mexico. Emos were repeatedly threatened and assaulted for their clothes and music taste. Bloggers raved about killing emos online. It was totally fucked up. And the sad part is, emos are an inherently peaceful type, which meant in most cases they just took the abuse rather than fighting back, and their passivity just pissed the haters off even more. Poor little things! (I’m serious.)

Fuck you, macho Mexicans.

By the way, writing about the 30 years of fashion history before this is played. If you want to know about the 70 years before that, read Jon Savage's excellent Teenager: The Creation of Youth Culture, and if you want to know about stuff before that, read it up and write us a post.