The Leary Larrikin: Street Style in Colonial Australia

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Leary Larrikin

T2 - Street Style in Colonial Australia

AU - Bellanta, Melissa

AU - Sleight, Simon

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - This article explores the sartorial style of participants in a street-based youth subculture that thrived in late nineteenth-century Australian cities. Known as 'larrikins', the lower working-class youth so described had a distinctive style of dress including heeled boots and bell-bottomed trousers. Here we examine the material processes through which this larrikin look was produced, locating it in distinctive urban settings and placing it against a backdrop of nascent mass consumption. While also considering the cultural sources of inspiration for larrikin style, our key aim is to demonstrate the richness of an analysis attuned to materiality, preferring this to the semiotic approaches that dominate the relevant literature.

AB - This article explores the sartorial style of participants in a street-based youth subculture that thrived in late nineteenth-century Australian cities. Known as 'larrikins', the lower working-class youth so described had a distinctive style of dress including heeled boots and bell-bottomed trousers. Here we examine the material processes through which this larrikin look was produced, locating it in distinctive urban settings and placing it against a backdrop of nascent mass consumption. While also considering the cultural sources of inspiration for larrikin style, our key aim is to demonstrate the richness of an analysis attuned to materiality, preferring this to the semiotic approaches that dominate the relevant literature.

KW - youth

KW - subcultures

KW - style

KW - material culture

KW - history of dress

KW - colonial Australia

U2 - 10.2752/147800414X13893661072915

DO - 10.2752/147800414X13893661072915

M3 - Article

SN - 1478-0038

VL - 11

SP - 263

EP - 283

JO - Cultural and Social History

JF - Cultural and Social History

IS - 2

ER -