Rave On

Beauty dances to an off-kilter beat as Club Kids, counter-culture, and the underground scene steal the spotlight.

- Aisha Hassan

In his hit song “Rave On”, Buddy Holly sings: “Rave on, it’s a crazy feelin’/And I know it’s got me reelin’,” celebrating the delirium and frenzy of something you never want to end. Holly became an icon of rock ’n’ roll in the late ’50s, and when the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, it was this outlawed genre that infiltrated the East Berlin underground music scene as youths raved, on and on and uncontrollably, to music that gave them freedom.

That sort of rebellion—dancing bodies, relentless rhythm, and a place to let go—has never died. Psychedelic artists of the ’60s, New York Club Kids of the ’80s and ’90s, all dressed in millennial flair, emerged vibrantly and fabulously in this season’s beauty. Rainbow dreads at Marc Jacobs and a cobalt blue Pomeranian at Manish Arora were as loud as the fascination—and controversies—they caused. Subversion was the reigning theme, and it didn’t have a set rhythm.

DON’T STOP MOVIN’ 

Raving isn’t always mad. Nowadays, the term might be better associated with golden-limbed party goers in Ibiza, or perspiring and fist-pumping enthusiasts at Tomorrowland. In fact, it’s all about music and the underground scene, since the modern “rave” grew out of the acid house movement in the ’80s, when clubs would be heaving with edgy, anti-establishment types (many still are).