SUB>SUMED Guide

Nothing -> Everything

It is just over two years of activity for SUB>SUMED, with periods of frenetic writing/posting and some periods of reflection and slowness. The remit of exploring how we write about subcultures, their associated styles and fashion codes, and the mid-00s period of avant-garde fashion revisiting the 80s punk and post-punk clothing has just about stayed intact. I have undertaken some mission creep to include a bit of straight up music writing, some of my fairground memories and associated research, and also a bit of diaristic blurb in the here and now.

I’m always encountering new people who might have a potential interest in one aspect of my writing, without wanting to go all in and read everything I put out. As the past two years and a bit have rolled on, a corpus of writing now sits there in little discernible order or logic, making it difficult for me to direct potentially interested parties to what might interest them.

With this in mind I’m going to create a themed index post which (I hope) I can make ‘sticky’ and keep updating as and when new posts appear.

1980s subcultures and styles

• Subculture Degree Zero - on how it all began (for me)

• Punk Fragment (part 1 part 2) - on my provincial punk stylings

• Uneasy Rider - on the biker jacket

• Heterotopic Shopping - on punk clothing shops

• Dead Men and Baggy Trousers - on the post-punk suit

• Legion (part 1 coda) - on following bands

• How the World Ends (part 1 part 2 part 3) - on goth

• Missing the Bus (part 1 return) - on assessing the new romantic scene

• A Field in England (part 1 part 2) - on anarcho-punk as style culture

• Combat Rock (part 1 part 2 part 3) - on military influences in subcultural clothing

• Haute-Goth (part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10) - on contemporary designers in search of lost goth and the 90s hinterland (phew)

• Bad Dress Sense (part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5) – on skateboarding

• Expedition Couture (part 1 part 2) - on outdoor wear as subculture

• Pivot (part 1 part 2 part 3) – on the changing 80s decade

Designer theory (reflecting the 1980s in the 2000s)

• McLaren/Westwood 1980s (part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5) - unpicking a fraught but creative partnership

• Barnsley, Being and Nothingness (part 1 part 2 part 3) - on discovering Pollyanna and the story of a black coat

• Bakhtu Barnsley (part 1 part 2 part 3) - on Yohji Yamamoto and Pollyannas

• Polychronic Birmingham (part 1 part 2) - buying a Rick Owens jacket

• Martin Margiela history/theory (part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4) - four linked essays on the elusive Belgian designer

• Clothing the Discontented (part 1 part 2 coda) - on Martin Margiela vs Joy Division

• Martin Margiela vs Donkey Jacket (part 1 part 2) - on a neglected classic

Music writing (and writing on music writing)

• 1980 - The First Pop Moment - on reinventing Adam and the Ants

• Tough Futures - on post-punk synth-pop

• Punk Funk Dust - on The Higsons and punk-funk

• Why the Long Face? (part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 coda) - on Heaven 17 and misremembered image culture

• Join in the Re-enchantment - on Nitzer Ebb and performative mourning

• Forever Then - a field report from a nostalgic festival

• Last Words (part 1 part 2) – on music writing and punk

• S/C (part 1 part 2) - on some books

• Punk Ghosts – on a Sex Pistols 1976 project

Fairgrounds

• 80s Pop Fairground - on a music themed ride

• Space is the Place - on sci-fi themed fairground art

• Start the Dance (part 1 part 2 part 3) - on fairgrounds and rave culture

• Leather, Studs and Fairground Thrills - on Rollerball

• American Epilog (part 1 part 2) - on Americana in fairground art

• Sailor’s Nightmare (part 1 part 2) - on the Octopus ride

• Waltzer Boy Breaks Free - on gafflads as art subject

• In Search of Rock City (part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4) – on artist Pat Doonan

• Swag – on fairground prizes

Memory and constant diary stuff

• Bedroom Function - on my teenage bedroom as pop shrine

• Daze of Future Past - on hauntological Leeds and a Yohji Yamamoto jacket

• Bakhtin and Bolshevism - on a pop music photograph

• A Trip to the Fair, May 1982 - on a photograph of some friends

• Reflecting on The Face - how the magazine came in and out of my life

• Greyed Out / Grey Doubt - an unwanted suit provokes a grey drift

• Outlaws, Peacocks, Cows and Dogs - on a museum trip back the new romantic scene

• Sleaze in the Attic (part 1 part 2) - on retrieving a 90s magazine

• Bonington Project - selected essay on photographing my clothes

• Nullscapes (part 0 part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4) - an extended essay on Eastern England

• Atomised (part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6) – on image culture and pop/art drifts

• Leeds Gothic (2025) - on a trip to see Psychedelic Furs at Leeds in Oct 2025

• Memory Kollaps – on missing records

• Memory Churn – on objects from the past and social media

• Black Metal / Black Rubber (part 1 part 2) - on extreme metal subculture and the artist Mike Nelson