Fashion and Music - Janice Miller

Miller states that "equally, like most identities, being a fan is as much about belonging to a group as it is about standing out. That fandom has often been understood as a culture (see Sandvoss 2005) should also suggest that fandom is considered a way for groups of people to mark out a cultural space for themselves which distinguishes them from other groups outside of this culture. Like many such identities, the fashioning of the body is central to the articulation of fan identities."
Psychedelia is very much a culture, albeit an underground one, and the fashion is integral in defining listeners of the genre. I have found, however, that it is not always instantly obvious who is a fan of it. For instance, out of these two photographs, I think that it is more obvious who listens to the genre.

Although dressing less stereotypically of the genre, people are still very much involved and still act and behave as everyone else does. Never will you meet a more friendly and welcoming group of people, which I think is due to the heavy influence that the 60s still has upon this genre.

"Simon Frith has examined the way in which both the lyrical structure and the content of music find a linkage to the traditions and ideas of the people producing and consuming it and play a part in forming communities. He focuses, for example, on country music, which, 'like blues, is a vocal music concerned with the problems of the common people, of the workers and the oppressed' (Frith 1978: 182) In such examples, music was a way of publicly speaking in one's own voice long before other forms of media became conscious of an imperative to represent people from a variety of communities. Thus, fashion and music share the potential for expressions of the self and the community from which one originates."
Psychedelia takes fashion from all over the world and all eras. It is influenced by traditional Indian clothes, Victorian era clothes and even some traditional African clothes. The same cannot be said for the attitudes adopted by this scene, however. It seems apparent that the values of the 1960s have been carried on. There are no fights, everyone is chilled and happy and everyone is welcoming. The music mimics the effects of psychedelic drugs without having to take them, and this provides the link to the 60s where it originated and to the attitudes that people had back then.