POP LIFE

From the British Invasion of the ‘60s to Current Hip-Hop Culture, Music and Fashion Have Been Inseparable. Then MTV’s Influence on the American Wardrobe Took the Relationship Between Fashion and Music to a Whole New Level. In the Pages That Follow, We Check In With Three Grammy-Winning Trendsetters Who Make Mainstream Fashion Work on an Individual Level and Trace the Garage Band Phenomenom that Could Only Happen in Los Angeles

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Here I stand in front of my bedroom mirror, shamelessly posturing. I pump my puny arms for the umpteenth time, reminding myself that lifting dumbbells will get me closer to my goal: the roller-coaster biceps exposed in those sleeveless shirts that seem to be the rage of rock gods. I, too, want that flex-and-the city-look a la Lenny Kravitz, Enrique Iglesias and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So, like a human oil rig, I pump.

I’ve cruised this rock fashion road before, the place where music and style converge. I was too young to look like a Beatle. I passed on Spandex and glitter rock, and I didn’t indulge in hip-hop. But in between those musical genres and looks, I’ve rocked ‘n’ rolled in clothing that was influenced by the stars onstage.

In the ‘90s, with a bandanna-wrapped forehead, I grunged my way to Nirvana land in mismatched clothing anchored by lumberjack plaid flannel shirts. In the ‘80s, I tried out new wave and punk alternative looks: I spiked my rainbow-colored hair, wore wild sunglasses at night and deconstructed thrift store finds, perfect for the B-52’s spastic rock lobster. I copied the Che Guevara beret-wearing looks of the Thompson Twins and the Clash. I stole wardrobe tips from Boy George (baggy geisha coats), Adam Ant (drum major ensembles), Billy Idol (bad boy leather) and Michael Jackson (a “Thriller” V-shaped zippered jacket, high-water trousers, a sequined glove) and created my own style.

Nothing captured my fashion fancy like the touch, the feel, the industrial grip of polyester, circa 1977, when the disco beat came into full bloom with the release of “Saturday Night Fever.” I’m not afraid to confess to shamelessly freaking with Chic or getting down with KC & the Sunshine Band or taking my cues from the Bee Gees in petroleum-based, body-hugging Qiana shirts and shiny slacks that coiled around my hairless physique.

“Music and fashion are definitely intertwined and have been for a very long time,” says Marshal Cohen, co-president of NPDFashionworld, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based company that tracks apparel industry trends. “It used to be that fashion influenced music tremendously.” Now, “because fashion is looking for a direction and trends to hang its hat on,” the music industry is the dominant cultural influence.

“A lot of today’s fashion leaders are looking at things they see, especially in music videos, for inspiration.”

What do they see? “Rap and hip-hop artists walking around in baseball jerseys and track pants,” Cohen says about the street trends generated from the world of music and worn by both sexes “because music is genderless and fashion is theater.”

Tom Julian, an analyst with New York-based Fallon Worldwide, an advertising and trend-tracking agency, agrees that music has a powerful influence on fashion. Young people “take their cues from their music heroes.” Consider Britney Spears’ midriff-baring, low-rise outfits, the sexy, form-fitting shirts and leather pants worn by Kravitz and, more recently, the ‘70s-inspired tunics recently seen on rapper Ja Rule.

“The fashion of music all trickles down eventually,” says Julian, especially the fashion of music television. Indeed, this fall, MTV--with its video programming and youth magnet shows such as “TRL,” “Cribs,” “Undressed” and “The Osbournes”--is indisputably the Home Shopping Network for fashion cloning.

Of course, the relationship between rock and fashion was fixed long before anyone even dreamed of a 24-hour music video channel.

“The big-time connection between fashion and music really kicked in when the Beatles hit America,” says David Wolfe, creative director of New York-based the Doneger Group, a fashion trend consulting firm. “They represented so much fashion style with their Liverpool cool look” that included lapel-free Pierre Cardin-like suits, silk ties, button-down shirts and shaggy hair. Even their girlfriends, in their Mary Quant miniskirts, became trendsetters.

Vogue magazine dubbed the British pop culture invasion the “youth quake,” and Americans loved it. We embraced the looks that were fueled by Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy and others. The styles soon were reinterpreted by designers such as Cardin and Andre Courreges, who offered mini dresses with mid-calf boots--that were in turn knocked off by go-go boot-clad teenagers in the ‘60s versions of music television: “Hullabaloo” and “Shindig.”

And that was just the beginning. As the ‘60s waned, the hippie look soon took over, with Janis Joplin draped in tie-dye tops and patchwork jeans, a style that has been revived. The early ‘70s collaboration of designer Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, the father of punk, resulted in the Sex Pistols and their slashed-to-ribbons and safety-pin-adorned garments, influential looks that have had staying power. In the late 1970s, performers such as the Bee Gees donned platform shoes and clingy disco clothes that became the rock fashion statement of that time. Designers Stephen Burrows, Betsey Johnson and Norma Kamali produced leotards, hot pants and stretch jeans that allowed ease of movement for disco dancing. The clothing manufacturer Danskin marketed its leotard with matching tights and wraparound skirts as disco wear.

As MTV took baby steps in the early ‘80s, Prince, Michael Jackson, Boy George, Jon Bon Jovi and Cyndi Lauper followed along. The ‘90s saw the emergence of rap looks that begat today’s hip-hop styles, just another ingredient in the rock fashion soup that merges seamlessly with music.

And, of course, there’s Madonna, a major influence in the music and fashion worlds for almost 20 years. Ruth P. Rubinstein, who teaches a Clothing and Society course at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and is the author of “Dress Codes: Meanings and Messages in American Culture,” cites the singer’s wide variety of looks, ranging from Jean Paul Gaultier space-age Dixie-cup bras to the Burberry plaid number she recently wore at a concert. “Right now, guys and girls are walking around New York in something Burberry because Madonna wore it.”

The trend of the future is individualization, both in music and fashion. “When it comes to fashion, anything goes because there is so much to choose from,” says Roger Selbert, Santa Monica-based trend analyst and editor and publisher of Growth Strategies, a biweekly report that tracks trends. “It’s been a long time since the fashion mavens could dictate what was acceptable. Now basically there is very little that is unacceptable. Looks are no longer handed down from a single fashionista. They’re coming from music in all directions. What you do with that is up to the individual.”

Los Angeles clothing designer Freddie Rojas understands individualism. “Young people today see the synergy between music and fashion. They see something in a video and reinterpret that look for themselves,” says Rojas, who has created garments for Gwen Stefani, Spears, Madonna and Janet Jackson and designs for Private by Rojas for the Private Circle label.

In fact, in every office of Hot Topic, a national chain with 401 stores that sell music-influenced merchandise, including clothing knock-offs worn by video and concert performers as well as concert-goers, MTV is on. “We can see what’s hip from the bands to the VJs to the people in commercials,” says Cindy Levitt, vice president and general merchandise manager. “Videos are our driving fashion force.”

So are the weekend concerts that staff and store buyers are encouraged to attend. Every Tuesday they gather to talk about “what we saw kids wearing,” she says. Recently, suppliers created the black shirts and white ties worn by the Hives, an indie band popular with customers. “We jumped on it and got them made,” Levitt says about the sellers that are a throwback to the ‘60s mod look. The City of Industry company also offers what Levitt calls the “very current emo look”--vintage narrow trousers and retro striped polo shirts for fans of emo music, which she describes as “emotional hard-core punk that’s whiny with feeling, but sensitive.” The look is classic thrift store and worn by the bands Weezer, Saves the Day, Dashboard Confessional and the Get Up Kids.

Hope Brick, vice president and fashion director for Robinsons-May department stores, says she tells her staff and store personnel to watch music videos for today’s fashion direction because “industry wide, it’s coming from the music scene from highly visible artists.” That also includes the breakout stars from “American Idol” and their fashions, such as belts worn as chokers that Brick will feature on mannequins this fall.

These days, my closet is more gq than Bee Gees. And my musical tastes have shifted, too. But the late ‘70s and early ‘80s were my salad days. Back then, I had the fever: long Bee Gee-style hair, a Tony Orlando bushy upper lip and a Travolta shake-your-groove-thing strut. I was just out of college and working my first full-time job: covering the police beat for a newspaper. Too wired to go home at the end of my midnight shift, I transformed myself from reporter to disco king. I loved the nightlife. I had to boogie on the disco round. I knew the words to every hit: “Disco Inferno,” “Staying Alive,” Donna Summer’s remixes.

I would make a beeline to my favorite discos during my off-hours--a poly-wrapped fool--raw in my pursuit for the right to party, to get lost in the music and the sexually charged clothes that went with the package.

Looking back, I realize why I was under the spell of that era’s music and fashion. Under spinning mirrored balls, the fusion of the two allowed me to be carefree without the worry of making a deadline.

Like other musical tastes that came before and followed, the disco sound and its fans longed for freedom. Quite simply, that’s why the art of music and the art of fashion will always be intertwined. I proved it. In tight-fitting, wrinkle-free, dirt-repellent flared pants and a navel-revealing shirt, accessorized with chains and medallions, I bumped and hustled, turned the beat around and chanted to the sounds that influenced my feverish look. I stood proud and tall--hey, I was in platforms.

And like Gloria Gaynor, I survived.

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Times staff writer Michael Quintanilla last wrote about the growth of the men’s grooming industry for the magazine.