A movement is always happening. Today, it is called a “New Rave” movement. The term New Rave is heavily inspired by the old 80’s movement known as New Wave, so the two movements are often compared. The New Wave movement occurred in England, the United States, Germany, and also in Japan, and it affected many other countries. Both of the movement s– New Wave and New Rave – first described the music scene, but soon or later it came to describe the whole culture. There are some similarities and also differences between New Wave and New Rave movement, from the point of view of fashion, music, and social effects.
There are slight differences in fashion between New Wave and New Rave, but the common concept is “to be distinguished”. Every kid wants to stand out in the a disco or club. The New Wave movement overturned the stereotype, and more preposterous styling was popular. The trend started with no-colored monotone. Then the style called “futuristic”; represented by the techno cut, androgyny and unisex fashion. On the other hand, even though the concept is same, New Ravers love color. Club kids are filled with neon, fluorescent colors. Just as techno cut hair and androgyny were the important elements for New Wavers, face- painting is it for the New Ravers. Pink and yellow fluorescent colors were popularized by the New Ravers, and it is spilling over into major brands. Now the New Rave movement is a source of inspirations for fashion designer; the neon colors and showy patterned clothes have started to appear on the runway. Even Time Magazine’s style section reported that New Rave is the next big trend. Although the New Wave fashion trends were a big topic, but they were never admired by society; whereas the New Rave trends are.
Blondie/NewWave
Klaxons/NewRaveThe words New Wave and New Rave were originally created to refer to genres of music. New Wave music was initially marketed as more mixed with other genres, such as funk, rock-n-roll, reggae, and ska. The New Wave bands, such as New Order, The Cure, Kraftwerk, and more were born to resist rock-n-roll, which was the main current since the 1970s. They took in electronica sounds such as drum machines and synthesizers. On the other hand, New Rave is a style of music fusing elements of electronic, disco, punk, and New Wave music. It is characterized by its strong tendency towards rock music. Even though both genres are a mixture of many kinds of music, they resemble each other in this way; “rock based electronic music”.
2012 OlympicBoth of the movements have some social phenomena. The New Wave movement first happened in England, gradually spreading especially to Australia and Japan. The New Wave movement gave a chance to expand Gay culture, because fashion got freer. Also it caused a video revolution. By this New Wave movement, music video added a whole new dimension to music as a visual art form; it changed the whole idea of the music video. Likewise it effected design too. The term New Wave has meaning for design field, specifically the typography that actively defied the strict grid-based design; the representative is Wolfgang Weingart. However New Rave movement has only been happening since 2006, when it started in England. At first the term New Rave shows the special genre of music, but now it is being used for fashion, and art. New Rave was not only responsible for pouring the idea of Fluorescence into the world of fashion; this trend also invoked some strange visual phenomena in recent music videos and designs. The society was surprised by the new logo for the 2012 London Olympic, because it is a very colorful alternative, just like New Rave.
In conclusion, New Wave and New Rave is partly similar and partly different in the aspect of fashion, music and social effect. There has always been various kinds of movements happening in society. Now it is New Rave movement. Back in 70s, it was New Wave movement. Even though the time is very different, they are somehow similar. As time goes on, sometimes the similar movement might come full circle, like New Wave and New Rave.
