We are in the heart of summer 1996, and through a few images the world discovers five young Englishwomen in a clip, the first of their future album. Spice expected at the start of the school year. Wannabe becomes the first affirmation of “girl power”, the philosophy of the Spice Girls in this Spicemania which begins.
Twenty-five years later, the 1990s are all the rage, and we are rediscovering the cultural impact of the Spice Girls. For Violaine Schütz, journalist and author, what was new and fundamental, “it was to do everything between women, according to the principle of sorority, here artistic“.
“They were way ahead of today’s pop feminism.”
Violaine Schütz, journalist and author
Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, to varying degrees all today embody a modern “girl power”, a feminist takeover. But the girl bands are no longer in fashion, only the British of Little Mix have imposed themselves at home. Let us not forget that in 1996, as Violaine Schütz reminds us, “Beyoncé had not yet done her gig with the word “FEMINIST” behind it […] They were feminists without saying it“.
… Knowing that the Spice Girls have also picked up the torch from the Riot Grrrls, an independent punk community in the northwest of the United States, led by Bikini Kill in particular, dissolved in their commercial sauce. Mathilde Carton, wrote a book on movement, Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now, published by Le Mot and Le Reste, and for her, “the mainstream very often lacks ideas, and will often go to underground movements, of the counter-culture, to recover the essence and the sap“.
“If the Spice Girls could be a gateway to feminism, that would be great.”
Mathilde Carton, author of “Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now”
And not many people deny the Spice Girls this status of pop feminists, claimed even, and more and more, today by young female artists who were not there to see it 25 years ago.
The “girl power” of the Spice Girls, a contemporary reality | Yann Bertrand’s report
to listen
Spice Girls, Spice 25 (Virgin Records). Reissue available October 29.