(Paris) Everything has been written about the music of Kurt Cobain, leader of Nirvana who died 30 years ago, but not about his look, or rather his anti-look, copied, recovered: the image escaped him, like so many other things.
Global explosion: the music video Smells like teen spiritlaunching pad for the trio’s second album, Nevermindhit the TV screens in 1991. Cobain wears two t-shirts one on top of the other, bought second hand.
“He grew up in poverty and layers them to hide his thinness which has long made him self-conscious, even though he was a handsome boy,” Charlotte Blum, author of Grunge, eternal youthpublished by Epa.
These clothes remain in the collective imagination. Like others worn later, between fly glasses or tired cardigan from the famous television show MTV Unplugged broadcast at the end of 1993. Cardigan sold at auction for $334,000 in 2019.
“He was an anti-look, a little dilapidated, but this guy is a paradox, he paid attention to it,” writes Marc Dufaud, author of the recent The Fabulous World of Kurt Cobain published by Bolt.
Subversion
What Charlotte Blum confirms: “If there was one person who hoped to break through, it was Kurt Cobain. He wants to become a rock star, not to be rich, but to no longer lack money.”
For the filming of Smells like teen spiritthe group recruits extras through a flyer – internet does not exist – insisting: “No clothing with brands or logos please”.
But success trumps everything. Grunge becomes a brand and Cobain its silhouette, against his will. “Unfortunately, you can’t control it when you become a phenomenon, an icon,” emphasizes Charlotte Blum. “Cobain wanted to be a star, but he was overwhelmed when he hoped to do things gradually, the way he wanted. There, it’s not just an album that works, it defines a genre,” continues Marc Dufaud.
Marc Jacobs, a great couturier, designed a collection inspired by this movement at the time. “We have always focused on fashion, but she always looks to the street to create. The cruel irony is to borrow from poverty to create luxury,” explains the specialist in the grunge sphere and its epicenter, Seattle.
Cobain, however, attempted subversion through clothing. On the front page of the magazine Rolling Stonehis t-shirt says “ Corporate magazines still suck. The singer and guitarist also chooses his t-shirts to promote fringe artists he loves, like the tormented Daniel Johnston.
Label
And Cobain appears on the cover of the magazine The Face in a blue flowered dress to denounce the ambient virilism of guitar groups. The singer makes it known: “If any of you hate homosexuals, people of color or women […] Don’t come to our concerts.”
The message has spanned the decades. A dress was recently worn by American artists Kid Cudi and Post Malone. One of the guitarists of the British punk band Idles performs on stage today in this outfit, complete with hair and mustache of a Visigoth warrior.
“That means that the world hasn’t changed that much in 30 years, the problem is that we talked more about the cliché of dirty hair from grunge than about female groups like L7 who defended family planning,” regrets Charlotte Blum .
Cobain will never stop tearing away any label, including that of carelessness, displaying himself with humor in lamé signed Jean Paul Gaultier for a clip.
In February 1994, Nirvana played live in the French TV show Nowhere elsein a white shirt, black jacket and tie.
Pat Smear, back-up guitarist in concert, quickly takes off his dress shoes, feeling cramped in them. Cobain is suffocating in his existence. He committed suicide on April 5, 1994, at the age of 27.