KEY POINTS:
Musicians have always inspired fashion trends, sometimes way ahead of time.
Perhaps you'd like to get ahead of local label junkies and swot up on the next musical trends fashion might appropriate.
Or maybe you just want to navigate your way smoothly through the various musical subcultures at the Big Day Out today.
Either way, read our bluffer's guide to musical subcultures, which could contain the seeds of the next big thing in your own wardrobe.
INDIE
This is an all-ages phenomenon that takes in the many and varied forms of "independent" music. As the main qualification merely requires not signing up with any major record labels, indie could include everything from The White Stripes to The Kings of Leon to Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah to Nick Cave to Sonic Youth.
However, over the past three years, indie - in fashion terms - has come to mean a relatively specific look.
How do I spot one?
Tight pants, striped tops, old suit jackets, Converse sneakers or ballet flats, boys in retro shirts, girls in second-hand frocks.
Indies and emos are often confused. The main differences are colours. Indie kids tend to be more colourful in their outfits and less androgynous. They are less likely to have black hair. There are also older indies. Emo kids will often avoid retro looks, but indie kids are mad for second-hand shopping.
Is this the future of fashion?
Come on, where have you been? This look, also described as rock'n'roll, has already spread the message of tight pants, skinny young men with wavy hair, and girls looking bohemian on local and international runways.
Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane was all over it like a rash several seasons ago when he favoured man-orexic looking indie bands.
What do I wear to become one?
Vintage, particularly from Fast & Loose on K Rd.
Style icons: Pete Doherty, The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Karen O from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Kills, The Checks.
EMO
A youth-oriented musical genre - the term emo stands for "emotional hardcore" - that today's hip 30-somethings do not understand and don't want to. They call it Harry Potter goth.
The music began in the early 80s as hardcore punk - then some of the punks got bored with being overtly aggressive and decided to get a little more inward and emotional. Over the years the music has mutated, and now it's a sort of a soft-metal, mid tempo-rock sound with anguished lyrics about how hard it is to be a teenager.
Fashion reflects this perfectly - for instance, black T-shirts and jeans say hardcore while the pink or red accents are all soft and emotional.
How do I spot one?
Black hair, face-hiding fringes, piercings, studded belts, tight black clothing, pink eyeshadow on the men.
Is this the future of fashion?
Although emo has had a noticeable effect on chainstores - just look for the pink and black Ts and stovepipes on the nearest teenage girl - it seems unlikely to influence high fashion overmuch.
A certain gothic look is creeping on to runways, but it's a dark and sophisticated variety that's more about British band de jour The Horrors, with their smudged eyeshadow and asymmetric haircuts, or the dressed-up theatrics of the Dresden Dolls than the easier-to-digest Panic! At the Disco.
What do I wear to become one?
Tight black pants, pink and black chequered Converse or Vans with T-shirts from Illicit, Broken Heart Industries and Spacesuit.
Style icons:
Panic! At The Disco, My Chemical Romance, Placebo, The Bleeders, False Start.
NEW RAVE
Grab your glo-sticks and get ready for the rave revival. Well, sort of. If you're wanting a strict definition of this scene, then the new rave thing is happening right now in the east end of London - it involves old rave, or dance music, played alongside other unexpected genres, in crappy warehouses where arty 20-somethings dressed in dayglo-coloured, utterly mad costumes, cavort wildly.
Apparently it's all terribly Warholian, darlings. For a broader definition, you could classify any of the mutated dance music, post-punk, electro-rock, nu-disco, or whatever you want to call it, as new-ish rave - as long as they're wearing fluoro colours or playing a synthesizer.
How do I spot one?
Glo-sticks and a lemon-yellow leotard worn over an orange neon T-shirt with gold sneakers. Or maybe because they look like they dressed in the dark in a second-hand store circa 1988.
Is this the future of fashion?
Quite possibly. Judging from the over-the-top reactions from fashion editors to British designer Gareth Pugh, also known as couturier to the new rave scene, for his wacky and almost unwearable outfits, bright fluorescent colours and are-you-insane-style dressing-up will inspire the artiest of designers in the near future.
What do I wear to become one?
With her electric colours, Mala Brajkovic does a downbeat version. Also vintage T-shirts and other garments from the early 90s with mad neon colours and patterns.
Style icons:
Peaches, The Klaxons, Coco Solid, Pig Out.
GRUNGE
This was the name given to an alternative, angry rock sound that emerged in the early 90s. The layered scruffy clothing these groups wore in part reflecting the flannel shirts of the lumberjacks, and a life of relative poverty - hence the lumberjack shirts and holes in the clothes.
Then the fashion industry got hold of the look, with Marc Jacobs co-opting grunge style for the runway show that in 1992 earned him the nickname Guru of Grunge.
Late last year Jacobs reprised those looks to mixed reviews. But the look is purely a fashion phenomenon at the moment. Although you'll see plenty of scruffy rock and folk musicians with holes in their shirts the actual grunge sound, as touted by the likes of Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees or Mother Lovebone, has not re-emerged.
How do I spot one?
They look like a dishevelled version of an indie kid who cares less about dressing up. And some of those goatee-flaunting guys in the same black T-shirt with beer stains from last year fall accidentally into this category, as do folk-singing hippies.
Is this the future of fashion?
Marc Jacobs seems to have moved away from his own little grunge revival now. So perhaps the grungiest things we can expect to see on runways are more sombre colours, longer skirts, layers and oversized garments.
What do I wear to become one?
Marc Jacobs, Karen Walker, Lover, long dresses by Helen Cherry with bulky boots.
Style icons:
Nirvana, folk-years Bob Dylan, early Datsuns, local new-country band Vietnam War.
