‘Go sharp or go home’: the competitive subcultural practices of historical Australian youth culture known as ‘Sharpies’

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is an examination of the competitive subcultural practices of Sharpies: a continental fashion-oriented Australian youth culture lasting from the early 1960s until the mid-1980s. Firstly, it offers a brief overview of who the Sharpies were. A Bourdieusian lens is used to examine the importance of accruing subcultural knowledge and subcultural capital to attain higher status, particularly through style, to gain an increased sense of belonging and access to higher status within the culture. It then analyse the fierce, continuous competition over subcultural capital that occurred within the Sharpies’ field of subcultural production. Western traditions of ‘low’ Dandyism are discussed to contextualize the central sartorial struggles over what was and was not authentic Sharpie style. Following Keith Kahn-Harris’ (2007) concepts of mundane and transgressive, practices are described and delineated which, on one hand, preserve and sustain a youth culture and, on the other, can disrupt, threaten, or revitalize. Both are key to the culture’s attraction in terms of belonging and excitement. Finally, this article explores the main practices which reproduced the culture and how they were affected by the dynamic tension between their mundane and transgressive experiences and behaviours.