Strutting onto the 9:30 Club's stage last month in sparkling black pants and a white lace-up fur vest, the Darkness' Justin Hawkins was a vision of rock splendor straight out of 1980.
But the long-haired singer's extravagant outfit wasn't the only element of his show in Washington that echoed the campy days of hairspray and heavy metal.
With pomp and pageantry, he crooned falsetto through Queen-inspired tunes, perpetrated gymnastic jumps a la David Lee Roth and then commanded the excited crowd to raise their lighters (or, in his words, "torches of love") during the band's guitar-heavy power ballad.
And when the over-the-top performance was over, one thing became clear: glam-rock (and fashion) was back, and it was more popular than ever.
For many in the audience, the Darkness' sound and stage antics presented a much-needed break from today's cynical and diluted indie-rock shows.
For others, the band's glitzy fashion sense, in particular that of the flamboyantly styled Hawkins, served as a long-awaited go-ahead -- it was (again) time for glam fans to flaunt their stuff, rocker-style.
And flaunt they did.
Groups of men and women in non-ironic leather pants and animal-print Spandex strutted through the audience of twentysomethings, their proudly displayed rocker duds evidence of the band's influence over music and fashion.
But the Darkness is no pioneer in that regard.
Though its songs are catchy, the group's musical style simply represents a modern permutation of a genre that lost its shine years ago. And as for dress, the four-piece is only the most recent act in a long line of pop music performers who have taken on secondary roles as fashion trendsetters.
Since the dawn of rock music more than half a century ago, rock and street wear have been "completely, inextricably linked," said Sass Brown, professor in the fashion design and apparel department at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
From Elvis Presley and the Beatles to David Bowie, Madonna and the Cure, rock stars have been directing the look of street clothes for years, Brown believes. The reason: a heavy reliance on shock value and all things cutting-edge.
The clothing industry "is constantly replacing itself and renewing itself. So it totally fits with the whole concept of rock 'n' roll rebellion," said Brown.
Nikki Sixx, founder of the platinum-selling rock act Motley Crue, believes the relationship may be even more basic than that.
