Greasers in Society.

Clothes are a form of expression. What a person wears usually shows the mood they’re in and sometimes it actually determines what type of person they are.

In the 1950s when greasers were first introduced society looked down upon them. And the reasoning for this was because they were known as “hoods” and dressed as such. At that time greasers were unpopular as we know. Fast forward to current days. Things have extremely changed. The norm is not dressing up everyday. The current look is very laid back, casual.

So the question is would greasers be accepted in society today? The answer is YES! Actually greasers would be considered the “cool kids”. No surprise that people do go out their way to learn how to dress more like greasers. In fact there are several online post that will actually guide you to “become a greaser“. These online post inform people on what to where and how to wear it. Very convenient if you’ve been watching or reading about greasers and want to change-up your look.

The way a greaser dressed in the 50s compared to now is similar but yet different. Of course everything wouldn’t be the same because we live in a different time and we’re basically imitating a look that was already done. Here below is how a “greaser” would look in today’s society..

As you can see very different but still similar. Very much greaser inspired though. There are many differences in what society today would consider the “greaser look”.

This style has more color to it. Even though the colors aren’t bright, greasers in the 50s basically wore black, grey, and white.
The jackets are different. Back then the leather motorcycle jacket is considered the jacket for greasers. Now it’s also jean jackets.
The young man in the middle barely has any leather on. The most that is leather is probably his shoes, if that.
Also, notice the hair style of the young men in the picture above. Didn’t the name greaser have something to do with the whole hair process? In the 50s the men used to gel their hair into the middle of their heads unlike the three young men in the picture above.

Like mentioned, clothes is a form of self-expression, so why be exactly like another generation? That can explain why we put a twist to the whole “dress like a greaser” trend. In today’s society vintage is popular but being yourself is just as popular. Celebrities such as Rihanna does this a lot. She wears her leather clothing, big hair, shape fitting clothing and still expresses her own style at the same time. She is the prime example of a greaser in today’s society.

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Greasers in the Media.

The style greasers had were imitated throughout the years. Greasers have appeared in the media probably more than we have realized. Sometimes it may be hard to recognize the greaser theme in a movie because they might have the time period confused with another one.

The common greaser based movie that most people know of is Grease. Grease is a musical film that was released in 1978. The sequel, Grease 2, was later made in 1982.

This is the movie poster for Grease. As you can see John Travoita, who plays Danny Zuko in this film is wearing a black shirt with his hair pushed back. Typical to how greasers were looking in the 50s. Of course greasers weren’t as cleaned up as he is because this is a movie poster but nevertheless this is generally the look.

A few other movies about greasers are…

Rebel Without a Cause
The Outsiders
The Wild One
Cry Baby

And this list is only just some of the movies. There are plenty more about greasers that weren’t listed. Movies weren’t the only form of acknowledgement to greasers. For the person who is always on the go and just wants to enjoy a good 1950s book about greasers had options also.

Here is a list of a few books about greasers…

The Outsiders
Crash Club
That Was Then, This Is Now

Not as many books as there is movies but the books are equally entertaining. Also, the book The Outsiders is a movie. After a while a lot of books become movies or vice versa.

Dressing like a greaser has become very popular also. Now that style is way more popular compared to the 50s when people looked at greaser as the people with little fashion sense. Plenty of celebrities and everyday people imitate this style.

One famous celebrity most people should know or at least know of is Elvis Presley. He often that often dressed similar to how a greaser would dress.

As you can see very common to how they dressed with the hair and leather jacket. One thing that is slightly different is that he doesn’t have a white undershirt on. Well at least it’s not visible in this picture.

Another celebrity who is very well-known is Rihanna. She has many different styles.

Not a typical greaser girl but every much influenced by how the style of greasers in the 1950s. especially with the color black, big hair, leather, and red lipstick. She wears black a lot actually. Her style is very different to us now but very similar to the style in the 1950s.

Many other celebrities have moments when they choose the classic greaser look. Movies like Grease actually made the style seem “cool” and with the help of celebrities the look seems “cooler” which draws people to want to dress that way also.

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How Do Greasers Dress?

At this time in history, greasers did not dress how everyone else did. They were actually known by their rebellious ways.

Normal people in the 1950s…

The style of dress in the 1950s mostly focuses on women.
In the 1950’s women were wearing A line skirts and dresses that came to the bottom of the knee and their clothes were very form-fitting and form flattering.
At this time everyone dressed very polished.
Women were always dressed nicely, they also always had their hair done, and their pearls on.
Women were very into the puddle skirts also.
Men had their hair slicked back with gel and they wore what we would probably call today a very preppy style.
Men usually focused on the “business man” look.
A lot of people were actually starting to look-alike but thought they looked different because they had different patterns to their clothing.

Here’s how a male and a female who was not a greaser typically looked..

This look was very classy and sophisticated. People who were in high school was dressing like this. Which is not common now because everyone loves to be comfortable.

Greasers at the time were probably pretty comfortable because they dressed nothing like this picture above.

Greasers on the other hand had a different style.

Hair..

Usually hair was combed through with gel.
The bangs of their hair are elevated off of the forehead and the hair is slicked back.
The duck’s tail was very common. This is where the hair was combed toward the back of the head and a seam was formed where the hair from the sides met in the back.

Clothing and actual dress..

They were Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star sneakers, motorcycle boots, cowboy boots or black leather engineer boots with steel toes.
They wore Aviator style sunglasses.
Tattoos were very common amongst greasers.
Blue jeans or black pants were the standard pants worn by most greasers. The legs of the pants were straight and tailored.
Most men would wear plain white or black t-shirts, undershirts or ringer t-shirts.
Greasers often wore leather motorcycle-style jackets.

Here’s how a typical male greaser would have looked in the 1950s..

As you can see this look was completely opposite to how everyone else was dressing. This is one of the greasers rebellious actions. At that time schools really weren’t allowing people to dress like this but they did it anyway.

Greaser girls dressed typically like the males. Only things they did different was they didn’t gel their hair back. The girls were into the big hair. Also, the greaser girls wore form-fitting clothes and the circle cut shirts were a popular thing for them to wear.They also wore bold make up that was really attention catching.

Sources:

Skooldays Greasers. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3 2014, from http://www.skooldays.com/categories/fashion/fa1408.htm

Hambrin, M. (n.d). Guys’ greaser clothes of the ’50s. ehow. Retrieved April 3 2014, from http://www.ehow.com/info_8119269_guys-greaser-clothes-50s.html

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What is a “Greaser”?

A greaser is a youth subculture that originated in the 1950s among teenagers in northeastern and southern United States. Rock n Roll music was a major part of the culture and styles were influenced different singers such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bill Haley, and Richie Valens.

The name greaser came from their greased-back hairstyle, which involved combing back hair. Greasers from other races would have different hairstyles if they had curly hair like Latinos or African-Americans.
“Greaser” soon became a label for those young adults that rebelled.
The term “Greaser” reappeared in later decades as part of a revival of 1950s popular culture.
The greaser subculture was largely a North American youth phenomenon. There were similar subcultures in

United Kingdom
Australia
Italy
Japan
Sweden
Germany
South Africa

Here below is a picture of how a typical male greaser dressed.

: Typical North American greaser.

In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1980s, greasers were known as “hoods” (street punks). This is because the “greaser” look was more popular in working class neighborhoods that had higher crime rates than the upper class neighborhoods.

Although males typically come to mind when mentioning greasers, males were not the only greasers at the time. Females greaser at the time were simply called “Greaser Girls”. They were just as relevant as the males.

Here below is a picture of a typical “Greaser Girl” .

Greaser girls were also very popular in the working class for the same reasons as the male. The greaser girls were known for having very big hair opposed to the males with slick back hair. Greaser girls were also very popular in the North America region and had many of the same characteristics as the males.

Greasers were not known for having the best and most positive attitude. Their attitudes were not the best. They did not really put up with people’s “crap”. Since greasers had more of a “bad boy” image, one might conclude that others in the community could have been afraid of them.
People have their own ideas and opinions about Greasers. Today greasers have this cool, bad boy image. This was the complete opposite in the 1950s though. With all the more current remakes of how the 1950s were, one might not know this about greasers.
In the high school settings, greasers were very unpopular people. Just like many current high schools, high schools are divided by the social class. There are the people who are “cool” or very popular, nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, etc. In high school, greasers fell into the category of being unpopular. Nobody really wanted to associate with greasers. They were looked down upon because they skipped class, smoked cigarettes, things of this sort.

Citation:

greaser (subculture). (2009). Retrieved March 24, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greaser_(subculture)

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