The Marc Jacobs grunge fashion collection

Why grunge fashion lasted longer than its music

Although grunge musicians largely resisted the fashion world's overtures, the style associated with grunge—thrifted shirts, combat boots, loose-fitting flannels—continues to appear on runways and in photo shoots, with fashion icons like Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, and Gigi Hadid often sporting the look.

Nirvana's 'Nevermind' brought punk (and grunge) to the mainstream

The Seattle band's second record, its first on a major label, went to number one four months after it was released in 1991. At one point, it was selling 300,000 copies a week. The band's lead singer, Kurt Cobain, believed in punk's countercultural aims and felt deeply conflicted about the band's success and its ties to the success of "grunge," a subgenre he felt ambivalent about.

Kurt Cobain's cardigan is the most expensive sweater ever sold at auction

Cobain wore the green button-up during Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" performance. It hasn't been washed since then and has several stains as well as a cigarette burn. It sold for $334K in 2019. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

How a Seattle scenester pranked The New York Times with ridiculous grunge 'slang'

In 1992, The New York Times was eager to report on the grunge phenomenon. When a Times reporter called Megan Jasper, who'd previously worked at Sub Pop, she decided to have some fun, feeding him a fake "Lexicon of Grunge."

Why grunge artists loathed the term 'grunge'

As the music took off, the word quickly became a convenient marketing term that lumped together bands that were rather distinct. "'Grunge,' as a term, nobody liked that," Soundgarden's Kim Thayil once said. "Everyone thought, 'Oh this is a marketing thing. This is a way to file Seattle on a retail display in a record store.'"

​Why heroin became associated with the grunge world

The drug was popular with several Seattle acts in the early 1990s, with artists like Hole's Courtney Love even publicizing her use in a magazine profile. A 1992 New York Times story on Seattle said the city's principal drugs were "espresso, beer, and heroin."

Listen to the 'Deep Six' compilation, one of the first collections of grunge

In the '80s, "grunge" was still not a widely used term, though there was a distinct sound coming from Seattle, one that blended punk and metal. C/Z Records decided to document the emerging sound in 1985 by releasing a compilation with six of the city's cutting-edge bands, including Green River, Melvins, and Soundgarden.

Explore key locations in Kurt Cobain's life with this interactive map

The "Grungeology" project maps out key moments, influences, and impacts of Cobain's life in and around Grays Harbor County. Click through the map's many historical spots and learn how Nirvana's band leader navigated his hometown as his fame and music grew.

How Kurt Cobain was influenced by the Beats

Fresh off the success of Nirvana's "Nevermind," band frontman Kurt Cobain reached out to his literary idol, the Beat writer William S. Burroughs, suggesting a collaboration. The correspondence led to "The 'Priest' They Called Him," a hard-to-find recording featuring Burroughs reading a story and Cobain on dissonant guitar.

Coachella fashion repurposes looks from Woodstock

Coachella attendees’ flower-forward fashion sense has been widely replicated (and lampooned) since the festival became a mainstay of the cultural calendar. This podcast, featuring a panel of style writers and music reporters, traces the aesthetic back to the 1969 Woodstock festival. In the process, they also look to untangle why festivalgoers fall into certain styles—and what that means for Coachella and its attendees.

The Sex Pistols were created by the owner of a fashion store

Malcolm McLaren and his wife Vivienne Westwood owned and operated a provocative fashion store in London simply called Sex. McLaren created the Sex Pistols from kids who hung around the shop, none of whom were musicians, as a way to infiltrate the music industry.

Gary Panter's punk art defined the '70s and '80s counterculture

The artist got his start providing fliers and logos for early Los Angeles punk bands, but later took his psychedelic, Pop Art-vision to designing on "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," for which he won three Emmy Awards.

View a gallery of 3D printed clothing

Many 3D printed garments represent wearable art where technology meets couture. Despite their appearances on runways since Iris van Herpen's pioneering top at Amsterdam Fashion Week in 2010, mainstream adoption has been limited due to high costs and reduced comfort when compared to fabric-based apparel.

Sophia Amoruso's company Nasty Gal was worth $100M at its peak

In 2006, Sophia Amoruso started an eBay shop that would later transform into the clothing company Nasty Gal. However, Amoruso’s rags-to-riches success with Nasty Gal didn’t last. After multiple rounds of layoffs and employee complaints, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2016.

X Games emerged during “extreme” marketing boom in the 1990s

Launched as the “Extreme Games” in 1995, the event tapped into a trend from the '90s of brands labeling products and events “extreme” to appeal to youth culture—mirroring marketing in soft drinks, snacks, and video games.

​​Andy Warhol made a Coca-Cola perfume called 'You're In'

The 100 spray-painted bottles were filled with a cheap citrusy perfume, practically begging audiences to ask if they were indeed filled with urine. The Coca-Cola Company sent a cease-and-desist letter shortly after learning of the project. IN 2017, a Japanese fashion brand remade the works without mentioning Coca-Cola.

Jean-Michel Basquiat made a last-minute cameo in Blondie's 'Rapture' music video

The classic 1981 track brought hip-hop culture to new wave. Influential DJ Grandmaster Flash was supposed to appear in the video, but he didn't make it to the set, so the artist filled in, standing at a turntable as Debbie Harry rapped. Check him out at the 1:52 mark.

The Vintage Contemporaries imprint defined the voice of 1980s and 1990s American fiction

The carefully curated line of fiction featured some of the brightest stars in late-20th-century American literature, including Jay McInerney, Cormac McCarthy, and Don DeLillo, and featured eye-catching covers that looked like nothing else on bookshelves.

Salvador Dalí’s collaborations with fashion designers

Dalí was known to dabble in the world of fashion and formed a bond with the bold Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Their collaborations birthed iconic designs like a bureau-drawer suit and a lobster dress.

J Lo's infamous green dress at the 2000 Grammy Awards led to Google Images

Marie Claire rounded up some of the wildest, most infamous Grammys controversies, ranging from wardrobe malfunctions to ill-gotten awards. See events like Kanye and Taylor reconciling, Adele having mic issues, shocking wins, and other historic moments.

The 1980s brought luxury items into the bathroom

Companies produced items like waterproof radios and targeted them at people under 30, marketing the devices as hip ways to stay clean.

The Grateful Dead's online bulletin board system inspired the early internet

The legendary countercultural band the Grateful Dead had a popular hub on The Well, an online extension of the Whole Earth Catalog, a popular hippie magazine in the '60s and '70s. Users included Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), Steve Case (founder of AOL), and Steve Wozniak (cofounder of Apple).

Why Steve Jobs always wore the same outfit

Steve Jobs is well-known for his signature outfit: a black mock turtleneck and denim jeans. The outfit originated in Japan, where Jobs observed Sony employees all wearing matching uniforms. He proposed Apple employees do the same, but that idea was rejected. However, he still decided to create his own uniform.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Watch Johnny Cash’s 1969 concert at San Quentin

Johnny Cash is one of the most recognizable names in country music, but by the 1960s, he was also a rock icon. Part of that status was due to his outlaw identity and willingness to play for true outsiders. This documentary from one of his most famous performances shows why.

In 2004, he starred in a Victoria's Secret ad

You read that right. By 2004, Dylan was already known as a wild card, but even his most ardent devotees were confused by the sight of their artistic hero, by then in his 60s, appearing in a lingerie commercial. Was it a cynical cash grab or just another example of Dylan’s never-ending meta-commentary on stardom?

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

Poison ivy's characteristic rash is caused by an allergic response to an oily compound in the plant called urushiol.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.