10 Ways The Music Industry Owes John Hughes Big Time

7. The Breakfast Club Defined Sub-Culture Fashion

The Breakfast Club is represents every label an old xenophobic society can place on a young society that wears its heart on its sleeve, along with the fashion of its pertinent subculture. The film uses terms like"athlete" and "basketcase" and "criminal" to describe perhaps more familiar synonyms like "jock" (or "bro") and "goth" and "punk," terms which all come with a general dress code and pre-defined taste in music (according to a society of generalizers, of course). Which plays out something like: letterman jacket/Dave Matthews Band, all-black/the Cure, and mohawk-and-patchy-denim-vest/Sex Pistols. Without addressing these subcultures, the films presents high school as a microcosm for how society tends to divvy itself up (and how broadly), these teenage archetypes a boilerplate for judgement based on how something looks and behaves (and what it listens to), without so much as considering how it feels. The central message behind Breakfast Club is that we all deserve to fit in, regardless of pre-set labels. But if you should go the label route, there is a fantastic outfit waiting for you€especially if "criminal" is the look you're going for. (Of course, nowadays you risk being labeled a "hipster" for expressing affection towards John Hughes at any capacity€”in terms of film, fashion, or music - at which point you get the ol' "Ray Bans/Twin Shadow.")