The Grunge Look.

American youth greeted the new decade in ripped-up jeans. The look, a carryover from the 1980s, featured jeans—new and old—with strategically placed horizontal slits, usually across the knee. The trend was just a harbinger of what was ahead. A new fashion scene took shape in 1991, when the Seattle-based alternative rock band Nirvana released its commercial breakthrough album, Nevermind. Suddenly, the Seattle music scene—and its image—was the look for Generation X, as teens and young adults in their twenties were sometimes called. The music tapped into the sense of angst shared by many young people as the economy continued to spiral downward early in the decade. Grunge was a response to the power dressing and elitism of the 1980s, as rock bands such as Sound-garden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana led the way. Their...