Every time I see companies selling ""“punk”"" jewellery or clothing I become apoplectic with rage. Just saw a £65 padlock…
Every time I see companies selling “”“punk”“” jewellery or clothing I become apoplectic with rage. Just saw a £65 padlock necklace advertised to me bitch Fuck you go to your nearest weird little shop that sells everything in the world including fake Rolexes and bongs the size of a toddler. Buy a thing of chain and a padlock. Borrow some bolt cutters someone you know will probably own some and if not get some cheap ones or borrow from a local tool library. Slap em together. Maximum cost £30 and that’s MAXIMUM that’s assuming you bought over a metre of expensive heavy chain AND bought the bolt cutters. You can do it for under a fiver with a wallet chain and pliers. I still wear a necklace I made when I was 15 out of a wallet chain and pliers and a padlock I got in a set of 3 from poundland. If the issue is dexterity or otherwise disability related then find a friend and swap a favour with them it’ll still be cheaper than these scamming poser companies and will help you build community and share resources. Something which is actually punk. Fuckin. Capitalist posers
Important to keep in mind there’s a distinction here between ‘someone who paints and sells patches in their own small business’ (cool, craftsmanship, usually very fairly priced for materials and labour while still affordable for punks who don’t have that skillset to buy, honestly not a category far removed from 'if you buy me lunch I can paint your jacket’ exchanges) and big companies who charge extortionate prices for something that’s supposed to be counterculture, paying staff minimum wage and making huge profits the workers will never see a penny of (cunts)
the most most punk way to make a padlock chain necklace is to cut the chain off a door or gate or piece of equipment that has been locked to the public, especially if it is something the public should have access to, or if it is something that belongs to an entity that is profiting at the cost of the public good, most specifically if that cost is disproportionately paid by disadvantaged segments of said public that are being oppressed
like, a super punk way to source your padlock chain necklace would be to cut it off the back of a Nestle truck, or from the gate blocking a construction road for an oil pipeline, or from a dumpster full of usable food behind some grocery store or something.
I only explain this so people can understand why buying some fake ass padlock chain necklace from some corporation automatically makes it NOT punk at all, it is literally the opposite of punk, which is a fashion strongly rooted in a social ideology