Thirty after his death, Kurt Cobain's grunge look still cult

April 5, 1994. The leader of Nirvana injects himself with a final dose of heroin before shooting himself in the head. 30 years after his death, everything was written to the music of Kurt Cobain. But not on his look, or rather his anti-look, created from second-hand clothes. Very quickly, his image escapes him, like so many other things.

Back in 1991. The video for Smells like teen spirit, the launch pad for the trio's second album, entitled Nevermind, burst onto TV screens. Kurt Cobain sports two second-hand T-shirts, one with long sleeves, the other with short sleeves. “He grew up in poverty and layers them to hide his thinness which has long made him self-conscious, even though he was a handsome boy,” explains Charlotte Blum, author of Grunge, eternal youth published by Epa.

These clothes remain in the collective imagination. Like others worn later, between sunglasses or a tired cardigan from the MTV Unplugged television show, broadcast at the end of 1993. Twenty-six years later, in 2019, the famous cardigan sold for $334,000 at auction. “It was an anti-look, a bit dilapidated, but this guy is a paradox, he paid attention to it,” confides Marc Dufaud, author of the recent The Fabulous World of Kurt Cobain published by Éditions du Bolt.

What Charlotte Blum confirms: “If there was one person who hoped to break through, it was Kurt Cobain. He wants to become a rock star, not to be rich but to no longer lack money. For the filming of Smells like teen spirit, the group recruited extras through a flyer - the internet does not exist - insisting: "No clothes with brands or logos please".

But success trumps everything. Grunge becomes a brand and Cobain its silhouette, against his will. “Unfortunately, you can’t control it when you become a phenomenon, an icon,” emphasizes Charlotte Blum. “Cobain wanted to become a star but he was overwhelmed when he hoped to do things gradually, the way he wanted. There, it’s not just an album that works, it defines a genre,” continues Marc Dufaud.

Marc Jacobs, a great couturier, designed a collection inspired by this movement at the time. “We have always focused on fashion but she always looks to the street to create. The cruel irony is to borrow from poverty to create luxury,” explains the specialist in the grunge sphere and its epicenter, Seattle.

Also read: Kurt Cobain would have been 50: Nirvana's ten best covers since his death

Kurt Cobain, however, attempted subversion through clothing. On the front page of Rolling Stone magazine, his t-shirt mentions “Corporate magazines still suck”. His t-shirts are also a way for him to promote artists on the fringes that he cherishes, like the tormented Daniel Johnston.

For Kurt Cobain, clothes quickly became a way to send messages. On the front page of The Face magazine, he poses in a blue floral dress to denounce the ambient virilism of guitar groups. The singer makes it known: "If any of you hate homosexuals, people of color or women [...] don't come to our concerts."

The message has spanned the decades. A dress was recently worn by American artists Kid Cudi, Harry Styles and Post Malone. “That means that the world hasn't changed that much in 30 years, the problem is that we talked more about the cliché of dirty hair from grunge than about female groups like L7 who defended family planning,” regrets Charlotte Blum .

The singer will never stop tearing away any label, including that of carelessness, displaying himself with humor in lamé signed Jean-Paul Gaultier for a music video. In February 1994, Nirvana performed live on the French TV show Nulle Part Elsewhere, in a white shirt, black jacket and tie. Pat Smear, back-up guitarist in concert, quickly takes off his dress shoes, feeling cramped in them. Cobain is suffocating in his existence. The leader of the trio ended up committing suicide on April 5, 1994, at only 27 years old.