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‘Misshapes, mistakes, misfits’: Pulp’s signature secondhand style has stood test of time

Band’s ‘on the edge of kitsch’ aesthetic is still relevant three decades later as young people focus on vintage clothing

While the bucket hats, parkas and round specs of Oasis, the other Britpop band on tour this summer, are likely to dominate what young men are wearing, Pulp’s look is an alternative one that celebrates the secondhand. So we’d all congregate at the same venues,” she says, adding insight that sounds like a lost lyric from revenge of the nerds anthem, Mis-Shapes: “There’d be townies and weirdos, squares and students.” Perhaps the enduring appeal of Pulp’s style is once again about the triumph of Mis-Shapes, with its lyrics of “misshapes, mistakes, misfits”, and how expressing your personality through the lucky dip of secondhand clothing is a win.

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