Some people will tell you that the internet killed style subcultures—or a least turned them into a global, universally accessible phenomenon. We say that’s bullshit. Even as the world is shrinking, there are still truly unique groups out there: Men and women doing precisely their own thing, in their own place, in a way that can’t be replicated elsewhere. And we wanted to find them. In this five-part series, Esquire traveled around the world in search of the groups that take personal style to the peak of its meaning.
It takes Nico three hours to do his hair; more, if the frequent neighborhood shut-offs of electricity or water stall the process. He combs out the knots in his thick, dark mane, divides his skull into sections, hot-irons each plug of hair, paints it with gel, and then blasts each one into a stiff point. The procedure is complete when his spikes stand proudly in the air, shooting out at every angle, a human Sonic the Hedgehog in studded black leather.
Nicolas Hurtado Zamora is a fresh-faced punk in Mexico City. At 22, he's part of a new crop in a long lineage of anti-establishment subcultures, defined as much by their aesthetics as the bands they listen to, the art they create, and their forms of political protest. In this city of over 25 million people, sprawling satellite neighborhoods included, there is a roving cast of punks, goths, new wavers, new romantics, industrial freaks, and metaleros united in creative resistance by stylized expression.
The group is comprised of a diverse cabal of individuals who funnel into and fracture along even more specific musical genres. But, generally, they’re called darks here—and unlike in other cities where marginal differences in style or sound can create real social divisions, the darks are surprisingly inclusive, taking all comers (provided they're suitably alternative). Born out of the music genre that continues to define it, the goth-punk scene started at somewhat of a lag from its inception in the mid 1970s in Great Britain and the United States, trickled into Mexico in the late '70s, gained steam in the 1980s, held sway through the '90s, and continues to evolve, picking up reference points along the way.
When punk and its progeny have petered out in their cities of origin, they grow roots in others. Mexico City—where poverty, violence, and corruption are daily realities for the populous—is fertile ground for modes of expression that combat the grind and urban ennui. So while studded belts and mohawks are now passé in some global cities, aesthetic presentations take on new meaning here in CDMX. The goth-punk lifestyle is, seemingly, felt and lived harder here, functioning as a creative outlet as well as a structure of support. Equally important, the scene provides places to listen to music, to dance, to flirt, to drink, and to have a good fucking time. In other words: an understandable reason to spend three hours doing your hair.
Like many of the younger members drawn to the goth-punk scene, Nico found his way in by listening to the music his father did—Bauhaus, Christian Death, Siouxsie and the Banshees—and then found contemporary bands in a similar vein through friends and the internet. He gravitates to sounds along the death rock and dark punk spectrum, and thinks of his personal style as a mash-up. “I like to combine both punk and goth styles. A bit of both sides” he says. His daily outfit is a drapey black tank, sheared from T-shirts that he has screen-printed himself with images of yowling demons and incubi. He straps on multiple belts, a bit of smoky eyeliner, and his black leather jacket, which is hand-stippled with dozens of metal studs. It weighs nearly five pounds.
His girlfriend Nayely Bernache Fernandez, 28, also got into the scene through family. She remembers flipping through her uncle’s record collection at an early age. Eskorbuto, Solucion Mortal, and Massacre 68 were the soundtrack of her adolescence. As a graphic designer and photographer, she embodies the hallmark DIY spirit of the punk movement, making pins, T-shirts, jewelry, and prints for herself and for sale. She says her looks draws on punk from the 1980s, with teased-out hair, clipped skirts, and dangly earrings.
She shops at the city’s historic open-air markets (called tianguis, the Nahuatl word for marketplace), which are held in specific neighborhoods throughout the city on certain days. These local bazaars have sections that specialize in piles of used, dirt-cheap clothes that residents dig through to find wearable pieces. There’s also El Chopo, a Saturday-only punk market that sells newly pressed Cramps T-shirts, hair dye, studs, and CDs—about the closest thing to a Hot Topic you'll find in Mexico City. Despite its cheery capitalist feel nowadays, the market has been running for decades and was once a focal point for political action. It still acts as meeting point for all stripes of alternative subsets, where vendors hawk small-press publications and zines, disseminate anarchist literature, and hand out vegan tortas in the bright light of day.
Come nightfall on the weekend, at dark nodes throughout the city, generations of darks gather. Clubs and bars like El Real Underground (“El Under” for short), Centro de Salud, Bizarro, U.T.A., and Gato Calavera offer booze and DJs. Tocadas, or shows, are also held in these spaces, or at temporary venues in rough barrios at the end of metro lines. People wear their Sunday finest. Generation Xers, who traded cassettes and coveted LP imports of Sex Pistols and Los Ilegales albums, shoot the shit with millennials who find music online. Tattoos, many with Aztec or Mayan imagery, are standard, with lots of neck and face pieces. Hair comes in electric pink, purple, and blue, with just as many shades of Doc Martins, studded belts, leather jackets, and slivers of strappy, lacy lingerie peeking out.
It’s midnight on a recent Saturday—just the beginning of the night for employees at El Under, the black beating heart of the goth-punk scene, with almost 12 years in the same corroded mansion. The staff relocated from Centro Historico when they split off from another punk club, bouncing around downtown before landing at this location behind an Office Max in Roma Norte. A dozen or so dark-clad figures are outside, either lining up to enter and pulling out their IDs, or simply smoking and chatting, wrists already stamped for entry. A line of motorcycles tilt towards the wall.
Inside, the walls are painted with Crass and Siouxsie murals. There are Dada manifestos scribbled on the ceiling, which is hung with dangling plastic black bats. The main downstairs dance floor is crammed with bodies. The new wave classic “Las Manos Quietas” by Carlos Pérez has dozens of dancers crooning along with the bouncy synth line. Nico is showing off his fresh shoulder tattoo: a large, finely-drawn Tyrannosaurus Rex baring its teeth. He sold his mother’s original Jurassic Park action figure to pay for it. Scanning the room, there are some punks, goths, a crisp button-down-and-bracer skinhead, and a few generic rockers interspersed with normal-looking folk: coders, office workers, T-Mobile employees. For almost everyone, black is the uniform, with an occasional red accent or bit of plaid, with heavy makeup on both women and men. No colors. No pastels.
Upstairs, there’s another dance floor, a smoking room, and an Instagram-ready coffin, lined in red satin, tucked into a corner. Arturo Reyes Cruz is by the coat check, quietly surveying the scene. With his naked white skull, pointy ears, and white contact lenses, he is an arresting figure. His overcoat matches his coal lipstick. He is set to DJ shortly, and has made many of the plasticine and paper mache dragon-like creatures hanging around the space. He studied art, set up a studio in his apartment, and has been selling his figurines on the street for years.
He tells me he fell in with a goth-punk crew that included Under owners Raul Salas Navarro and Fernando Salas Navarro in the mid ‘90s, when they would carry records to each others’ houses and pool money to go see visiting acts. (Fernando is known locally as “Lord Fer.” A talented DJ and representative of the scene, he often looks as though he just walked out of the photoshoot for The Cure’s 1985 album The Head on the Door. That night, he was away in Playa del Carmen playing a show with his punk band.)
Cruz points to Nosferatu (both the British gloom-rock band and the German expressionist 1922 horror film) as the reference point for his look. In adolescence, he tried out mohawks, but was drawn to moody, somber clothes. “Once I realized my hair was going to shit, I just went for it,” he laughs. He shaves his head completely, emphasizing the contours with pitch. Cruz shops for clothes on the street and browses La Lagunilla, the antique, Sunday-only market, for vintage jackets or anything that catches his eye. His arts training and familiarity with paints and plastics is useful for homemade alterations, as well as the vampiric points he molds onto his ears to complete the look for weekend nights that run well into dawn. When I met him for coffee on a Wednesday afternoon, he had toned down his look: torn black leggings, a velvet black sport coat, and a single crimson contact lens, instead of two.
That Saturday, Cruz spun an eclectic mix of chugging goth rock and eerie darkwave, dropping an Alien Sex Fiend track into Sisters of Mercy. Depending on the DJ, the night, and the advertised party, the style at Under will shift. Oddity, a electronic imprint/party-thrower, brings spazzed out electro acts and minimal new wave DJs, all blown-out hair, angular getups, and neon lights. On rockabilly nights, there’s a standup bass on the stage and slick pompadours and custom leather oxfords on the dance floor. If attendees aren’t vibing with the sound or style at Under (or feel like continuing the party after it closes at 5am), they trudge three blocks south to Centro de Salud, which is an even skuzzier punk depot, cramped and spattered with the Mexican alcoholic drink pulque; or head further west, to Bizarro Cafe, where darks fuel up on pizza and french fries before catching live acts and DJs upstairs.
Chatting with Fernandez, the graphic designer and photographer, one night at Under, she tells me loves the desmadre (literally, the “disaster”) of the Mexico City scene—the rampant partying that ignites every weekend. Still, she envies the safety of other alternative scenes she has visited in places like Oakland and Berlin. “You don’t have to worry about being assaulted or robbed,” she says. In Mexico city, those are pedestrian experiences, as are earthquakes and frequent flooding.
Like any tight-knit scene, the darks have their issues. A lot of gossip. Nasty looks, nastier rumors, and occasional confrontations that escalate into fights. Drugs and alcohol fuel the chaos. When punches are thrown, a rumble will release the pent-up energy; once the offenders are hauled out by their friends, the room returns to stasis. Everyone goes back to sharing liters of Indio beer with their friends and plotting how to get sold-out tickets to Killing Joke, who will play later this month. A Depeche Mode sing-along has started on the downstairs dance floor, a thicket of bodies with impeccable eyeliner. The smoke machine spews out a fresh cloud. The sun rises much too soon.
