TANK GIRL!!

My icon is Tank Girl..

tank girl is a cartoon strip written by Alan Martin and illustrated by the wonderful Jamie Hewlett (who now does the illustrations of The Gorillaz.. and makes me wish i had an under bite.

 Tank Girl (real name Rebecca Buck) drives and lives in a tank. She rides around in post- apocalyptic Australia ( mainly because Hewlett didnt want to draw any buildings..) She enjoys sex, violence, vomitting, spitting and drunkeness. She has a boyfriend called Booga and he is a mutant kangaroo. Tank Girl definately wears the trousers in the relationship, he does whatever Tank Girl tells him to do this includes all of the cooking and murder...

Tank Girl is often called Tank Grrl- a reference to Riot Grrl the underground feminist punk movement. She is definately a punk, she scavanges the post-apocalypic landscape to find clothes, she makes boob tubes from  the ripped up coat tails of her enemies, socks become armbands, a skinned kangaroos head becomes a hat, a bead necklace is made from tranquilisers, all worn with big old workman boots and unconsealed weapons... here are a few of favourite outfits...

Tank girl doesn't have a soft maternal side at all she is mean and nasty, she didn't care for anyone but herself, and she has never considered the consequences of her actions on those around her. There is little plot to the comic, she doesnt have any superpowers and does not act at all for the greater good. In one issue she makes a pact with satan for 3 wishes... Firstly, she wants a giant can of beer... secondly, a guest spot of the Dame Edna show and finally, to avoid Satan's retribution, she wishes that satan was Peter saville.

The comic was made into a film in 1995 starring Lori Petty as Tank Girl, Naomi Watts as Jet girl and malcolm Mcdowell as the vilain Kesslee...Although, it was a commercial and critical flop, I really liked the clothes...

Arianne Phillips made the costumes (who incidently made the costumes for another 90s cultural ICON Courtney Love who starred in The People Vs. larry Flint with Woody Harrelson... 

 And she also made the costumes for Goth cult movie The Crow...

 But I digress..
There are 27 costume changes in the Tank Girl film, including eye colour changes.. Here are some photographs of Lori Petty taken by photographer David Lachapelle for The Face magazine..

 

And I love her hairstyles...

Tank girl has definately influenecd fashion in a big way. Famous model used by Vivianne Westwood, sarah Stockbridge, was dressed up as tank Girl in a famous fashion spread..

The image was used in countless magazines such as Elle and The Face. They cited her as a crucial influence on 'Bad Girl Fashion', (shaven head, piercings and tattoos..)I found this quote on a website from an unknown source...
"She was Thelma and Louise before the fact; she was Mad Max designed by Vivienne Westwood, Action Man designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. She had style, wit and attitude in abundance and she’d spit in your eye and kick you in the nuts if you said different."