Led Zeppelin: The enduring influence of flares and flowing locks

"Crazy ways are evident, in the way that you're wearing your clothes." This line from Led Zeppelin's 1968 cover track "Dazed and Confused" captures the way the band expressed themselves through their wardrobe. Their sperm-count-lowering tight jeans and Regency shirts billowing over bare chests as if ripped open by lusty groupies suggested that Led Zeppelin were a band who knew how to let their (flowing) hair down.

In our age of manufactured bands and parents wearing the same clothes as their teenage kids, a look that speaks of youthful braggadocio and fearless excess was bound to strike a chord once again. The devil doesn't just have all the best tunes, he has all the best clothes although today's followers of the Zeppelin look might not take it as far as Jimmy Page, who was interested in the occult and had the mark of the Beast emblazoned on his trousers.

Related articles

• Led Zeppelin: The first, the biggest, and still the best...
• Led Zeppelin: There was a whole lotta love on tour
• Led Zeppelin: Katie Melua on rock'n'roll riffs that rake the psyche
• Led Zeppelin: The guitars are as much a part of their image as Robert Plant's blond cascade
• Led Zeppelin: Faltering first steps on the stairway to heaven
• Led Zeppelin: New boy Jason Bonham on how it feels to hold the loudest sticks in rock
• Search the news archive for more stories

It's not just Led Zeppelin who have influenced fashion, both in their heyday and now. The groupie band put together by Frank Zappa known as the GTOs are an enduring source of inspiration for the rock-chick look currently popular with celebrities desperately seeking credibility. Kate Moss, for example, veers between looking like she's one of the band, and "with" the band. Her flared jeans, tight T-shirts she has a Led Zeppelin design, and one bearing the words "Musician Looking for Groupies" billowing shirts, silk scarves and Oriental waistcoats of the kind Plant might have picked up when in Morocco, could be straight out of Page or Plant's wardrobes. And Sienna Miller's much-imitated boho look had echoes of the outfits worn by groupies such as Pamela Des Barres, who was Page's "road wife" for a year-and-a-half, from 1969.

Ever since music festivals became as much about fashion as bands, and people swapped their combats and jester hats for maxi-dresses, hotpants, tour-bus hair, headscarves and studded belts, the hippie-rock look has lingered like marijuana smoke. D&G's spring/summer 2008 collection features 1970s-style flared jeans teamed with waistcoats, while Roberto Cavalli's show incorporated coloured flares, sheer shirts and long scarves. Even Cavalli's recent collection for H&M featured a serpent bracelet, and some of Page's clothes were adorned with snakes and other occult symbols. The band's accessories oversized jewellery set with chunky stones, and wide, heavy-buckled belts are still synonymous with guitar-hero swagger.

Taking time to style your hair might seem about as rock'*'roll as having a pedicure, but according to Des Barres, luxuriant-locked Page took time over his appearance. In Stephen Davis's biography of the band, Hammer of the Gods, Des Barres is quoted as saying of Page: "Mostly he was quite vain; he'd be in the bathroom working on his hair twice as long as I was, primping and all that. I had a curling machine he would put on his hair to get all these perfect little curls that hung just like that."

Led Zeppelin's barnets paved the way for the big hair of Eighties bands such as Mtley Cre and Skid Row. And some of today's musicians have also incorporated elements of the Zeppelin approach to clothes and hair: note the Kings of Leon's hipster flares, tight band T-shirts and shaggy hair; Jack White of The White Stripes' clingy tees and bluesman hair, and Kasabian guitarist Sergio Pizzorno's silk scarves, trilbies and side-laced tight jeans.

At the forefront of fashion, alongside musicians, are models. At the Select Models office last week, Chloe Hayward, the new face of Topshop, was wearing a Zeppelin T-shirt with skinny jeans, and declared, jokingly, "I've got a whole lotta love for Led Zeppelin." She bought the T-shirt from eBay, which is brimming with vintage and replica band T-shirts, but over the last 10 years, they have become so popular that they are raising large sums at auction. Christie's in New York auctioned its first-ever collection of rock tees on 30 November, and a 1973 Led Zeppelin roadie's T-shirt sold for $1,625.

Simeon Lipman, head of memorabilia and entertainment at Christie's, says: "Led Zeppelin have had a big influence on fashion because the whole aura surrounding them is so cool, and people want a piece of that. There's no question that this T-shirt had been worn, but that's what makes them desirable. The blood, sweat and tears of the concert are embedded in the fabric."

While Urban Outfitters currently has a women's replica Led Zeppelin Inglewood concert top for 32 (www.urban outfitters.co.uk), authentic styles like that sold at Christie's are rare because they tend to suffer wear and tear.

One striking thing about original Led Zeppelin T-shirts is how small they are even the size-mediums were meant for the snake-hipped. The Zep's secret weapons, so to speak, in the fashion stakes were their frequently bare, lean torsos achieved through a diet of drugs, vigorous stage performances, athletic sex, and a rumoured pact with the Devil. Unfortunately for anyone looking to imitate the look, you can't buy those on eBay.