POV: It’s 1992 and you’re in a cavernous hangar in Rotterdam, in the midst of a throng of pilled-up ravers, furiously jacking to a punishing 200 BPM kick. It’s hardly a scene for the faint of heart, but it’s one that has become a perennial reference in contemporary culture, with gabber – arguably the Netherlands’ most impactful subculture – capturing the minds of musicians, artists and fashion designers alike. 

Born in the Netherlands’ second city, Rotterdam, gabber’s uncompromising sound was a natural product of its context, an aural foil to the city’s stark post-industrial landscape. Developed from hard techno sounds imported from neighbouring Germany in the early 1990s, gabber took the city by storm. Weekend after weekend, a plethora of vacant industrial spaces – like Parkzicht, an abandoned manor in the city – drew revellers in their thousands. For many of them, these parties represented more than just an opportunity for a knees-up, they became a fulcrum for a collective identity, one that expressed itself as much through style as through music. 

Almost as soon as the sound arrived in the city, its streets were filled with guys and girls sporting the now iconic gabber look. For the boys, it was all about clean-shaven heads, wraparound Oakleys, eccentric tracksuits, Alpha Industries bombers and Nike trainers; for the girls, a similar look prevailed, albeit with sports bras and undercuts subbed in. While this distinct style identity was key to the gabber boom of the mid-90s, it was also a focus of the mainstream ridicule that the movement was subjected to. It was this popularisation and ensuing ridicule that in part led Rotterdam’s gabber scene to peter out towards the end of the decade. Other contributing factors were the genre’s drift towards the cheesier happy hardcore, as well as a troubling affiliation between the scene and the far right. Almost as quickly as gabber had swept Rotterdam, its influence had passed. 

It had not, however, completely died out. As with any subculture, there are always a few die-hard devotees holding the scene down. But curiously, the culture of gabber was also kept alive, and subsequently reinvigorated, through fashion. From Raf Simons SS00 Summa Cum Laude collection – which referenced iconic gabber DJ crew, Rotterdam Terror Club, and cast models who looked like they’d come straight from a rave – through collections and campaigns from the likes of Vetements, Balenciaga, Y/Project and Gentle Monster, gabber has remained a perennial reference and source of fascination for the industry, now more than 30 years after it first emerged.

In this episode, Mahoro Seward, i-D’s Senior Fashion Features Editor, speaks to Ari Versluis, the photographer behind Exactitudes, the emblematic image series that first typified the gabber look and brought it to the world, and a former gabber himself. Lis Rutten, an Amsterdam-based casting director and former model, discusses how the gabber look has influenced fashion’s masculine ideal, while Henrike Naumann, a German artist who has explored gabber culture extensively in their work, unpacks its enduring legacy, both in the arts and on the ground.