Nazi chic is the use of Nazi-era style, imagery, and paraphernalia in clothing and popular culture, especially when used for taboo-breaking or shock value rather than out of genuine sympathies with Nazism.
Its use began in the mid-seventies with the emergence of the punk movement in London: the Sex Pistols' first television appearance occurred with a person of their entourage wearing a swastika. Nazi chic was later used in the fashion industry in various occasions.
In the 1970s punk subculture, several items of clothing designed to shock and offend The Establishment became popular. Among these punk fashion items was a T-shirt displaying a Swastika, an upside-down crucifix and the word DESTROY– which was worn by Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, seen in the video for "Pretty Vacant". Rotten wore the swastika another time with a gesture that looked like a Nazi salute. In 1976, Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees was also known to wear a Swastika armband with fetish S and M clothing, including fishnets and a whip. These musicians are commonly thought to have worn such clothing for shock value directed towards the British WWII generation rather than being genuinely associated with any National Socialist or fascist ideologies, and those with such interests likely became part of the Nazi punk or white power skinhead subcultures.