Thanks for all the fantastic responses (and visual, Rae ^^) ladies! It's been VERY interesting reading through them. Leaving the question broad yielded fascinating differences, just what I was looking for; the things we associate with a "rock" look certainly have a great deal of variation, though there are also some shared elements.
For myself, the "rock" in my style is punk (and metal to a lesser extent), though perhaps it's not explicitly apparent upon first glance. Primarily it's through small things, such as favoring skinnies and only in black/gray/colors (never blue), favoring plaid/stripes over dots, lots of leather, wild but natural hair, subtle studding, etc. And of course attitude. The contrarian in me kind of rejects that I NEED lots of black to show my punk side
This idea of a no-black rock vibe came out of looking over my Pinterest boards after noticing that among my inspirational outfits there was, naturally, a lot of black. I have a love-hate relationship with black; it's my best neutral and I do enjoy wearing it, but since there are _so so many_ overcast days where I live, I just can't bring myself to wear All Black All The Time. Plus I really love brights! So I was curious about whether I'm drawn to these looks BECAUSE of the black or IN SPITE of the black. Ultimately I think it's "in spite of" and you've all given me lots of good stuff to think about!
(And thank you, R&J, for your very insightful and thoughtful comment! Especially regarding my style. You answered my forum question and also what I'm asking myself internally <3 )
