29 Raw Images Of The 1990s Rave Scene At Its Zenith

Published September 19, 2016
Updated June 14, 2019

Look inside the era of warehouse parties and PLUR during the blossoming of rave fashion and culture in the 1990s.

In the early 1990s, a nascent culture coalesced around electronic dance music and their concerts, referred to commonly as raves. Home to eclectic and diffuse genres like house, trance, and techno, the rave scene evolved into a subculture bound together with a distinctive ethos, a unique fashion sensibility, and an adventurous spirit to drug use, particularly ecstasy.

The drug’s popularization, along with the clandestine nature of rave parties, would bring ravers even closer to one another over the years. Indeed, the mantra “Peace Love Unity Respect,” better known as PLUR, underpinned what ravers sought in each other and in the raves themselves. Below, we look at twenty-nine engrossing images of the underground rave scene as it grew throughout the 1990s:

And we'd be remiss if we didn't share a couple of our favorite videos from some 1990s raves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX_AS92COws


And if you enjoyed these photographs from the birth of EDM culture and 90s rave fashion, check out our other galleries on Woodstock 1969 and the rise of the New York Punk scene.

author
Alexander Baldwin
author
Alexander is a cofounder of All That's Interesting with an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in History and Economics and an MSc from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Economics.
editor
Savannah Cox
editor
Savannah Cox holds a Master's in International Affairs from The New School as well as a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield. Her work as a writer has also appeared on DNAinfo.
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Baldwin, Alexander. "29 Raw Images Of The 1990s Rave Scene At Its Zenith." AllThatsInteresting.com, September 19, 2016, https://allthatsinteresting.com/90s-raves. Accessed August 30, 2025.