Punk themes... revisted?

I'm going to talk about something a little bit different then punk specifically, but I'm hoping it will still be interesting and critical enough to be of use to the class and my grade; I was astounded when I noticed this.
During the entire punk lecture about punk clothing, fashion and visual art, I couldn't help but think about New Zealand in a similar way. Historically, Punk subculture was meant to show a distinct style and basically gives a big "F* You!" to commercialism and conformism.
I am an exchange student from America, so that is why I noticed this, whereas someone else from here might not. From the very first days I was here, I noticed one thing immediately, and it was glaringly apparent: style.
In America, style is extremely commercialized. From the average school, literally 90% of my peers all wear similar clothes that fall into a variety of 'stereotypical' clothing sets.
-Abercrombie & Fitch/American Eagle type "preppy" clothes.
-Outdoorsy North Face style clothes.
-Plain clothes or cheap clothes from Walmart or department stores.

In America, there is another group which tries to be "thrifty" or "stylized" with their clothes, whether it be retro, odd t-shirts, tight clothes, clashing colors, layers and so on. The ironic thing is that even THIS is commercialized; stores like Urban Outfitters sell many of the same 'retro' items over and over to kids in the same 'group.'
Many people also share extremely similar hairstyles, shoes, and accessories.

On the other hand, when I came to New Zealand, I was absolutely astounded at the styles, even the wild punk-like haircuts. Every day I see people expressing themselves in completely new ways which don't conform to any pattern or fit scheme. There are mixtures of many different clothing styles all in one outfit; I saw a pair of gold-plated Harley-Davidson high tops the other day worn by a girl who also had on a shirt with little candy bars on it. The funny thing is, it looked 'normal.' It fit her style, and i thought it was cool. In America, if anyone tried to do this, they would be automatically cast into the "Dungeons and Dragons weirdos" stereotype category. I have also seen many people with full-fledged mohawks or mullets which I would never seen in the states.

I think in a way this could be seen as an extension of what the punks hoped to achieve: basing ones own preference not on a commercialized, rigid pattern that someone must "fit into," but rather by completely choosing what one wants to wear or express (clothing, hairstyle, visual appearance). Many people have already addressed punk style in the blog, so I offered this slightly-off-topic post in hopes of providing a culturally different point of view.